Yom Kippur Morning: Judaism in Context

 A version of this sermon was delivered Yom Kippur Morning, 5785/2025 at Temple B'nai Torah - A Reform Congregation, Wantagh, NY

Sitting before a committee in the House of Representatives last December, the now former President of Harvard University, Claudine Gay, was asked by New York Rep Elise Stefanik: “At Harvard, does calling for the genocide of Jews violate Harvard’s rules of bullying and harassment?”[1] 

Her now infamous answer: “It can be, depending on the context.”  Rep Stefanik pressed Dr. Gay who added: “Antisemitic speech when it crosses into conduct that amounts to bullying, harassment, intimidation — that is actionable conduct and we do take action.” 

But Rep. Stefanik was not satisfied: “So the answer is yes, that calling for the genocide of Jews violates Harvard code of conduct, correct?” she asked. 

“Again, it depends on the context,” Gay said, doubling down on her equivocation.

What a disappointing answer, of course.  What a frustrating place to be in this nation, that the president of Harvard, the now #3 university in this country, can’t seem to find the moral backbone to say that antisemitism and calling for the death of Jews is unequivocally against their code of conduct.  You’ll remember that this testimony came after weeks of protests and encampments at universities across this nation.  These encampments purported to be protesting Israel’s actions in the war, but they soon devolved into protesting against Israel’s right to exist and ultimately against Jews in general.  Anti-Zionism is not always antisemitism, but it almost always devolves into it because anti-Zionism is predicated on singling out Jews and the Jewish state.  Jewish students were harassed, prevented from getting to classes and activities, and ostracized from their peers.  Protestors chanted slogans, knowingly or unknowingly, advocating the destruction of Israel and violence against Jews.  Protestors vandalized public property, cosplaying revolutionaries, puppets of a Messianist Islamic regime.

How did it get to this point, Congress wanted to know, that Jewish students have had to sue their universities for violating their title VI protections?  How did it get to this point, indeed. 

Dr. Gay’s remarks in front of Congress faced so much backlash from students, clergy, and even the White House, that she was forced to offer an apology and ultimately resign from that position.  It’s Yom Kippur, so I’ll accept that Dr. Gay’s apology was sincere, and I’ll give her the benefit of the doubt that the forum and setting maybe got to her, and that her lawyers maybe overly coached her to prevent her from saying something damaging to the university.  I don’t believe that she is an antisemite.  I believe that to understand her answer requires context.

This last year we have learned that context.  Harvard and other universities have an allowance for antisemitism in their professors, in their student groups, and in their curricula.  Their ivory towers gleam flawed intersectional theories of oppressed and oppressor to the point that they are blinded into believing that Hamas terrorists, who raped and desecrated women and men, who murdered babies, who murdered whole families hiding in safe rooms, and who use their own women and children as human shields, that this group is the just and righteous party in this conflict.  The Israelis, the one Jewish state in the world, the one democracy in the Middle East, are monsters and must be stopped, according to this twisted world view.

While Dr. Gay was wrong in that moment to declare that antisemitism and calling for genocide require context, she is not wrong about the importance of context in general.  Context is necessary to understand the world around us.  When we don’t understand a word, we use context clues to figure it out.  Context means we factor in more than just what’s in front of us to help us make sense of conflict.  Context in this case also means that there are no easy answers and many conclusions that can be drawn.  Seeing ourselves in a broader context is also what this day, HaYom, the Day, as the Mishnah calls it, asks us to consider, in many ways.  Context can give us comfort; it helps us to see a bigger story and understand patterns in the life of Jews and Judaism.

Understanding the context is why October 7 was for me, and I think for many of us, so confusing and yet made so much sense.  It left us shaken but not necessarily surprised.  It was both unprecedented as well as steeped in precedent.  Let me explain what I mean.  This is not Israel’s first war.  This is not Israel’s first war with Hamas in Gaza.  This story has been told before.  Every few years since Israel’s disengagement from Gaza in 2005 there has been a flare up.  More rockets, more airstrikes, not always ground troops, but sometimes.  A few months of discomfort for Israelis, a few months of airstrikes degrading Hamas abilities, a few more batteries of Iron Dome, a few months of Israel being harangued in the press for the tragic death of Palestinian civilians.  We grew accustomed to the pattern.  Al chet that we did.  We expected that the IDF would prevent anything worse from happening.  Al chet that they did not.

And yet, this attack was different.  This attack was not the random rocket fire which accompanied the beginning of previous attacks.  This attack was well-organized and multi-faceted, coordinated with help and information from workers that had been welcomed to Israel by peace-loving kibbutzniks, who tried to love their neighbors, and who built their homes with shelters.  This felt like an attack on the good will of the Israelis who live near Gaza.  And it felt like it was intended to cause as much pain and death to civilians as possible.  I saw what was done to the homes on the kibbutzim and heard firsthand about the sense of betrayal.  I heard from the rabbis who processed the bodies of the victims about what they saw.  Black Saturday, October 7, was more expansive, more sadistic, and more death-centered than anything that had happened before in this conflict between Israel and the Palestinians.  It undermined our sense of safety and plunged us into seeing ourselves in the context of being Jews under attack.  This is a new experience for most of us.  October 7 set off a wave of antisemitism that seemed almost too easy for society to slip into.  We have no context for this and feel unmoored.

The Palestinians have a context for the conflict as well.  Unfortunately, too many in their community see these patterns violence and death and the destruction of Israel as the only recourse.  Too many in their leadership fail to see that these patterns, and opting for death instead of life, will not yield any progress. 

The October 7 attack was more brutal and savage than anything that had ever happened in the state of Israel, but it is not without precedent in Jewish history.  My travels in Europe this summer reminded me of that context.  The maps of the many cities and shtetels that used to be, where Jews were shot, or burned, or otherwise massacred in their homes, in their synagogues, with their families.  The sites of mass murder.  The rounding up of children.  The attacks that require that Jews are seen as less than human.  These kinds of attacks are, sadly, part of our history.  That probably doesn’t do a lot to bring us comfort, but I do think it provides us some solace, because it puts us in a place where our ancestors and relatives have been.  And through it all, we are still here.  Celebrating Yom Kippur, on the same day as outlined in the Torah, as we have been doing for thousands of years.  Enemies rise and enemies fall. 

From Pharaoh, to Amalek, to Haman, to the Greeks, to the punishments and tortures at the hands of the Romans, to the Muslim conquests, to the Crusades, to the Inquisition in Spain, to the Czar, to the Nazis, to Nasser, to the Iranians and their proxies, we know the history of being in the crosshairs, of being subject to the whims of politicians and Popes, of being subject to the whims of the economy and charismatic leaders who seek a scapegoat.  But we’ve mostly known it as history.  Now it is our present.

Our year is peppered with holidays that remind us of our complicated history.  Passover begins with a decree to kill all the Jewish children.  Purim is a story of a thwarted genocide of our people.  Chanukah’s enemy sought to take away our identity and Torah.  Many of our holidays, we often joke, fall into the category of: they tried to kill us, we survived, let’s eat.  On October 7, we were moved from a time of, “we survived, let’s eat,” to a time of “they tried to kill us.”  We’re in a time of war.  They’re still trying to kill us.  The rockets are still falling.  The hostages are still in captivity.  It’s a scary place to be.  We feel out of context even though we are deeply within it.  We’re in a different part of the pattern now.  And recognizing that is at the heart of what this day can do for us: give us strength from history and the reminder that we will make it to “we survived.”  And, ultimately, to “let’s eat.”

Yom Kippur can give us strength because this day asks us to see ourselves in a series of broader contexts, to remind us of larger eternal truths and of the patterns of Jewish existence.  At the same time Yom Kippur helps us to acknowledge that, often, what is going on around us is hard, and violent, and sad, and maddening.  Yom Kippur offers us the opportunity to rededicate ourselves to our relationships with God and with each other.  When we do this, the madness may abate, the difficulties may stop.  As we acknowledge our failings, our prayers also acknowledge the failings of the world, the unfinishedness of creation, the broken vessels waiting to be repaired to gather God’s light.  We are imperfect beings. The world is imperfect, and yet we choose life, our Torah portion reminds us.  We have a choice before us.  Life or death.  Our enemies choose death.  We choose life.  We choose shelters and missile defense.  We choose life and we choose blessing.  When we make it to the end of this day, if we hold out to that last shofar blast, then God will have pardoned and overlooked our imperfections, and perhaps as we repair ourselves, we believe that the world can be on the way to tikkun, to repair, as well.   

On Yom Kippur, we spend time living in our history.  We follow the path of the High Priest in the Temple in Jerusalem in our Avodah Service.  As a part of our afternoon on our holiest of days we are tasked with reenacting in word and story the ancient ritual of atonement that would begin by the High Priest entering the Holy of Holies and atoning for his sins.  Then, we read, he would atone for his family’s sins.  He moves from himself alone, to his family.  He broadens his context.  Finally, his context expands again as he atones for the entire people.  Each time, he’d go in, face to face with God, and he’d represent a broader group.  He would see himself as a part of something bigger.  And only then would God grant atonement.  It required the High Priest to see himself as more than just himself, but as a part of a bigger society.

Like the High Priest of old, we each go through a similar process.  We focus on our own sins and we atone.  In order to do that, we have to first consider ourselves in the context of other people.  We have to consider our relationships and the ways we missed the mark in word, in deed, and in thought.  We focus on committing to be better individuals in the year ahead. 

We also expand our context and focus on our families and our personal histories.  We include a Yizkor service to remember where we come from, to recall those who have a lasting influence on us.  We expand the way we think about ourselves on this day as we open up to the immediate and recent past.  We see ourselves in the context of our families.  The context transports us to times of love and joy and difficulty, stories of laughter and ache.  Yizkor is powerful as a way to remember values we learned from our loved ones of blessed memory, to remember the life that they gave us and the life that they taught us.  For some of us, it’s those values we learned despite them, too.  Either way, Yizkor challenges us on this day to focus on remembering that we come from somewhere and that we are a part of a bigger story.  Yizkor gives us the chance to expand our frame of reference for a part of the day, to broaden the context in which we come seeking atonement.

Yom Kippur also asks us to see ourselves in the broader, difficult context of Jewish history.  There is an entire section of the service dedicated to remembering the 10 martyrs.  These were 10 rabbis whose stories of martyrdom form the basis of a midrash and ultimately a liturgical poetic setting known as the Eleh Ezkarah, these I will remember.  It has not been our custom here to read this poem, but the stories of how the rabbis were killed are not pleasant.  They are stories of torture, of sadism, and of deep faith.  They are stories that demand on this day that we look at what can happen to our people.  They demand that we consider the tenuous place of being a Jew in the world.  This is not the context in which we have lived, but it is the context we feel right now.  It’s hard to be a Jew.  We know it.  God knows it.  Yom Kippur knows it.  Yom Kippur reminds us of this difficulty.  And ultimately, Yom Kippur says that our people make it through, the same way we make it through this day. 

Today, we won’t hear the stories of the 10 martyrs.  But our Yizkor service does have a powerful section of tribute and prayer for those who died on October 7 and since.  We will hear some stories of those who died only because they were Jews.  We will offer prayers for them, and we will grieve alongside Jews everywhere.  I encourage everyone to stay for Yizkor this year, even if it is not your custom, and, yes, even if your parents are still alive.  Be with us in community as we mourn and remember together.  It is a beautiful and powerful service, and it’s not that long. 

There is one more piece of context that I think is important before we make our way toward our Yizkor, and that is that our prayers, and the way that Yom Kippur works liturgically is predicated on there not being an Israel, predicated on there not being a state where Jews can go, where we have self-determination, and where we are the majority.  In the context of the broader Jewish history, our ancestors could have never dreamed and imagined the way that Israel has flowered and grown and progressed, how a new Jewish culture emerged from the ashes of Europe and the rubble of the Arab world.  It’s not a perfect nation, to be sure, but it is here. 

Historically speaking, this might be the best time to be Jewish in history.  I know it doesn’t feel like that right now as we are mired in war and heartache.  Yom Kippur asks us to remember that where we are now is a point in history.  We have much that brought us to this point, and context matters.  Yom Kippur asks us to see ourselves in the patterns and contexts of Jewish history, to remember that it is sometimes hard, but always beautiful, to be Jewish.  We will not come out of history or this war unscathed.  But through our prayers and our repentance and our charity, we will come out of Yom Kippur cleansed of sin, purified of soul, rededicated to each other and God, and always choosing life and blessing.

G’mar Chatimah Tovah

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[1] All quotes in this section taken from the Harvard Crimson: https://www.thecrimson.com/article/2023/12/8/gay-apology-congressional-remarks/

Yom Kippur 5780 - Accepting our Fragility: Antisemitism

A version of this sermon was delivered on Yom Kippur 5780 at Temple B'nai Torah - A Reform Congregation

An old joke:

Rabbi Altmann and his secretary were sitting in a coffeehouse in Berlin in 1935. "Herr Altmann," said his secretary, "I notice you're reading Der Stürmer! I can't understand why. A Nazi libel sheet! Are you some kind of masochist, or, God forbid, a self-hating Jew?"

"On the contrary, Frau Epstein. When I used to read the Jewish papers, all I learned about were pogroms, riots in Palestine, and assimilation in America. But now that I read Der Stürmer, I see so much more: that the Jews control all the banks, that we dominate in the arts, and that we're on the verge of taking over the entire world. You know – it makes me feel a whole lot better!"

This joke serves as many jokes in our tradition do, to make light of that which is difficult, to try to bring some levity to the complexity of life as a Jew in a world where we are always a minority, the complexity of life as Jews in a world where there are many who do not like us and who see us in the worst light, all the time. 

In January, I was forwarded an email sent to a local middle school principal by a parent in our congregation.  I share this email with the family’s permission. It has been edited for confidentiality. 

Last night, my child reported to me that as he was leaving school, he was confronted by a young male student who said, "I love Hitler."  My child stopped and asked the boy to stop saying that because he found it offensive and that it was a racist thing to say.  The boy continued to repeat the statement.  My child threatened to go to the dean of students and the boy responded by saying that he would just deny that he had said it.

This type of incident is, unfortunately, more and more common. Some school administrations deal with it better than others, and act to respond, not sweep away. Not a year has gone by that I haven’t heard a story about something like this at one of our local schools. When we brought in the ADL a few years back to help our middle and high schoolers learn how to respond when confronted with this kind of antisemitism, so many hands went up when the facilitator asked who among the young people had experienced antisemitism.

Often these kinds of incidents, particularly graffiti of swastikas, fall into the category of kids pushing boundaries, to see how far they can go, and what they can get away with.  Kids push boundaries in lots of ways.  When they do so using hate, it’s coming from somewhere.  Ignorance and stupidity are not always the motive.  Sometimes the motive is truly hatred.  It is our responsibility to work with the schools to ensure that they are handling these issues appropriately, that students know and understand why it is wrong and hurtful for them to draw these images and say these terrible things to their Jewish classmates.

To understand how this kind of behavior hurts, let me share another piece from this parent’s letter:

One evening in December, I was driving through town with my son and I commented on how beautiful some of the homes were with all of their Christmas lights and decorations. He responded by saying that he wished that we could put up decorations for Chanukah.  When I told him that I would buy some blue and white lights and a menorah for the window he told me that he doesn't think that it would be a good idea to decorate because it would bring attention to the fact that we are Jewish.  He said he worried that someone would vandalize our house or do something to us.  I was shocked!  I reassured him that we live in a safe town and that he shouldn't be worried about anti-Semitism here in our town.  That's when he told me that I was wrong.  That he has been seeing swastikas drawn on the walls in school, especially in the boys’ bathrooms, both at his middle school, and at his elementary school before that.

A middle schooler.  Worried about what might happen to him and his family if they make their Judaism too known to their neighbors.  A middle schooler.  Sharing with his father the difficult reality of his life at school.  A middle schooler targeted by his classmates because he is a Jew. 

We all know that this email is not the first like it that I have received; and it will not be the last.  The statistics of antisemitic attacks or incidents are only reporting what we already know, and what we already feel around us.  According to the ADL,[1] though 2018 saw a slight downtick in total incidents, it also saw the deadliest attack on Jews on US soil in American history at the Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh.  2018 still saw the third highest number of incidents since tracking began 40 years ago.  The numbers for 2018 are 48% higher than 2016 and 99% higher than 2015.  And that’s just the United States; statistics in Europe are even worse.

Antisemitism never went away, it seems.

For a long time in this nation, and in much of Western Europe, we did not need to worry.  In the shadow of the Second World War, Jews enjoyed a kind of protected status, in part based on the west’s guilt.  But no longer.  I guess the statute of limitations is up, if it ever existed, in living memory of the fires of Europe that consumed more than 1/3 of world Jewry.  And because it is so present, it certainly can feel like the tide is turning against us.

Professor Deborah Lipstadt , in her recent book: Antisemitism: Here and Now traces the uptick in antisemitism in the last decade, while also putting it into historical context.  Lipstadt defines antisemitism concisely using the old line attributed to Isaiah Berlin: An anti-Semite is someone who hates Jews more than is absolutely necessary.  “Imagine if someone has done something you find objectionable.  You may legitimately resent the person because of his or her actions or attitudes.  But if you resent him even one iota more because this person is Jewish, that is antisemitism.”[2] 

Lipstadt goes on to explain how Antisemitism has a long history, and how it has morphed and changed over the millennia. 

In ancient and medieval times antisemitism was religious in nature.  Jews were hated because they refused to accept Christianity and, later, Islam.  In the 18^th century, racial and political rationales were added to the religious one…By the 19^th century, those on the political right were accusing all Jews of being socialists, communists, and revolutionaries.  Those on the political left were accusing all Jews of being wealth-obsessed capitalists who were opposed to the social and economic betterment of the poor and working classes.[3]

Lipstadt adds that adherents of eugenics saw in Jews both negative and positive qualities.  “Jews were maliciously intelligent, and because they were able to easily mix with non-Jews, they used those traits to wreak havoc with non-Jews’ lives.”[4]

            

Yes, this means that Jews are ascribed contradictory qualities.  No, it does not make sense.  But logic and sense are not the game of antisemitism.  Rather, conspiracy, forgery, fallacy, and otherness are the trades of this ever-evolving hatred.

On tour, promoting her book, How to Fight Anti-Semitism, New York Times Columnist and opinion writer Bari Weiss, who grew up Jewish in Pittsburgh commented on one theory as to why we are seeing such an uptick. “Anti-Semitism is not just about the Jewish community, it’s about the health of a society. When a society becomes antisemitic there is something wrong in their body politic.” Weiss goes on to say, “Societies where antisemitism thrives are societies that are either dead or dying. Why? It’s because antisemitism is the ultimate conspiracy and when anti-Semitism thrives it’s a sign that the society has replaced truth with lies.”

Lipstadt and Weiss do an excellent job recognizing and explaining that antisemitism is not a phenomenon on which any one side of the political spectrum has a monopoly.  It’s coming at us from all sides.

In today’s America, we are rightly concerned by the emboldened white supremacists who march carrying torches shouting, “Jews will not replace us.”  This chant, by the way, is not about Jews taking their place.  It is deeper and much more sinister.  This chant puts into words the belief that Jews pull the strings of power politically and economically and we have the ability to replace White people with immigrants and refugees.  These are not fine people.

It was concern for fair and humane treatment of immigrants and refugees, concern that we treat strangers appropriately, as the Torah commands us again and again, for we were once strangers, which influenced the Pittsburgh shooter.  Far-right antisemitism, and those that turn a blind eye toward it or even subtly encourage it are to blame for the martyrs of our people lost in the last year.

Far Right, Alt-Right, White supremacy, white power, neo-Nazis, whatever we’re calling them doesn’t quite matter.  We have seen this movie before and are not quite shocked by it.

The hatred from these groups isn’t new.  What is new is that the anti-Israel, anti-Zionist movement championed by some of the left has also become a haven for antisemitism.  A new breed of antisemitism, perhaps more difficult to recognize because it’s more subtle.  It speaks in the language of liberation and redemption for oppressed peoples, never considering the millennia of oppression suffered by the Jews.  No, the Jews are seen as European colonialists and interlopers in the Middle East, even though as of last count, Israeli Jews hailing from Arab lands make up just over half the population.  Those Jews, by the way, like my mother from Egypt, were often forcibly deported, their possessions confiscated, for no reason except that they were Jews.  But again, logic and history are not the games anti-Semites play. 

The Boycott Divestment Sanctions movement, which seeks to ostracize Israeli business and academia for Israel’s behavior toward the Palestinians, does not seek a peaceful resolution to the conflict.  Instead they seek to quell dialogue.  They seek a one-state solution for the territory between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea, and it is not a Jewish state.  Denying Jews uniquely the right to national self-determination is an act of antisemitism. 

I am a Zionist and a citizen of Israel.  I believe that Jews deserve a homeland in our ancient home.  I believe that Israel can and should be criticized when it does not live up to its ideals.  I believe that Israel has had many triumphs and has made many mistakes, as all nation-states.  When Israel is singled out for criticism unlike any other nation, when Israel, uniquely, is questioned in terms of its legitimacy as a member of the international community, when Jews in the diaspora are made to answer for Israel’s actions, or questioned about their dual loyalty, the conversation is no longer about Israel.  It’s about hating Israel, the lone Jewish state in the world, more than is absolutely necessary.

Whether you see yourself as on the right or the left, our job as Jews and those who love us is to call this out where and when we see it, and not only when it comes from the other team.  The truth is for all of us, anti-Semites are always the other team!  We would do well to remember that. 

We would also do well to recognize that unlike other times in our past, the hatred is not state-sponsored.  We do not live at the pleasure of a local duke, fearful of expulsion.  We are not living through an era of state segregation of Jews.  Those facts are comforting, but they do not diminish the reality that something has shifted.

            

So, what are we to do?  What next?  How are we supposed to react to this renewed antisemitism?  It is not enough to just know about it; how do we deal with it?

Today, Yom Kippur, has an answer.  On this day, the liturgy and the rituals are meant to bring us to recognize the fragility of our lives.  We empty ourselves. We fast.  We wipe away our niceties and adornments.  We pour out our hearts until we are left in as close to the condition that God created us.  At that moment, when we come face to face with the impermanence of our existence, when we’ve given God all that we can, all that is in us, then, God reaches out to us, giving us a hand, through the miracles of repentance and forgiveness.[5]

The rabbis in the middle ages, at the time of the crusades, who were well versed in dealing with communal tragedies, made this day even more potent when they added a section of the service known as the Eleh Ezkarah: these I remember.  This section of the service is so titled because of the opening poem which begins: Eleh Ezkerah venafshi alai eshpecha: These do I remember, and my soul melts with sorrow; for the bitter course of our history, tears pour from my eyes. Our Machzor calls this the Martyrology.  In the last number of years, this section of the service has been shortened again and again by many.  It seemed out of fashion.  It seemed unnecessary to dwell on the Jews of ages long past who were killed because of their Judaism.  That’s not our reality.  Last year, in this congregation, we skipped it altogether.

That section of the service was written as a cry out to God in the aftermath of the martyrdom of so many Jews during the Crusades.  In their cry, they discovered a kinship with the martyred rabbis of the ancient world, who were killed by the Roman authorities in the aftermath of a rebellion.  These Jews could think of nothing else but to cry out to God in the sacred act of remembrance for those who were taken, as our tradition says, al kiddush hashem, for the sanctification of Adonai.

If Yom Kippur is about recognizing our fragility as humans before the Divine, then the Eleh ezkarah section is about recognizing the added fragility that comes with being a Jew in this world.  This year, perhaps, we feel that even more keenly.  On this day, when we believe that heaven and earth are at their closest, we cry out to God for those who were taken because they were just like us.  We cry and wail to God demanding answers to questions that will not come.  We cry and remember that throughout our many wanderings, more often than not, living as a Jew was a fragile proposition.

Friends, today, in our nation, we are still in the one year period of mourning for the martyrs of this soil, who were killed al kiddush hashem, who were killed because they had the audacity to go and pray as Jews, who were killed because they were Jews.  A little bit later this Yom Kippur, as we transition into our Yizkor service, together we will remember these martyrs with a new eleh ezkarah for Pittsburgh and Poway, CA.  Together we will do what our ancestors have always done: sit in our precarious predicament.  Together we will mourn for our people, and together we will accept the fragility of our Jewish existence.

Toward the end of her book, Bari Weiss makes the point that protesting won’t change much.  She quotes Rabbi Jonathan Sacks who said: “Non-Jews respect Jews who respect Judaism, and they are embarrassed by Jews who are embarrassed by Judaism.”[6]  Weiss takes this as a signal that passive reaction to antisemitism won’t cut it.  It is time to move from “crouching to standing, from defense to offense, from doubt to confidence, from shame to pride.”[7] 

It is only once we come face to face with our fragility in this world that we can truly see the answers that Judaism has for us, and the answers that this day asks us to consider.  If the underlying theme of Yom Kippur is fragility, and the specific fragility that comes with being a Jew, what counteracts it?  How do we come back to that sense of pride? How do we stabilize ourselves on such shaky ground? 

We respond with the stability of God, the stability of our traditions, and the stability of our community. 

The stability of God.  At the end of this long day of repentance and prayer, before the tekiah gedolah is sounded, we proudly declare three lines.  The first is the Shema, reminding us that God is one and one alone.  The second line, we recite three times: Praised be God’s name forever and ever!  And finally, we announce seven times: Adonai Hu HaElohim!  Adonai is God!  Seven times, like the seven days.  A new creation as we exit the fog of our fasts and afflictions.  Though our bodies bend from our repentance, God remains.  Though we come and go, God remains.  Though we struggle and strive.  God remains.  Though we are often under attack, God remains, as God has been and will be forever.

The stability of our traditions.  We have been saying the same prayers for thousands of years.  The hatred directed toward us may change with the ages, but our faith, our belief, our connection to our ancestors, and our recognition of our place in the chain of tradition does not.  And it offers us stability of identity, pride in our Judaism, when those that would do us harm try to redefine who we are.

Though the Eleh Ezkarah has been a known part of Yom Kippur for more than 1,000 years, it is not found anywhere else in the liturgy all year.  We only bring this up on one day a year.  We do not dwell on it liturgically, even if it is always at the back of our minds.  Even when we know that we now need extra security here at TBT, and that we now make a point of announcing where the exits are, we only dwell on the martyrdom, and the specific fragility for one day.  We are not supposed to dwell on death.  This morning, we heard words from the Torah reminding us that we are supposed to incline toward blessing and life, not curse and death.  And so our traditions remind us that we are to always remember the complications of our existence, but not spend so much time doing so that we become overly engrossed with it.

The stability of our community.  A few years ago, in East Meadow, some high schoolers came to me to tell me about some troubling antisemitism at their school.  Together we determined the best course of action, that the response to these incidents needed to not be by individuals, but by the community.  The students rallied support and went as proud Jews to see the principal, who then reached out to the community rabbis.  We are stronger as a community.  And when we make it clear that we will not tolerate hatred against us or anyone, we make it clear what our community stands for.

Our parents and grandparents who proudly donated their time and funds to build these communities understood this.  In addition to a house of worship, they knew that they needed a place to go where they were comfortable and did not feel like the other.  They knew that they needed a place where their children could come and be free from the fragile life of being a Jew in the world.  Let our community continue to serve that purpose. 

Last year was a difficult year for us, friends.  I pray this one will be easier.  As we enter into 5780, let us not only have pride in God, our traditions, and our community.  Let us also be strengthened by them to keep going.  It was the strength and resolve of our ancestors’ faith which propelled them through times much tougher than ours. 

May that which afforded them so much conviction – God, Tradition, Community, Memory – may these strengthen each of us and all of us in this new year.  And as we are strengthened by each of these, let us strengthen one another.   Amen.  

G’mar Chatimah Tovah.

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[1] https://www.adl.org/audit2018

[2] Lipstadt, Deborah E., Antisemitism: Here and Now.  Schocken, 2019. p 14

[3] Ibid. p 16-17

[4] Ibid. p 17

[5] After Atah Notein Yad, Neilah Service

[6] Weiss, Bari.  How To Fight Anti-Semitism, Crown, NY. 2019. p 167

[7] Ibid.

YK Morning 5775 - Our Legacy

This past December, a friend and I traveled to Austin, Texas.  Neither of us had ever been to Texas before, and so we decided to take a trip to see a part of the country we had never before had the chance to see.  And so, we went down to Texas, explored the area, tasted of the local delicacies, met up with a colleague, and had a chance to see the important sites, including a brief sojourn to San Antonio in order to see The Alamo.  Among our first stops upon our arrival in Austin was the LBJ library and museum on the campus of the University of Texas at Austin.  The building is quite imposing and its place on the University campus unmistakable.  A behemoth of a white rectangular building, up on a slight hill, surrounded by paved courtyards with the giant football stadium in the background, the Presidential Library and Museum walks a visitor through the life and career of LBJ.  From his humble beginnings in rural Texas teaching immigrant children, to the Oval Office, I learned much about LBJ and his legacy.

And that is what a museum is all about isn’t it, legacy?  What is it that a person did which is worthy of keeping forever?  What is it that a person made or painted or sculpted that society has decided is worthy of preservation?  In the case of LBJ, his legacy is clear, at least according to the museum.  The museum makes the case that were it not for the historic legislation that LBJ caused to be passed, President Obama would never have been elected.  Now, the museum doesn’t go so far as to say that, but the video clips and the thrust of the permanent exhibit make it clear that the curators and preservers of LBJ’s legacy believe, and want us to believe, that a distinct line of this nation’s progress as relates to race can be drawn from LBJ to Barack Obama.

And what a legacy that is.  Our nation has seen itself torn in two, again and again, over the issue of race.  Today, the museum tells us, things are better.  Today, the museum tells us, thanks to LBJ, the race issues which plagued our nation are more a thing of the past than the present.  LBJ was, after all, responsible for the passing of the Civil Rights act, the Voting Rights Act and the Great Society Legislation, which gave aid to education, Medicare, Medicaid, and fought against poverty.  The LBJ Museum wants us to know that it’s thanks to LBJ that we have many of the laws and rights we take for granted.

And his legacy endures, in some ways.  This year was the 50^th anniversary of the signing of the Civil Rights Act.  The desk on which LBJ signed the legislation into law is on display at the Museum, as is the pen he used.  50 years ago, the Civil Rights Act of 1964 outlawed discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex, or national origin.  It removed obstacles to voting and removed segregation in schools, places of business and public institutions.  50 years ago, the Civil Rights Act changed this nation and moved us toward a more perfect union, toward a better society.  And, in truth, LBJ’s legacy endures in these landmark pieces of legislation that continue to form the backbone of racial equality in this nation.

With 50 years working toward racial equality in this nation under our belts, one would think that this nation would be more evolved when it comes to race.  The Library and museum seem to tell us we should be.  And yet, in the last months, and most prominently this summer, our nation’s old wound was opened again.  Michael Brown, an African American young man, was shot fatally by a police officer in Ferguson, Missouri, just outside of St. Louis.  If only this were a solitary incident.  Closer to home, on Staten Island, Eric Garner died in police custody after a choke-hold was used to subdue him during an arrest.  Last month, in South Carolina, at a seemingly routine traffic stop, Levar Jones, an unarmed black man was shot multiple times by a police officer after he went back into his car to retrieve his license, as instructed by the police officer. 

This is not an indictment on the police.  The overwhelming majority of police officers work hard and put their lives in danger and in harm’s way each and every day to keep their communities safe.  They are family men and women, who show kindness, compassion, bravery and care on a day to day basis, as they face more complicated threats and more and more lenient gun legislation.  There are some questions about the particular police officers involved in these incidents and the amount of force and firepower that is becoming commonplace among police departments, but more striking, and more important for our nation to grapple with, is the fact that in each of these incidents, and the many others over the last many years, the victim was unarmed and was black.

It has been 50 years since LBJ signed the civil rights act into law, and we, as a nation, still have some soul searching to do about what we value and what we believe civil rights and equality really mean.  It has been 50 years since the Civil Rights Act became law, and there is still a wide gap between what it means to be white in this nation and what it means to be something else.

As modern Jews in 21^st century America, we have been subsumed into white culture.  Or maybe, we pushed ourselves in and demanded a place.  Yes, Jews are still distinct, but the fact of the matter is, we are a minority primarily living and working as a part of the majority.  But it wasn’t so long ago that signs reminded us of who we weren’t.  No Dogs or Jews allowed, the signs told us.  As a minority, the rights of other minorities ought to be as important to us as our own.  And, we have a legacy of being a part of the solution to societal inequality that we ought not forget.

“The Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965 were drafted in the conference room of Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism [in Washington DC], under the aegis of the [Southern Christian] Leadership Conference, which for decades was located in the RAC's building.  During the Civil Rights Movement, Jewish activists represented a disproportionate number of whites involved in the struggle. Jews made up half of the young people who participated in the Mississippi Freedom Summer in 1964.”[1] Among those Jews were Andrew Goodman and Michael Schwerner, of blessed memory, who gave their lives, alongside James Charney, in the fight for freedom and equality in what has come to be known as the Mississippi Burning.

“Leaders of the Reform Movement were arrested with Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. in St. Augustine, Florida, in 1964 after a challenge to racial segregation in public accommodations. Most famously, Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel marched arm-in-arm with Dr. King in his 1965 March on Selma.”^[2]  As Jews, and as Reform Jews in particular, we have a legacy of working toward equality in this country and doing whatever we can in order to further the causes of life, liberty and happiness for all.  Of late, however, our voices have been too quiet.  Of late, we have not spoken out enough about the issues of race that continue to plague our nation. 

These United States, from the outside, seemed to be doing better than ever in terms of race.  After all, the first family is African American.  Doesn’t that mean we are post-racial, even if the election of the president brought out the worst among some of our countrymen?  No.  It doesn’t.  It means we’ve made progress, but there is much more to do.  This summer’s protests in Ferguson in reaction to the shooting death of Michael Brown and the other young black men in this country show us exactly how far we are from being post-racial, how far we are from having race be a thing of the past.  They show us that the mask of tolerance and acceptance under which we go about our daily lives is only just that, a mask, hiding the reality of inequality based on race that continues to this day.  An inequality that is systematized into the penal code and played out in incarceration rates and policies like Stop and Frisk.  An inequality that tells the authorities that they can, and indeed should, be listening in on calls and communications just because someone happens to be Muslim.  An inequality that plays out in employment rates, graduation rates and access to loans and mortgages.  An inequality that continues to try to disenfranchise voters.  An inequality that persists even as the Supreme Court rules that voting rights and discrimination are no longer at issue, as they gut the preclearance elements of that same Voting Rights Act that LBJ signed into law.

Fifty years after the Civil Rights Act and 49 years after the Voting Rights Act, the inequality in our land cries out to us, and it demands that we work to create a new legacy for the next generation.  A legacy of equality and justice for all.  A legacy which puts into action the motto of this great nation: out of many, one.

But this summer, as the mask of a post-racial America was torn off another mask was torn off as well.  How can we focus on race in this country, while throughout this nation and in other nations, the ugly face of anti-Semitism was front and center again.  We focus on it because the Anti-Semitism whose resurgence we witnessed with shock and dismay, and which infiltrates quickly due to the New Media is related to the racism which we see continuing in this nation.  They are related because this summer we have had the opportunity to witness that we as a species are not as evolved as we had hoped to be by 2014.  We are not as open to others and differences as we would have thought in the aftermath of the disastrous conflicts of the 20^th century.  We haven’t learned our lesson yet, as humans on this earth, and we seem to forget too easily that we are more alike than we are different.  That we are all created in the same image.

In response to the war between Israel and Gaza many protests against Israel included, in commonplace incidents, placards, posters, and chants the likes of which we have not seen in many years.  Throughout Europe’s capitals, those bastions of tolerance and culture, riots and protests against Jews continued, putting Jewish communities in danger and on high alert.  But the posters and the slogans weren’t the extent of the violence.  Jews in Europe and even here in America, faced violent attacks.  Antiemetic incidents were so prevalent that a Twitter and a Tumblr feed were started called “Everyday Anti-Semitism” which tried to catalogue the numerous attacks in print, at protests, and which people reported. 

But the war in Gaza was simply pretense.  In Brussels, in May, well before the war began, four tourists were shot at the Jewish Museum in that city.  This is the kind of incident with which we have become all too familiar.  Whether it was the Chabad in India or the attack on the JCC in Argentina, we are used to a certain number of lone wolf attacks, and perhaps we will never rid our world of this danger. 

But this summer, we saw more than just an isolated incident.  Jewish-owned stores and a pharmacy in Paris were firebombed and destroyed.  Synagogues in Germany have been firebombed, Jews in Sweden attacked and bludgeoned, a Synagogue in Paris besieged and its members forced to defend their place of worship from violent anti-Semitic protests posing as anti-Israel protests.  In London, shouts of “Death to the Jews,” or “Hitler was right” among other chants, were heard as a part of the more than 100 reported anti-Semitic attacks in England in July.  Posters depicting Israel as equal to the Nazis were commonplace.  And even on New York’s Upper East Side, a Jewish couple was harassed and attacked.  More recently, a rabbi in Mississippi was asked to leave a restaurant because he was Jewish and took offense to the waiter’s description of a “Jewish salad,” though that incident is disputed by the restaurant's owner.

There are, of course, differences between what is happening now and what happened in the Europe of the 1930's.  The Anti-Semitism today is not state-sponsored as it had been for many centuries.  In fact, many leaders of Europe, notably France, Germany and Italy, have publicly and loudly condemned the attacks and have done their best to try and stop them.  In Germany, a country for which firebombing of a synagogue dredges up memories of a hate-filled past that nation has worked hard to overcome, a rally against hate and against anti-Semitism drew thousands of people and was headlined by the Chancellor and Prime Minister.

None of this is meant to be alarmist nor to scare us into staying at home or force us all to decide to move to Israel.  But it is important that we are aware of what is happening in the world.  According to an Anti-Defamation League poll[3] completed over the last year, fully 26% of adults worldwide harbor anti-Semitic attitudes.  That number jumps to 34% in Eastern Europe and 74% in the Middle East.  The numbers are much lower closer to home.  Only 9% of Americans and 19% of people in the Americas harbored negative views of Jews.  None of this is surprising.  Anti-Semitism has existed for as long as there have been Jews.  It existed before the conflict in Gaza, and sadly, it will exist even after a true and enduring peace is established, may it happen in our days.

I have been studying Sefer HaYashar with some colleagues over the last few months.  Sefer HaYashar is a midrashic collection, which means that it takes the stories of the Bible and elaborates on them to fill in the gaps and answer some of the questions that come up when reading the Bible.  For example, what was Abraham’s childhood like?  This question is raised because the Torah introduces Abraham as an adult with no description of his youth.  Sefer HaYashar answers some of these questions.  And, since this collection most likely dates from a post-crusader time frame, the stories take on a slightly different cultural resonance.

Sefer HaYashar talks at length about Abraham and why he left his land to go to Canaan.  The Torah tells us that it is because God told him to go with the famous words “Lech Lecha”.  But that’s only part of the story, according to this Midrash.  Sefer HaYashar posits the young Abram as a believer in the one God, as opposed to the rest of the population, especially Nimrod, the King of Ur.  The King makes multiple attempts to kill Abram including by throwing him in a furnace and by shunning him.  None of these work, and Abram hides from the king for many years, taking refuge in Noah’s home, and continuing to learn the ways of God. 

At a certain point in time, the king has a dream which is interpreted to mean that Abram will cause the king’s death and destruction to the kingdom.  Abram hears of this and says the following: “Let us arise and go to Canaan, out of the reach of injury from [the king], and serve the Eternal…and cast away all the vain things.” (Sefer HaYashar, ch. 12)

It is Abraham who makes the decision to flee Ur, making it as far as Haran.  And he flees because the powers that be don’t like the religion he practices.  By putting Abraham in the same position which the Jews of the Middle Ages found themselves, namely forced to flee on account of their belief, this Midrash makes a point to say that as Jews we have always had to deal with this.  Since Abraham, we have had to contend with people who dislike us merely because of who we are and what we believe.

From this story, we see that in the Middle Ages, Jews projected the animosity they felt back in time, believing it to be something we have no choice but to contend with.  The ADL survey makes the same point.  Anti-Semitism exists and we need to be aware of it, and work to combat it in every way we can.  Just because it exists, though, doesn’t mean that Jewry is necessarily in danger.  One of the many legacies that has been passed down to us is a resilience of the Jewish people: a legacy of endurance even in the face of difficulty, even in the face of hatred.

Anti-Semitism persists, just as racism persists.  And this summer we witnessed a shattering of our complacency and the breaking of a sense of security we may have felt, as we recognized that the Gaza protesters weren’t talking about Israel, or just about Israel, but they were talking about Jews, all Jews.  They were talking about us.  They were talking about you.  And they were talking about me.

And so what can we do?  How do we combat these pernicious elements of our world that seem to never be abated?  There are a number of actions we can take. 

First, let us recognize what we are already doing.  By being a part of a congregation, and bringing your family here with you, you help to foster a strong Jewish identity in yourself and your family.  Don’t underestimate this.  Recognize the gift that you are giving your family: the gift of Jewish community.  The gift of Jewish community is a gift of finding pride in who we are.  And regardless of what others think, we can counter that with our pride and our sense of self.  Studies show that once Jews are no longer an abstract to people, meaning that after someone meets and befriends a Jewish person, their opinion of Jews in general tends to be more positive.  How much more so will this be the case if we exhibit a tremendous and unabashed pride in who we are.

Next, we can support worldwide Jewry by making our voices heard as a part of the upcoming Zionist Congress, though our votes and our donations.  The Zionist Congress distributes billions of dollars annually to fund Jewish education and shape the Jewish nature of Israel and communities worldwide.  Every Jewish adult is eligible to vote.  By voting, we make known that we care about what happens to Jews all over the world, and that we will not abide living in a world where Jews are under attack and threat.  By voting we put into action the axiom “kol Yisrael arevim zeh l’zeh,” that all Jews are responsible to one another. 

Next, we must look inside ourselves.  We ought to take care with the words we use and work to combat any latent prejudices we might harbor.  It is not easy to look inward, but if this day, this Yom Kippur, can teach us anything, it is that we have the ability to look inside ourselves, find those parts of us we wish to make better and then resolve to make those parts better.  In our public confessional, we comment on the ways we have harmed others, whether by baseless hatred or xenophobia.  Let us work every day against these most base parts of who we are.  Let us also speak out against hate speech.  Hate speech is destructive and if left unchecked easily adopted as normative.  And it is not just hate speech against Jews we ought to concern ourselves with.  We can follow and continue the legacy of the previous generations of Jews who fought and died to make this nation better and more tolerant for everyone, regardless of race, religion, national origin, gender, or sexuality.

We can hold our officials to task.  If we believe in Voting Rights, we need to tell our representatives.  If we believe in non-discrimination policies, we need to make our voices heard.  We may not have the ability or time to put our lives on hold and get on a bus to go make change, but we can all pick up the phone or send an email to our congressperson or senator, both state and national.  By speaking up for what we believe, we work toward what we thought we had all along.  We work toward a nation and a planet neither of which will be putting on airs of tolerance and acceptance, but rather will be veering toward justice. 

Perhaps we thought everything was taken care of because laws have been passed and changed to make this nation more equal, and to provide equal rights for all.  But we forgot what is required alongside legislation like the Civil Rights Act.  When he signed the bill into law, LBJ said the following:

This Civil Rights Act is a challenge to all of us to go to work in our communities and our States, in our homes and in our hearts, to eliminate the last vestiges of injustice in our beloved country…So tonight I urge every public official, every religious leader, every business and professional man, every workingman, every housewife—I urge every American—to join in this effort to bring justice and hope to all our people—and to bring peace to our land.”[4]

Let us continue to join in the efforts to bring justice and hope to all people.  Let us work to ensure a bright future free from hatred and division for the Jewish community worldwide, and for our nation. 

Let that be our legacy.

G’mar Chatimah Tovah

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[1] http://rac.org/Articles/index.cfm?id=21347

[2] Ibid

[3] http://global100.adl.org/

[4] -Remarks upon Signing the Civil Rights Bill (July 2, 1964)http://www.lbjlibrary.org/exhibits/civil-rights#sthash.w7KFMazC.dpuf