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Israel -- Remarks at Yesterday's "Community Service for Peace"

These words, which I entitled "Our Fears, Our Dreams", are what I said at the rally and service for peace yesterday at the Jewish Federation of New Hampshire. (The Manchester Union Leader published a very positive article about the program, quoting extensively from remarks by Israel's Consul-General in Boston, Nadav Tamir.)

At a time of great trouble and danger, we are here reaching out to our fellow Jews, our sisters and brothers in Israel, the Palestinians who share our ancient land, and also to our neighbors here in New Hampshire. We are here because we have dreams, and we have fears, and this gathering is about both. Especially to our Palestinian neighbors, we have to speak about our dreams and our fears.

We have for so long dreamt of living as Jews in peace and justice on this earth, anywhere, and in our homeland.
We fear there are those in the world who don’t believe us, or who won’t let us.

We dream of an end to killing, and more positively, we dream that Eretz Yisrael, which you call Palestine, and the holy city of Jerusalem, will be once again be historic places of inspiration for the entire world.

We dream that all our Arab neighbors will see us as human beings, see us for our deep human values
But we fear that you are coming to know us only by our weapons or our mistakes.

We dream that your leaders will finally say yes when we extend our hand in peace – not yes but, or yes if, but yes.
We fear this won’t happen; we fear what will happen to us and to you if it doesn’t – that we will become, forever and irreversibly, statues of hate.

We fear that our peace offers and our withdrawals, and the flexibility Israeli leaders have shown -- in 1947 at the UN, in 2000 at Camp David, in 2005 on the way out of Gaza -- will make us foolish in our own eyes and in yours.
But we dream that you will imagine what we have come to learn, perhaps with difficulty – that the blessing of peace will only be ours if we share it with you.

We fear that you don’t share these dreams. But we dream that you do – no, we have faith that you do.

Mekor Hachayyim, Adon Hashalom -- Source of all Life, Master of Peace, we pray that you calm our fears, and bless our dreams of peace. Amen.

Israel and Gaza

This is a very difficult time for Israel, Israelis, and Palestinians. I sense that this episode in the fighting is going to be different from what took place a couple of years ago. Israel's credibility as a nation able to defend its citizens is at stake, versus the credibility of Hamas and Iran as threats to Israel (and beyond).

It's important to have good sources of news and information. I rely on Haaretz, Israel's most thoughtful newspaper, and on the Jerusalem Post. Both are available at these links on-line in English.

There have been a couple of articles worth reading in recent days. Rabbi Daniel Gordis, who made aliyah from the U.S., writes personally about southern Israel, and what is at stake in the fighting. Yossi Klein Halevi, an Israeli journalist, analyzes the situation from the standpoint of Israel, its various leaders, Arabs, and in The New Republic.

We have responsibilities. First, to give what moral and financial support we can to Israelis we know, to people in our community who have family and friends living in harm's way or serving in the Israel Defense Forces.

Second, we will be called on to explain and comment on what is going on. We live in a community where most people know little about the backdrop of the Israel-Arab conflict. What people see most are gruesome images on war on CNN, or headlines and brief articles in the local press.

When we talk, the most important thing is to frame what is going on in terms of the biggest picture: Israel is a country that has been attacked since the day of its founding, that has defended itself, and that seeks peace with Palestinians and its neighbors. Anything else we say has to be grounded in that. That's the basic narrative of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Every Israeli leader, even those of the hard right, has been engaged in negotiations about Palestinian self-rule. Israel offered to withdraw from over 90% of the Palestinian territories at the Camp David summit in 2000, but Yasser Arafat walked away from that deal. Israel removed its forces and its citizens from the Gaza Strip unilaterally in 2005, and left some of the infrastructure from its very successful agricultural industry there. The response has been Hamas and rockets.

There is no one left among the possible leaders of Israel who advocates incorporating most of the Palestinian territories on the West Bank into Israel along with its population. There are Israelis who oppose this approach, there have been unwise and immoral acts along the way. But the basic thrust is toward peace and coexistence.

There is a difference between targeting civilians for attack, and killing civilians in the pursuit of fighters who hide among them. This isn't easy to say, especially when I am not the one on the front line as an Israeli solider or a Palestinian casualty. But to say that Israel cannot fight because Hamas chooses to fight from populated areas -- that is to say that Israel cannot defend herself at all.

Israel's opponents frame a different narrative: The Palestinians are a people subjugated by Israel and engaged in legitimate resistance against a massively powerful army of oppression. If this were true, what Israel has been doing this week would be nothing more than murder, the act of a morally bankrupt nation. But the truth is, the Palestinians have had opportunities to say yes to a state of their own living in peace -- in 1947, in 2000 -- and they have either chosen not to, or been betrayed by their leaders. Those who speak and act on their behalf have chosen war and terror.

Before being drawn into a debate about the day's news, we have to establish our version of the narrative. Israeli leaders do not live up to it every day, and Palestinian civilians are killed in this war, and horrible things will happen. It is not our responsibility to defend everything that happens. To hate the Palestinians, or Arabs, or Moslems, is also a desecration of God's name and of the Jewish people. But it only we who can explain what Israel's hopes are, even at a time of war.

As I said in shul last Shabbat, it is hard to have this responsibility, especially for those of us who dream like Shimon Peres of a peaceful, prosperous, integrated Middle East one day. But you can't do tikkun olam, can't reshape the world, without understanding it. And that means understanding the forces of violence and hate that push back, that push away from peace and from life. That's where we are this week.

I hope we are all able to answer questions when they come, to write the local paper when misconceptions creep in. If you know a high school or college student, they have it hardest of all -- help them bear up and stand up too.

Hashem oz l'amo yiten, Hashem y'varech et amo vashalom. May God give strength to God's people, may God bless God's people -- all of God's people -- with shalom.

Is Chanuka a "Minor" Holiday?

People wonder whether Chanuka is important, and whether the only reason Jews make a big deal out of Chanuka is because of Christmas.

It's true that Chanuka is not like Shabbat, or the biblical festivals like Pesach or Rosh Hashanah. After all, on Chanuka Jews are permitted to work and are not expected to attend long services. But the historic themes of Chanuka are not in any way "minor." In its very origin, the holiday gets us to think about issues that continue to face Jews who live in a world dominated by other cultures and powers.

We can easily see Chanuka as a story of the fight for religious freedom -- against persecution by Antiochus, but also for acceptance in the wider world governed by Hellenistic ideas and culture.

It's also true that the Chanuka story begins with debate and disagreement among the Jews about just how much to open up to Greek and Hellenistic culture. In the early years after Alexander the Great conquered the Land of Israel, Jews were allowed to live according to Torah norms, and they suddenly came into contact with new people from around the empire created by Alexander. There were Jews who were eager to assimilate completely, even to the point of masking their circumcision so they could participate in athletic competitions (back then in the nude). Jews took on Greek names, Greek styles, and Greek words. From the Greeks we learned how to turn discussion and debate into the exquisite art form that seems today so Jewish! (To learn more about this, listen to my recorded talk.)

But there were also those like the Hasmonean family -- Judah Maccabee's clan -- who initially resisted taking on Hellenistic ways. So before Antiochus lifted a finger against us, there was also tension and infighting among the Jews.

How American, Western, modern can we be -- how integrated can we be -- without losing what makes us distinctive? That sounds like an American Jewish "December dilemma", but it's actually what the whole story is about.

The other way Chanuka is major is in the spiritual symbolism of the candles. The spread of light, from a single flame to a wide array of fire, is about hope in all its forms. At the darkest times, when we can hardly find any light in our lives or our hearts, if we kindle the smallest "cruise of oil" we might find that there is enough to keep us going. There is much more to say about that, which I will from the bimah, but it's something to think about as a meditation as you light candles this year.

Chag Urim Sameach -- a joyous festival of lights!

Chanuka and Gift Giving

My first Chanuka-related posting of the season. I hope I am reaching some of you before you are in the thick of Chanuka and holiday gift giving. This year in particular is a time when we might reassess the whole matter of Chanuka presents. Originally, of course, Chanuka had no association with giving gifts -- it was Purim that is the holiday of "sending of portions to our neighbors and gifts to poor people", according to the Megillah. Apparently from a historical point of view, Christmas giving was also originally about "giving to the poor" and only since the mid-1800s came to be about exchanging gifts within a family.

Giving is rooted in our urge to be generous, and I don't want to dismiss that. But sometimes the gifts are too much.

Here is one of the more interesting things I've read about how we might reshape our approach, from a recent New York Times article. I invite people to post their own ideas.

Obama, Inclusion, GLBT, Jews

A couple more thoughts on the election.

In the euphoria about what it means that America is inclusive enough to elect an African-American president, there was one blot on the record.  In three states, ballot initiatives were approved by voters that ban same-sex marriage.  I'm having trouble finding the texts of the initiatives in California, Florida, and Arizona.  So I don't know if or how they apply to "civil unions."  As a rabbi who consecrates same-sex unions, I see this as a civil rights issue.  I have many gay and lesbian friends who feel shut out at least a bit from the celebration.  There is work to do, and I hope at least that the breaking of one barrier will help with the other.

People continue to ask about Obama and Israel.  One interesting item:  Rahm Emanuel, who may become Obama's chief of staff, is Jewish.  As you can read here, Obama's close friend and chief strategist David Axelrod signed the ketubah at Emanuel's wedding.  The article also mentions a colleague, Rabbi Jack Moline, who used to study regularly with Emanuel at the Clinton White House.  I'm pretty sure that Rahm's son's bris took place at the White House as well.  More on Emanuel's day school background and links to Israel here; and also in the Jerusalem Post.  (The Orthodox rabbi mentioned in the Post article is a friend of mine and a real mensch.)  None of this proves anything about Obama, other than that he has many close advisers whose commitment to Israel is well-known.

After the Election

First, if you haven't gone today to povertyfighters.com, go there to grow the microloan fund.

Last night I thought about what it means that the United States elected a president named Barack Hussein Obama.  I wondered if (white) people would go into the booth, see the name, and have one last feeling of:  This is just too strange, I can't do it.  But that didn't happen.

For the most part, people did not cast a vote for justice, for equality, for inclusion.  Yet those precious things, in some measure, will now be a gift to all of us as Americans.  The results might have been the same for Hillary -- and we would have gotten the same gift -- or for Edwards, or Biden, who knows.  How fortunate we are that a vote by and large out of personal pain, out of self-interest, will enlarge us as a nation.

It would be idolatry to worship a particular leader, a political party, even a political ideology.  We also know that the election was won out of a contest of lashon hara, nasty things said by both sides about each other, untrue and misleading words.  Even if you are overjoyed by the results, it's important to step back.  These are essential spiritual perspectives.  If we keep them in mind, we can be a bridge between the left and the right, between those who have different views on the balance of market and government.

Even more important is to step forward into the work that has to be done by everyone as citizens.  It's extraordinary to come to New Hampshire and see how many people have been out there in recent weeks, at work for something large that they care about.  I am thinking about what I have to do to continue that path.  There were 50 congregants who walked a week and a half ago with other faith communities here to end hunger, and we raised a few thousand dollars here toward some $40,000 in total from the Crop Walk.  We will reach inside and find the energy to go further, in the way that fits each of us.