Israel Wrestling, Rosh Hashanah Morning, 5780

Jews are good at arguing. It’s been built into our DNA for centuries.

Just look at who we are and what we are called.

The term Jew originally comes from one of our patriarch Jacob’s sons, Judah, which then became the name for one of the tribes and then eventually became the designation for the entire Southern Kingdom, while the Northern Kingdom was called Israel.

The term Israel was given to that same Jacob after he spent an evening in torment. He wrestled with the angel in preparation to face the brother from whom he stole the birthright. Jacob and the angel wrestled through the evening and as the sun began to rise, the angel relented but Jacob would not release the angel until the angel blessed him. He was blessed with a new name. The angel told him, “You shall now be known as Israel for you have wrestled with God and prevailed.”

We are Jews from Judah and we are Israel the God wrestlers.

And today we still wrestle with Israel.

For rabbis, many of us wrestle with whether or not to speak about Israel during the High Holy Days. It’s not because we lack passion for Israel. For most of us it’s quite the opposite.

I thought a lot about why I generally prefer not to focus a High Holy Day sermon on Israel and I’m really not sure why I avoid it.

Perhaps it’s because so many people have such strong feelings and those feelings can cause tension between us and I prefer not to tempt such a provocation at a time when I want us to all come together.

Here in the Central Valley, we’re so far removed from the flashpoint of Middle East politics.

As illustrations go, it’s a pretty crass source, but I keep seeing the scene from Adam Sandler’s movie You Don’t Mess with the Zohan. Palestinians and Israelis living and working side by side in New York.

"The point is, we are thousands of miles away from all this hate…”

“…and we live together just fine.”

“We do.”

“Come on, people.”

“Where is the hate?”

One says, “I resent.”

“What? What do you resent?"

“People don’t like us."

“Come on, it’s not easy for us."

The other side responds, “People don’t like us too.”

“Why?"

“Because they think we are you.”

"We do look alike.”

“You got to admit this. Come on.”

And here, thousands of miles farther even than New York, we normally have the luxury of staying out of the details of the Middle East conflict.

This year we didn’t have a choice.

The subject was forced upon us. Not on our terms.

GVWire, the local media outlet owned by Darius who also owns Granville Homes, brought in a speaker to address the Israeli Palestinian conflict. Unfortunately, this speaker is rather problematic. Left wing groups, highly critical of Israel’s behavior felt the need to distance themselves from this speaker because she has trafficked in and refused to disavow hateful rhetoric. She is too left for the left.

It appeared that the most thorough vetting of the speaker was done by an umbrella organization called ‘The U.S. Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation.’ In their statement addressing this speaker, the organization begins…

“The US Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation is a coalition of hundreds of US-based groups working for Palestinian rights. In 2012, the Steering Committee of the US Campaign, elected at our annual conference, formed a working group to address racism within the coalition as part of our ongoing effort to become an anti-racist organization. The work of this group resulted in the adoption of our anti-racism principles in 2013 and the establishment of procedures for handling instances of racism and bigotry within the coalition.”

Their statement goes on to address the process with this particular speaker. I’ve edited it to avoid repeating her or her particular organization’s name… because I choose on our holy day to focus more on Israel and not on particular Israel haters. Anyway, the statement says…

“After a thorough review and a correspondence, the committee has concluded that this individual’s repeated statements and actions, often as the Executive Director of her organization, did indeed violate our anti-racism principles. Her responses led us to believe that these violations will continue in the future. Based on the report of the review committee, our Steering Committee voted in favor of removing this individual and her organization from our coalition.”

The US Campaign thoroughly notated their research and, as they predicted, some of the violations she was cited for did, in fact, continue.

Here locally, several of us worked together behind the scenes to minimize the impact of the speaker. From our board, Josh's help with research was invaluable. I checked in with our president, Bill, and with Esti, the current president of our Jewish Federation as well as Phyllis, the Federation director and several others. We determined it was best to discourage people from attending the presentation in order to keep it from getting additional press. In the meantime, I met personally with Darius. We asked him to make a clear statement condemning anti-Semitism. He did. We asked him to offset this presentation by bringing in a speaker who is not mired in hateful controversy. More on that shortly.

I continue to wrestle over the question of when and whether to speak about Israel but it was a pretty clear choice this year. And when it comes to speaking about Israel during the High Holy Days, I ask myself what is a spiritually appropriate avenue for this discussion and how does it fit within my overarching theme this year of finding and lifting up our voice?

As we learned these last few weeks, we don’t always get to choose when we talk about Israel and what subject area we get to focus on in the discussion.

Some of us have spent much time there, years even…

Some of us have never been.

Some of us feel deeply connected to Israel.

And some of us do not.

Some feel ambivalent about Israel.

Some do not really think about it at all.

Most, if not all of us, get forced into responding to questions… and accusations about Israel whether we have considered the questions or not.

We’re forced to wrestle.

For many of us, our relationship with Israel might be best described as… ‘it’s complicated.’

There are times we are moved to speak up and times we sit silent. There are those who say that our patriarch Abraham, the grandfather of Jacob, merited his position of being the first Jew for speaking up, for arguing with God to save people whom he did not know and, yet, in this morning’s Torah reading, he remains silent when asked to sacrifice his own son.

We have wrestled with this passage for centuries.

Today it stands for me as a stark reminder that we don’t always lift up our voice.

I try to follow Abraham’s example when he did speak up. Abraham may have been silent regarding his son but we can lift our voices for his grandson… Jacob… who we know as Israel.

In order to speak for Israel, we need to know Israel.

It’s why we spend an entire year of our religious school curriculum on Israel. It’s why Rabbi Laura and I spent an entire year in Israel during our rabbinic training. It’s why we celebrate Israel’s independence every year together as a community. It’s why we continue to take groups to Israel because there is no better way to know Israel than to experience it firsthand.

Here in the Central Valley where the Middle East conflict is rarely in our headlines and where many people including within the Jewish community have so little knowledge or experience or even interest in Israel, I have found the most important role for me is to raise awareness and even more important to raise interest.

I love Israel and I love to share my passion for Israel.

While I hope that everyone will have the opportunity to make the journey at least once, there are plenty of ways to get to know Israel without leaving the Central Valley…

I asked Rabbi Laura, whose expertise in Israel education earned her a doctorate this year, to provide us with an introductory list of Israel resources. She has provided us with a good start in books, websites and podcasts. Books on the list include classics like one of my favorites, In the Land of Israel by Amos Oz and Israel: Echo of Eternity by Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel as well as much more recent works such as a collection of writings edited by Rabbis Stanley Davids and Lawrence Englander entitled The Fragile Dialogue: New Voices of Liberal Zionism.

Rabbi John Rosove’s blog recounts a wealth of deep reflections on Israel. He is the immediate past co-chair of ARZA, the Association of Reform Zionists of America. His soon to be published book will be titled Why Israel [and its Future] Matters - Letters of a Liberal Rabbi to His Children and the Millenial Generation. It is Rabbi Rosove we have connected with GVWire to come in to town to bring a much more balanced and responsible discussion to the subject of the Israeli/Palestinian Conflict and I’m glad to announce that he will be in Fresno on Monday night, December 9th. As soon as GVWire gives us the place and exact time, we’ll get the information out to the community.

Another highly respected Reform Jewish leader making bold and powerful statements on Israel with regularity is Rabbi Eric Yoffie, the past president of URJ, the Union for Reform Judaism. I was pretty much done writing my words for this morning then, yesterday, I saw Rabbi Yoffie’s opinion piece in the Israeli newspaper, Ha’aretz entitled, What on Earth Can American Rabbis Say About Israel This Rosh Hashanah?

Thanks Rabbi Yoffie, you couldn’t have published this a week or two ago?

I encourage you to read it. He argues that Reform Jews should serve as the ‘sensible center’ of the Israel discussion and I’ll read his concluding passages…

“What does it mean for Reform Jews to be the sensible center?

It means that we oppose the messianic settlers and the occupation-forever Jews. Because we know that Israel cannot forever enslave another people.

It means that we oppose the give-back-the-territories-now-no-matter-what Jews. Because we know that absent an arrangement for real security, ending the occupation immediately could mean chaos and endless terror for Israelis and Palestinians alike.

It means that we ask of ourselves, and what we offer the State of Israel, is tough-minded realism, honest criticism, and insistence on religious freedom for all. And above all, non-stop striving for peace.

And it means that while Israel is neither perfect nor innocent, we have not lost our faith in Israel, and never will. And therefore we forever pledge to Israel our unconditional love.

Not uncritical love, of course, but unconditional love. So help us God.”

https://www.haaretz.com/opinion/.premium-what-on-earth-can-rabbis-say-about-israel-this-rosh-hashana-1.6433074

As Jacob earned his title Israel by wrestling with God, we will continue to wrestle with Israel.

But you can’t wrestle without engaging. I spent quite a few years in the dojo. We did a lot of grappling and I can tell you with complete certainty that it is impossible to wrestle without making contact, without wrapping yourself together. And the beauty of the training we did was that it was never in anger. Oh, we wrestled to the floor. It was often painful. We left bruised, sometimes bleeding.

I’ll never forget the grappling during my black belt test. At the end, I was completely, utterly wiped out, like Jacob at the end of his night of wrestling with the angel. And when the grappling was finished, the sensei who whipped my tush, gave me a big hug.

I realized it’s a beautifully perfect analogy.

I’ve always pictured Jacob holding the angel in a headlock before agreeing to release the angel who tapped out as the sun began to rise. But Jacob would not release the angel without the blessing, the blessing that earned him the name Yisrael.

Yes, I wrestle with Israel. Sometimes it can be painful, it is always a blessing… and we never leave each other without a hug.