Responsible Now, for the Jewish Future
Sermon Shabbat Chayei Sarah 5784
I have been trying to explain to people recently what it has been like to be a congregational rabbi active in the Jewish community the last five weeks. The folks who have asked are religious community colleagues—including priests, ministers, Mormon stake bishops and presidents, and preachers—and it has been a fascinating challenge to successfully describe the experience.
For one thing, this is the fifth weekly sermon I’ve given since October 7th—and these have been among the most difficult I’ve ever had to write in my entire career. Tonight, I was not supposed to be delivering a sermon, but since our confirmed guest cancelled just yesterday, it became my responsibility one more time. And I must admit, I take no pleasure in speaking about the events of this past week yet feel compelled to do so.
As someone who has firmly believed, and perhaps still does, that any permanent solution to the Palestinian problem requires that they end up with some kind of state, or more likely, two states—remember, the West Bank and Gaza are separate entities, non-contiguous, with very different geographic and population situations—the last five weeks have been extremely painful. The horrific, evil murders, systematic torture and premeditated rape and arson perpetrated by Hamas’ Palestinian terrorists on October 7th and their glorification of this kind of brutal extreme violence against civilians, children, women, men, babies, and the elderly—marks it as one of the worst atrocities in the past 75 years.
While the initial public response was shock and sympathy for Israel and Israelis, the backlash, including a nearly worldwide celebration of sadistic violence against Jews going on now on American college campuses and in Europe and South America and Africa and, of course, throughout the Arab and Iranian world is horrifying. Some people are now denying that the murder of 1400 people in Israel even took place—in spite of the fact Hamas posted its own sick brutality in videos online while they were committing these very crimes against humanity. The inability to believe something vividly and arrogantly documented by the perpetrators is just another demonstration of the virulent antisemitism hiding just below the surface of what passes for civilization.
Last week was the 85th anniversary of Krystallnacht, usually understood to be the beginning of the Holocaust. Clearly, what is happening around the world now is not that. But it isn’t so great, and the people involved in protesting for more of the same are certainly much like the early Nazis in their evident antisemitism.
Depressingly, a lot of this antisemitism is coming from the so-called Progressive Left, which has embraced the cause of Palestinian terrorism. There is some effort being made to distinguish between supporting Hamas—a vicious Palestinian terrorist organization of Islamists who use civilians to protect their terrorists, hide all of their rocket factories and launchers in schools and under hospitals, and built exactly zero bombshelters for their civilians before attacking Israel—and supporting the cause of a Palestinian state. But then protestors chant “From the river to the sea, Palestine shall be free,” advocating the genocide of Israelis and the destruction of the only Jewish state in the world, that is not a political statement in favor of liberty. It is a public endorsement of genocide of Jews.
As a rabbi, I surely understand that logical arguments have limitations, and my own will likely fail to reach those who need persuading. But there is nothing “progressive” about Hamas, which has controlled Gaza for 17 years. Gaza has not been occupied by Israel since 2005, and in consequence of that Israeli unilateral withdrawal, and Hamas being elected by the people of Gaza—OK, in one vote 17 years ago, Hamas never held another election—an area, Gaa, that has excellent potential for economic success has been turned into a civilian human shield for an underground network of terrorist tunnels larger than the New York subway system. For closing in on two decades Gaza has been a launching pad for rockets shot at Israeli civilians regularly, each rocket a war crime by the way. And as the Israeli military is discovering, the underground terrorist network is intimately linked to the civilian homes and population aboveground in a tight, symbiotic way.
That means that more Gaza civilians will be killed as Hamas and Islamic Jihad terrorist pop out of tunnels in houses, apartments, schools, restaurants and hospitals to fire at Israeli troops. And as one Israeli general puts it, every Palestinian who is killed is a public relations benefit to Hamas, and energizes those pro-Palestinian protestors.
A rabbi I worked with long ago put it well, way back in the 1980s: why is it that Arab lives only matter when a Jew takes them? How is it that the world did not protest Syrian dictator Asad’s genocidal murder of large parts of his own rebellious people? Or ISIS’s actual genocide of the Yazidi people?
Israel has been forced to respond to the worst attack on its civilians in its entire history. In doing so it asked the people in the northern half of Gaza to leave, since Hamas has concentrated its terrorists there. Hamas told them to stay; that is, Israel sought to protect Gazan civilians. Hamas wanted them to stay in place and die in the crossfire because it helped their own propaganda. As a Hamas spokesman said, “We are not responsible for the Palestinian civilians. That’s for the UN and the Israelis to worry about.” Again, the IDF, the Israel Defense Forces, strives to protect Israel’s civilians. Hamas uses civilians to protect its terrorists.
Now in these pro-Palestine rallies I have seen some startling signs; for example, Progressives for Gaza. Progressives for Gaza? Well, Hamas-controlled Gaza guarantees exactly no civil rights to its inhabitants. Being gay or lesbian is punishable by execution. No one has the right to speak out against Hamas. There are no elections of any kind—just that one, 17 years ago—and corruption is so rampant that it has been calculated that of every NGO and EU aid dollar sent to Gaza, Hamas steals about 80 cents to use in its terrorism and to line the pockets of its leaders, who live in luxury in Qatar and the Arab Emirates. It thrives on extortion and brutality. How is it possible that people who profess to believe in human rights can support such a regime? Perhaps because it’s a regime that brutally attacks Jews, it must be OK, right?
Now, I don’t want to sound too negative or paranoid here. Israel is not powerless—this is not 1942—and while I have seen awful things done and said all around the world against Jews the last month, I have also had unsolicited phone calls, emails and letters of support for Israel and Jews in the same period. There are many people who understand just how cowardly and brutal the Palestinian terrorists are, how corrupt and evil their own regime is. And who understand that Israel is the only democracy in the Middle East, and that this was an attack on all of western civilization, and that Israel must win this war. In fact, US forces have been attacked throughout the region by Iranian proxies, and the US bombed Iranian bases in Syria this past week. And the quite substantial American forces now deployed throughout the region send a clear message to Iran and Hezbollah and the Houthis and the other terrorists funded by those violent mullahs that Israel is not alone.
Still, it’s a rough time. Much worse for those fighting the Palestinian terrorists of Hamas in Gaza, trying to control the Hamas terrorists in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, and all of those in Israel enduring air raid warnings, school closings, relatives and friends dying and hospitalized, as well as friends and relatives in the military engaged in fighting.
I believe that it will be particularly important for Israel to have more of an endgame in all of this than the destruction of Hamas. Something more successful must be created out of this disaster, or it will only be a precursor to more of the same. No sane person can desire that. If there will be any silver lining in these dark clouds, it will prove to be a non-Islamist entity that actually cares about its own people’s wellbeing taking charge in Gaza.
I think to some degree our challenge as Jewish leaders is to find a way to continue to celebrate the greatness of Judaism while showing solidarity and support for Israel in this time of profound challenge. This year both Thanksgiving and Hanukkah will seem, well, different. Undoubtedly, we will make both holidays meaningful in a different way during this time of war and antisemitism.
In our Torah portion of Chayei Sarah, our first ancestor, Abraham, does some remarkable things to assure the future of his vision of monotheism, of belief in one God and to assure that he will have progeny and truly become the father of a people. In doing so, he establishes a pattern that has helped us, as Jews, survive in so many places that were actively hostile to us.
In particular, Abraham makes certain that his perhaps estranged son Isaac will father children, and further the cause of God and ethics in the world. He also makes certain that the land that, he, Abraham has purchased in the Promised Land—in Hevron, in fact—will be the first entry confirming our permanent presence in place that today we call Israel.
Our responsibility to continue that work, to assure our Jewish future and our future in security in Israel remains. We may do so by other means than our patriarch used, but it will continue to be a central part of our congregation’s commitment to our people and our land, to Am Yisrael and Erets Yisrael, in the face of war and falsehoods. It must also frame our steady, engaged dedication that will ensure the success of these goals.
Abraham succeeded because he was, well, stubbornly committed to his goals. Israel, too, will succeed because it, too, must remain committed to its goals. And we must be committed to continuing to support the future of our people in our own land.