Always a time for reflection and introspection, this year, American Jews are raw and on edge this High Holy Day season. It is a year since the horrific October 7 Hamas attacks, the fate of the hostages hangs in the balance, and the war against Iran and its proxies shows no sign of abating. The once unified front of Israelis and global Jewry grows more fractious by the day, even as Israel’s pariah-like isolation increases with every passing moment. Traumatized, exhausted, and searching for hope – an aura of exhaustion and helplessness has settled into the sacred season.
Bruised and battered as we may be, removed from the diplomatic and political channels that could effectuate immediate change and lower international vitriol against our people, the spiritual project at hand remains urgent and, for those who dare to strive – well within reach. Here is my personal set of resolutions for keeping the flame of hope alive that tomorrow will indeed be a better day and that 5785 will start a new narrative for the Jewish people.
FIRST AND FOREMOST:
I urge our community to remain firm in our support of Israel, Zionism, and the right to Jewish self-defense. The horrors of October 7 were real, their effects ongoing and the intent of the perpetrators and their Iranian backers still looms large – the long-term destruction of Israel.
But threats to Israel’s sovereignty don’t stop at its physical borders. Be it the World Court, sporting events, academic conferences, or the college quad, the pernicious campaign of reducing Israel to a colonial perpetrator of war crimes must be called out for what it is: antisemitism.
There is no shortage of human rights violators around the globe and, like all nation-states, Israel is a deeply imperfect place. But to seek to deny the world’s single Jewish state the right to exist and conflate Jewish identity with every policy decision of the Israeli government, reveals more about the intent of Israel’s detractors than it does about any shortcomings of Israel itself.
SECOND:
Let us resolve to avoid the trap that says a vigilant defense of Israel is at odds with empathy for innocent Palestinians or Palestinian aspirations for self-determination. Such empathy is not a betrayal of the cause; it is just the opposite – affirming the essence of our faith. “Thou shalt know the heart of the stranger, for you were once a stranger in a strange land” (Exodus 23:9).
Nothing justifies the terror of October 7, but it has become painfully evident that unless Palestinians are extended a path to self-rule, the cycle of violence will continue – and escalate. The present Israeli government’s refusal to articulate a coherent post-war vision of co-existence, together with its ongoing efforts to harden the Jewish presence in the West Bank serve to undercut Israel’s short- and long-term global standing and security. Everybody deserves a place to call home. Nobody knows that better than Jews.
THIRD:
Let us work to reject the intractable notion that criticism of Israel’s government is a betrayal of the Jewish people. If Israelis can protest the decisions of their government every Saturday night out of love of their country, so too American Jews. As evidenced by political infighting and the judicial reform protests prior to October 7, Israel faces the challenge of how to remain a liberal democracy without giving short shrift to security concerns.
There is nothing wrong with helping, chiding, or goading Israel toward achieving this complicated goal, as long as that nudging comes from a place of abiding concern for Israel’s safety and security. The “sane center” must reject the false binaries of the hour and refuse to let those who have embraced the ideological extremes define the field of play and terms of debate.
FOURTH:
I urge our community not to let Zionism serve as a catch-all substitute for American Judaism. For far too many American Jews, support (or non-support) for Israel has become a vicarious faith unto itself, a secular religion masking the inadequacies of our lived connection to the Jewish tradition and people. It was good to be a Jew on October 6 and it remains so today. Join a synagogue, light Shabbat candles, and fill your life with mitzvot – positive acts of Jewish identification!
The only way Israel will learn from, listen to, or care about American Jews is if we show ourselves to be living energetic Jewish lives. To be good Zionists, we must be better Jews. A robust American Jewish identity can weather policy differences with this or that Israeli government and withstand the indignity of being a punching bag for a campus culture run amok – something a paper-thin Jewish identity cannot do.
But to reduce Jewish identity to fighting antisemitism – essential a mission as that is – is a narrow victory I refuse to grant. In the words of Green Bay Packers coach Vince Lombardi: “The best defense is a good offense.” Strong, vibrant, inclusive, pluralistic – institutions of American Jewish life. That is the path to the future of American Judaism, and the future of American Zionism.
FIFTH, FINALLY, AND MOST IMPORTANTLY:
Let us rekindle our hope. Depleted as our spiritual reserves may be, threadbare as we are from the challenges of the past year – we can affirm the prospects for peace and security – the spirit that has impelled our people since our very beginning. What is the story of the wilderness wanderings if not the journey to a Promised Land, whether the Israelites get there or not? What is the vision of the prophets – Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel – if not the aspirational return from exile?
“Od lo avda tikvatenu,” “Our hope is not yet lost,” as the final stanza of Israel’s national anthem “Hatikvah” teaches. There is nothing wrong – in fact, there is everything right, and everything Jewish – about staying true to an ideal, whether it is realized in one’s lifetime or not. A hope that sustains, that enables us to imagine a future worth fighting for, and that prompts us to make those dreams an enduring reality.
The late Austrian psychiatrist and Holocaust survivor Victor Frankl reminded us (in an hour far darker than the present one): “The last of one’s freedoms is to choose one’s attitude in any given circumstance.” Much is beyond our control, and yet there is still so much we can do.
I hope you are with me in choosing a spiritual posture that values resilience over resignation, hope over despair and light over darkness. Holding pain, even as we dream of better times – and a better year ahead.
The writer is the rabbi of New York’s Park Avenue Synagogue and author of For Such a Time as This: On Being Jewish Today (Harper Collins).