Protecting Israel: This Much Is Simple

I shared these words the day before AIPAC's 2020 Policy Conference began.

There’s been a lot in the news recently about the upcoming AIPAC policy conference - who is attending, who is not attending, what is AIPAC about altogether. 

TIGN's Teen Delegation and Portion of Adult Delegation, AIPAC Policy Conference 2020

AIPAC describes itself in the following way:

"The American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) is a bipartisan organization of U.S. citizens committed solely to strengthening, protecting and promoting the U.S.-Israel relationship in ways that enhance the security of the United States and Israel."

Full and proud disclosure - I’ll be at the conference with over 30 adult Temple Israel members and our Youth Engagement Director Avi Siegel will be leading a group of teens.

Full and proud disclosure - I believe Israel should remain Jewish and Democratic. I believe a two-state solution is still the best of a bunch of imperfect solutions.  I love some of what is said at AIPAC conferences and I despise some of what is said at AIPAC conferences.  I support and admire some of the people who will be speaking at this conference and I don’t support and don’t admire others.  

There is much about supporting Israel that is complicated and at least one thing that is not.  I will start with the complexity and then focus, by sharing a personal story, on what I believe is actually quite simple.

We Are Accountable

A man sat down next to someone on a train and was very rude to him over the course of the first part of the trip.  At one point, a third person boarded the train and addressed the second man as rabbi.  The man who had been rude to him apologized.  “I’m so sorry, rabbi,” he said.  “I had no idea.” The rabbi said, “you don’t owe me an apology at all. However, you do owe an apology to the person you thought I was.”

We come from a tradition that insists that we are to be held accountable for our behavior.  The Torah, in Parashat Mishpatim, emphasizes at least three areas of accountability.

75 Years Later: Protecting Ourselves and Others

My friend posted a video of Holocaust survivors living in Israel. The video features the survivors speaking briefly of their experiences and then, for each one, the camera pans out and you see them standing next to a grandchild, or great-grandchild, wearing an IDF uniform.  

It’s a powerful video.  It’s powerful to see Jewish people whose families and lives were destroyed because they were powerless now living in a place where Jews have the power to protect themselves and, to a large degree, determine their own fate.

This past Monday marked the 75th commemoration of the liberation of Auschwitz.   Many moving tributes were offered, many profound words were shared.

75 years later, what do we want to learn from Auschwitz?  From the Shoah overall?

We Must Not Hide Who We Are

The cost of hiding who we are generally outweighs the benefit. I’d like to look at how this plays out in the story of Joseph, which we are concluding these weeks, and then as it relates to us as Jews today.

TIGN at the No Hate No Fear Solidarity March in NYC

Last week’s parasha ended on a cliffhanger.  You will recall that Joseph insists that Benjamin come down to Egypt, Jacob is terrified to let him go but agrees.  Joseph frames Benjamin by placing a silver goblet in his sack. Judah says, We are guilty.  We will all be your slaves.

And Joseph says, No, you will not all be my slaves.  Only the one in whose sack the goblet was found will be my slave.  As for the rest of you, עלו לשלום אל אביכם aloo l’shalom el avikhem.  Go back in peace to your father.  

On one level, Joseph is completely in control.  We can interpret his actions as wreaking revenge on his brothers and his father, or as a test to see how much they have grown morally since they left him to die in a pit, or a little bit of both.

On a deeper level, Joseph is suffering in his own way and he is barely holding himself together.  You may recall that earlier, when his brothers spoke apologetically among themselves, he turned away and cried, and then faced them again after he regained composure.

He is hiding from them.  He is hiding from his family.  He has a new name, a new look, an Egyptian wife - the Egyptians know he’s a Hebrew, though he doesn’t quite look like one.  His hiding - mostly from his family - causes enormous emotional pain.  

There are several reasons why Joseph finally reveals himself to his brothers, but I want to propose that his main emotional, psychological motivation is that he was tired of being isolated from his family.  

In short, he was tired of hiding.

There are many reasons why we hide certain aspects of who we are, often having to do with danger.  For whatever reasons, we feel that it is dangerous to be forthright about who we are.  So we hide.

As we continue to respond to recent antisemitic attacks - vandalism, assault, stabbing, shooting - we are appropriately focusing on a whole range of issues including improving our physical security and the need to speak out regardless of where the antisemitic acts are coming from and what “type of Jew” is impacted.  

I want to take a few moments to reflect on a disturbing trend that is emerging, and that is the growing fear among Jews of being too public in expressing their Jewishness.  

Facing Antisemitism Forthrightly

My generation of rabbis - ordained in the 90’s - used to observe that our rabbinate would be different from those of previous generations.  Instead of focusing on the dangers of antisemitism, we would focus on the positive aspects of Judaism.  More joy, less oy.  I’m not sure who invented that phrase, but it expresses the sentiment that guided us.

On a recent Wednesday night, I asked a group of people attending a Temple Israel Men’s Club event - do you feel more afraid or less afraid to be a Jew now than you did when you were growing up?  Some said they feel less afraid now and spoke about being bullied as Jews when they grew up.  But most said they feel more afraid now.

With antisemitic incidents on the rise, as empirically charted by the ADL and other organizations, and with the genuine fear that many of us continue to have, of course I, and other Jewish leaders, need to continue to respond, to analyze, to offer insight and hopefully some direction when it comes to antisemitism.  

In one week alone, 4 people were murdered in Jersey City by to people who were targeting Jews, 3 students were assaulted at Indiana University, and Netzach Synagogue was vandalized in Beverly Hills. 

Here are some points I’ve made before, but I believe they bear repeating and expanding:

Difficult Conversations Start With Us

I recently finished a book that I would recommend.  It’s called “Difficult Conversations,” written by Douglas Stone, Bruce Patton and Sheila Heen.  It’s about how to have difficult conversations in a way that is effective, that leads to understanding, rather than more frustration.

Delacroix, "Jacob Wrestling with the Angel"

Before I go on, I’d like to ask everyone here, children and adults - to think of a conversation that you are in the middle of, or one that you realize you need to have but haven’t started yet, that’s a difficult conversation.

Perhaps you have been, or need to be, talking to your child about a difficulty he or she is having socially in school.

Perhaps you have been, or need to be, talking to your parent about feeling anxious or depressed or, if your parent is older, about issues around independence.  

Perhaps you have been, or need to be, talking with a partner about something the other person does that bothers you, or about emotional or physical intimacy in your relationship.

Perhaps you have been, or need to be, talking with someone you supervise at work about how their performance has been problematic, or perhaps you need to talk to your supervisor about receiving greater responsibility and compensation.  

Take a minute to think about a difficult conversation in your own life.

Sensitivity Leads to Strength

Last Tuesday night I attended the IAJF (Iranian American Jewish Federation) annual gala where former UN Ambassador Nikki Haley spoke.  It is a source of pride to TIGN that so many of our members are involved, including IAJF president Robert Kahen, president of IAJF.

Last Thursday, I attended the ADL’s Never Is Now conference where, among other things, Sascha Baron Cohen was given the International Leadership Award and British Parliament Member Joan Ryan spoke about her response to antisemitism in England.  It is a source of pride to TIGN that so many of our members are involved, including, of course, CEO Jonathan Greenblatt.  

On Wednesday night, I went to see an outstanding new production of Macbeth with my son Zach.  The production was terrific and watching Macbeth again solidified for me how I would, in this little sermon, frame the week and, more broadly, the way that I believe we must respond to the enormous challenges that face us these days as Jews and as human beings.

We know it’s important to be strong in the face of antisemitism and bigotry.  No one could convincingly argue, post-Shoah, and recently in the aftermath of the shootings in Pittsburgh and Poway and continued attacks of Jews on Brooklyn and just recently a stabbing of a Jew in Rockland County, that Jews should sit back passively.  We need to be strong and we need allies to be strong on our behalf and we need to be strong on behalf of our allies.

We also need to remain sensitive.  So that we can continue to feel what is natural to feel when we and those we know and those we don’t know are targeted with discrimination and violence.  So that we have the resolve to fight to protect those who are vulnerable, including but not limited to ourselves.  So that we can sense the difference between protective measures that are called for and protective measures that unfairly target the most vulnerable.  

Strength and sensitivity are not mutually exclusive.  In Jewish tradition they never were.  They always went hand in hand.  The Kabbalists speak of chesed/love/sensitivity on one side of a cosmic and human scheme and gevurah/resolve/strength on the other side and the idea is that in the world, and through us, they work together.

Starting with Macbeth.