Rabbi's Message

Shalom from Jerusalem!  It has been an incredible week and a half of learning, listening, and living here.  Most of my time is spent as part of the Rabbinic Leadership Initiative program at the Hartman Institute.  We are exploring the topics of Peoplehood and Israel Tomorrow with their excellent faculty, and the conversations have been edifying and interesting.  More on this later, but for now, I’ll just say that these sessions are helping me think about the very different world we are living in post-October 7.  How we respond to this new and still developing reality in Israel and in the US, individually and institutionally, is the great task that lies before us. 
 
For now, let me help you get a sense of this new reality in Israel.  Being here for an extended period of time allows Rachel and I to catch up with friends, hear their stories, and experience a small taste of life in Israel.  Here are three snapshots from our experience.
 
This week, we had lunch with our friend Yossi, who we had spent many years with at Camp Ramah in Wisconsin.  After October 7, Yossi, who was a paratrooper in the IDF, tried to re-enlist, but being in his 50s he was not allowed.  He has two sons currently in the IDF, one is in the West Bank, and the other is finishing up basic training and will soon get his assignment.  Still, Yossi felt a responsibility to serve.  A couple of months ago, he got a call from a friend who told him that the army, needing more soldiers, was opening a unit for combat soldiers who had finished their reserve duty but wanted to return to the army.  He would need to rejoin the reserves for three years and serve wherever needed.  Yossi signed up immediately, did a three-week refresher training course, and he will be deployed to Gaza on Sunday.  He is doing this because he believes, and we have heard this repeatedly, that the threats Israel faces from Hamas, Hezbollah, and Iran are existential threats that must be confronted.  Because his unit is new, they are asking for donations for much-needed equipment.  I made a donation from our Am Yisrael Hai fund towards this, and if you would like to give tzedakah and learn more about Yossi’s unit, you can click here. I will continue to keep Yossi and his sons, along with so many others serving, in my prayers and in our prayers as a TBS community.      
 
Rachel and I also reconnected with our friend Aharon.  Aharon runs a start-up company. Since October 7, about a third of his workforce has been called to serve in the army.  That and other extra stress and needs in his family and community have made running a business very challenging.  This is just one example of the great economic stress that Israel is under.  It is difficult for a country with a citizen army to be mobilized for such a long time, and businesses, especially individuals who own their own businesses, are strained.  Aharon is also one of the gabbais for a shul in Jerusalem called Hakhel.  We went there last Shabbat morning.  Sitting a couple of rows in front of me was a man who, on his chest, had a piece of masking tape with the number of days since October 7.  I learned later that that man was Jonathan Polin Goldberg, the father of Hersh Polin Goldberg, one of the hostages.  Jon and his wife Rachel have been all over the world advocating for the release of Hersh and the other hostages.  Through it all, Jon continues to go to his shul each Shabbat.  His strength, and his wife Rachel’s strength, is incredible.  One example of this is a Week of Goodness that they are spearheading next week.  They are encouraging people around the world to do good deeds to bring more light into this dark world.  You can learn more about it and find examples of good deeds to do here. Additionally, as part of this Week of Goodness, they are dedicating a New Torah Scroll at their synagogue.  I also made a donation towards this through our Am Yisrael Hai fund, but if you would like to provide additional support or learn more about it, you can click here. Their strength, and the strength of Israelis like Aharon, to care for their community and to keep moving forward is inspiring.
 
Finally, last night Rachel and I went to an Ishay Ribo concert.  Ishay is one of the most popular Israeli singers in Israel, and he has caught on around the world.  He is even performing at Madison Square Garden in September. He is religious and weaves in verses and teachings from Jewish tradition into his very catchy songs.  I highly recommend a listen.  But even a joyous concert in Israel is tinged with sorrow.  As the concert began, we noticed a man in the crowd who was draped in an Israeli flag with a picture of a soldier on it.  He was walking up and down the aisles.  About halfway through the show, he appeared on stage, and the crowd went quiet as he and Ishay were speaking.  Ishay then explained that the picture on the flag was of this man’s son, whose name was Dolev, and who had been killed fighting in Gaza at the beginning of the war.  He then brought Dolev’s father close, and together they sang his song Halev Sheli, which begins, “My heart is split in two.” It goes on to speak about loss, and then the chorus addresses God:  “And only you can turn my mourning into dancing / to purify the sand / to soften all in me / and only You know how to approach my heart / You lessen any pain within me / You heal my heart.”  It was so sad and so beautiful as the entire crowd, each weighed down by their own story of loss, joined in singing these beautiful words together.  The air is thick here, but the resilience and the readiness to support one another help people breathe. 

In our Torah portion this week, Hukkat, the Israelites experience the loss first of Miriam and then of Aaron. Though they still had Moses, the deaths of Miriam and Aaron forced the people to confront a new reality, find new leaders, and figure out how to keep moving forward.  They still hold on to the past, as embodied in Moses, but also need to chart their own future.  We, too, are in a moment of transition between the world before and after October 7.  We can see with our eyes and feel in our kishkes that things aren’t as they were before.  We are working on figuring out how to describe what exactly this means, what we hold on to and what we let go, and how we move forward.  Our challenge today is similar to what our people have faced at different points over history, and yet it is unique to our moment.  There are many questions that hang in the air, and we do not yet know how to answer them all.  But we do know that with our brothers and sisters in Israel, we will confront them to build a stronger Jewish people together.