Centering Judaism, Part III: The Center of the Jewish World
Israel is the spiritual, political, and cultural center for which the Jewish people have always yearned. This sermon is from the evening of Yom Kippur 5785.
I have said many things about Israel over the last year. I stand by every single one of them. Here are a few of the topics about which I have spoken since October 7th, 2023:
Many people whom we thought were friends to the Jewish people have abandoned us
Don’t take down your mezuzah; don’t be afraid to be loudly and proudly Jewish and Zionist
We must respond to the reality of evil by being present and living our values
We cannot allow those who seek Israel’s destruction here in America to promote lies about her
We must continue to pray for peace and the release of the hostages
I am particularly proud that we have never for a moment here at Beth Shalom forgotten the hostages, or the brave soldiers who are still fighting against the proxies of Iran in the north and south of Israel, or the tens of thousands of displaced Israelis who cannot yet return to their homes in the north or south..
Why all the energy devoted to defending Israel and our connection to her? Why have I spent so many hours haranguing you all on things you should already know? Because the State of Israel, and the idea of Israel as the center of the Jewish world is under attack, militarily and ideologically.
Our support of our relatives and friends in Israel must be guided by the sense of unity of the Jewish people. It is essential for us to remember that we, the Jews, are a people supported by the Talmudic notion of “Kol Yisrael arevim zeh bazeh.” Every Jewish person is responsible for one another. We are intertwined in a tightly-knit tapestry of individuals bound together by not only a common cultural, intellectual and religious heritage, but also a common destiny. And that destiny has for at least 2,000 years been tied to one tiny piece of land in the Middle East, the land from which we derive the name of our nation.
It is extraordinarily important to remember that, during our two millennia of homelessness following the Roman destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem - two millennia of wandering and persecution in Diaspora - we never gave up on that vision of return. And in the wake of the Holocaust, we achieved that dream. The Jews will never again have nowhere to go. But in order to maintain that haven, a tiny slice of land in a rough neighborhood, we will have to depend on our allies.
Events of the past year have demonstrated over and over again that when the Jewish people are being attacked from all sides - that is, all sides of Israel and in the streets and cultural icons and college campuses of America - we must continue to stand with her and defend her.
Our theme for these High Holidays is Centering Judaism, and over Rosh Hashanah I spoke about putting joy at the center of Jewish life, and how the Conservative movement and Beth Shalom are at the center of the American Jewish landscape. This evening we are going to talk about the spiritual, cultural and physical center of the Jewish world, which is Israel - that is, the land, the idea, and the State and its people.
I’m going to share with you now the true story of an Israeli hero, and one which embodies essential values of the State of Israel. His name is Yousef Zeadna, and it was published in a collection of 40 stories of heroes called, יום אחד באוקטובר, One Day in October. It was just published in English.
[NOTE: I read the story of Yousef Zeadna in its entirety here. You should get a copy of the book and read it, but in brief, Mr. Zeadna is an Israeli Bedouin Muslim driver who saved 30 people at the Nova Festival on October 7. It is a harrowing and touching story which points not only to the admirable qualities of Mr. Zeadna, but also about his pride in being a citizen of the State of Israel.]
I have read and re-read Yousef’s story, and I cry every time.
It sends the message of bravery, of course, and a commitment to save lives, and of course a dedication and love of the State of Israel and national pride from a place where many of us might not expect it.
But all the more so, it teaches a story about Israel which you are unlikely to hear in the news, or from the anti-Zionist quarters of this world, and that is the story of Israel as a unified, democratic nation that respects and takes care of all of its people, regardless of their religion.
And in considering Yousef, I am proud to say that the extended family of the Jewish people includes him and lots of others like him as well. He is a proud son of the State of Israel, and we should likewise be proud, and grateful, to have Yousef Zeadna along with us.
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Why is Israel the center of the Jewish world?
We are going to consider Israel as the center of the Jewish world from three angles: spiritual, political, and cultural.
Spiritual
There is incontrovertible evidence that we came from that land, and the State of Israel’s founding document, Megillat haAtzma’ut, the Declaration of Independence, opens as follows:
ERETZ YISRAEL was the birthplace of the Jewish people. Here their spiritual, religious and political identity was shaped. Here they first attained statehood, created cultural values of national and universal significance and gave to the world the eternal Book of Books.
After being forcibly exiled from their land, the people kept faith with it throughout their Dispersion and never ceased to pray and hope for their return to it and for the restoration in it of their political freedom.
For the last 2,000 years, we have prayed facing Jerusalem. We have invoked Israel and Zion in prayer and song and story. We pray every single day for gathering the Jews from all corners of the world, when we gather the four corners of our tallitot before reciting the Shema. Whenever we recite the Amidah, we remember that it is in place of the sacrifices which our ancestors offered in the Temple in Jerusalem. Whenever we pray for rain, as we do from Shemini Atzeret to Pesaḥ, and when we pray for dew, from Pesaḥ to Shemini Atzeret, we pray for those things not for here in Pittsburgh, but for Israel.
“Everywhere I go,” said Rabbi Naḥman of Bratzlav in the 18th century, “I go to Eretz Yisrael.”
Political
Following the Age of Enlightenment, which shaped the modern concept of nationhood, our political awakening as a people came in the late 19th century with the flowering of Zionism.
But we should not forget that there has been a continuous Jewish presence in the land of Israel, going all the way back to Roman times. There were Jews who visited and returned to the land in various waves throughout history. During the rabbinic period, from the second through fifth centuries, there was a healthy intellectual exchange between schools of thought in Jerusalem and Baghdad. Yehudah HaLevi, who wrote so powerfully of his yearning for Israel in Spain in the 12th century, eventually made the journey across the length of the Mediterranean around the year 1141, only to die soon after arrival. The kabbalists descended from Spanish exiles made a home in Tzefat in the sixteenth century under Ottoman rule. The false messiah Shabbetai Tzevi was promoted in the late 17th century by Jerusalem-born Nathan of Gaza, who, having been rejected by the rabbis of Jerusalem, moved to Gaza and declared it a holy city for Jews.
The modern Zionist movement, driven by the desire for self-determination in our historical homeland, is only the latest and largest wave of return. Theodor Herzl and his allies knew that there was only one possible home for the Jews, the indisputable center of the Jewish world. The Jewish State had to be established in Israel, the Jewish homeland. And it is ultimately due to the political efforts of those whom Herzl inspired that the State of Israel came into being in 1948.
Cultural
OK, so suppose for a moment I’m a contemporary Diaspora Jew. My sense of Jewish history is, well, less robust than it should be. Here I am, thousands of miles away, and sure, if I wanted to, I could get on an El Al flight tomorrow and sign up for Israeli citizenship and reap all the benefits of living in the center of the Jewish world. But I’m happy here! So why should I support a foreign country with a government I sometimes disagree with? Why should I support a war effort which after a year has failed to return the hostages and failed to destroy Hamas and resulted in tens of thousands of innocent people killed?
Why? Because, in addition to our ancient connection to the land, Israel is central to our Jewish identity today. Because the single largest Jewish population in the world is there. Because Israeli cultural and religious offerings now dominate the Jewish landscape: food and music and art and spiritual life, not to mention the great thinkers and inventors and companies. Because Israeli Jews are our cousins and aunts and uncles and siblings and friends and former camp counselors. Because Israel is a beacon of democracy and religious freedom in a decidedly non-democratic corner of the world. There is no democracy under Hamas. There is no religious freedom under Hizballah.
And an additional cultural reason that we need Israel to be there, and to be strong, is that the last year has reinforced for us like no other in recent history that the Jews need a haven. Antisemitism is not going away; it is clearly back in fashion. I’ll only cite for you the most recent thing that happened in Pittsburgh: two banners hung from bridges with Nazi symbols and antisemitic slogans. In case you missed it, this happened just two weeks ago. Here.
The most disturbing personal moment I had in the past year occurred at a meeting held at the JCC between a few rabbis and a few local Christian ministers who are known for their anti-Israel positions. Some of you have heard me tell this story already, but it bears repeating. This discussion was generally cool-headed, even if our opinions on Israel might have placed us on different planets. At one point, one of the ministers said, “You know, you Jews use that antisemitism defense a little too much.” This is a pastor who is well-known and visible in Pittsburgh, and who also in a recent public appearance alongside a visiting rabidly antisemitic Palestinian Lutheran minister, made a public statement of Christian supersessionism, in which he said, to great applause, that God has taken Israel away from the Jews and given it to Jesus.
He was also standing with me and a whole bunch of interfaith leaders on the stage at the Soldiers’ and Sailors’ Memorial on October 28th, 2018, lamenting the antisemitic attack in our neighborhood. I am not sure he really understands how antisemitism works.
It’s not as though the early Zionist thinkers woke up one day in the 1890s and thought, it’s time to move back to Israel solely out of a love for Jewish peoplehood. On the contrary: what inspired Theodor Herzl to convene the First Zionist Congress in 1897? It was the trial of Alfred Dreyfus, a French army captain wrongly convicted of spying, which played heavily on native French antisemitism: the ideas that Jews were liars, that they were disloyal, untrustworthy, always seeking to undermine the non-Jews. Herzl, like many others, realized that the only way for the Jews to truly be free and safe would be to have our own country, and the place for that would have to be Israel.
And once that idea caught on in the Jewish world, Zionism became central to the contemporary Jewish identity. Yes, there have always been notable Jewish detractors, some of whom, like certain Haredi groups, actually live there and reap the benefits of the realization of Herzl’s vision. But the vast majority of us still support the Zionist project, because we know.
We know that no matter how much the anti-Zionist group Jewish Voice for Peace might claim that they are speaking for the Jews, we know that they do not.
We know that no matter how many younger American Jews might be deceived by TikTok, that no matter how many times anti-Israel activists baselessly cry “Genocide!” and “Apartheid!”, the reality is that Israel must be permitted to defend her people, like any sovereign state.
And we also know, as the story of Yousef Zeadna demonstrates, that Zionism is a big tent, and Israel is multi-cultural, multi-racial, and multi-religious. And furthermore, Israel is a thriving liberal democracy, committed to the rule of law, and although she is not perfect, Israel certainly respects its minority populations more so than any of her neighbors.
Israel is a small country. And the total Jewish population in the world is about 17 million, out of 8 billion people. That’s less than one-quarter of 1%. The words of the 1st-century sage Hillel come back to me: Im ein ani li, mi li? If I am not for myself, who will be for me? History has not been kind to the Jews. Especially in this time of creeping autocracy and illiberal movements around the world, it is up to us to rally around Israel as the center of the Jewish world, the place that will help maintain us and our identity, and guarantee that there will always be a haven from antisemitism.
Allow me to quote Rabbi Elliott Cosgrove of Park Avenue Synagogue, from his new book, For Such a Time as This (pp.181-2):
Supporting Israel is… fundamental to what it means to be a Jew today. It is why we have the flag on my bimah,... it is why we recite the prayer for Israel, it is why I am a proud Zionist, it is why I am politically engaged on behalf of Israel, and why I ask that my congregants be as well, particularly now in our post-October 7th world.
(I will be interviewing Rabbi Cosgrove, who has a Beth Shalom family connection, during the Pittsburgh Jewish Book Festival here in November.)
Here are some things we must remember moving forward:
Israel is at war with real enemies who are still planning and still have the capability to kill Israelis and Jews. The safety of the Israeli public, and world Jewry, is paramount. And, along with the United States and all lovers of freedom and democracy, Israel is on the front lines of defending against the anti-Western, anti-democratic, terrorist-supporting Iran, whose marauding mullahs are not friends to Israel or the Jews, or to any freedom-loving people.
Israel’s quest to defend herself against Hamas and Hizballah is not “aggression;” they are not attacking Gaza or Lebanon, and any media outlet or public voice which declares it to be so is mischaracterizing this war to denigrate Israel.
Be proud. Yes, Israel makes mistakes. Yes, some Israeli politicians are odious. Yes, war is hell, and far too many people have become casualties of war. No, we are not all going to agree on the path forward. But we should all support Israel understanding that the challenges facing the Israeli government are great, and the stakes are high. Be proud of what Israel and the Jewish people have accomplished, even despite the ongoing challenges.
It is up to us to defend Israel against the “From the river to the sea” protesters. You should make sure you know which river and which sea, because the possibility is that they do not. And anybody who tears down hostage posters, or gives glory to the martyrs of Hamas, or calls for “global Intifada” is effectively calling for the death of Jews. We need to be vigilant about those people, their motives, their funding, and the potential damage they can do. And we must continue to challenge their attempts to turn America against her most important ally.
We must stand with the people of Israel, because they are us. Because it is the center of the Jewish world.
And, because Israel fills me with hope. Even with all we have faced in the past year, even with all the challenges we have faced as a people throughout our history, even with all the ways in which the Zionist imperative to self-determination in our historical homeland has been besmirched by antisemitic activists, the existence of the State of Israel is a modern miracle built by pioneers who could no longer afford to wait for the coming of mashiaḥ, and it inspires me with Jewish pride.
In an interview broadcast this week on PBS with Sapir Cohen, a young woman who was taken hostage from Kibbutz Nir Oz and then released in November, she stated that she defied the psychological torment of her captors, who were telling her that she was living on stolen land and that nobody wants the Jews. And she said, “But when they saw that we are a very strong group, and they came [again] to say the same things, [they realized that] it doesn’t work anymore… And then I realized what it means to be united, how much you can be strong when you are united.”
Israel stands as a beacon to what is so valuable and essential about democratic nations: the willingness to stand up for what is right, for minority rights, for freedom of religion, for equal opportunities for all citizens, for the rule of law. Is Israel perfect? No. Is she engaged in a war for her survival? Absolutely yes. And we should stand proudly as a united Jewish people, proudly with Israel.
Gemar hatimah tovah! May you be sealed for a 5785 that is full of meaning, wholeness, and peace.