Daily Life Lessons from Rabbi Heschel
Year 4 Day 238
“For many years we have experienced history as a judgement. What is the state of our repentance, of our “return to Judaism”? (Moral Grandeur and Spiritual Audacity pg.69)
G’Mar Hatima Tova is the usual greeting after Rosh Hashanah’s Shana Tova. The Rabbis, I believe, in an instant of inspirational brilliance (of which they had many and some not so much), are reminding us that to have a “good year”, we have to finish(G’Mar) up our repentance. This is true of individuals as well as communities, countries, etc. Rabbi Heschel in a piece published in Berlin, Germany on Yom Kippur Eve(Kol Nidre) asks the question above: “what is our state of repentance?” While I do not believe that “history as a judgement” is the way to look at our lives, I do believe looking at our history is a way to discern what is good and not good, what is the right way to live and what is not the right way to live, what we have to repent for as individuals, as members of a group, a country, a faith and what we have to be proud of and continue to grow as an individual, etc. One of the most powerful experiences many of us had at Beit T’Shuvah was when a Catholic Priest apologized for the Churches hatred of Jews, their antisemitism, their sexual scandals and for not hearing the women and children who came to them. People were crying along with the Priest.
Which brings me/us to the “state of our repentance, of our “return to Judaism”. This year, the first day of Sukkot falls on October 7th. October 7, 2023 was a horrific day for Jews, for people who believe in the sanctity of life throughout the world and we can never forget what happened. Hamas is a Terrorist Organization, it is EVIL-full stop! And, as I have heard in many sermons and online discussions, the deafness of Rabbis and congregants, of Jews and non-Jews to the destruction in Gaza is also horrific! It is also EVIL! There is no excuse for it and, if we are to have a G’Mar Hatima Tova, we have to be accountable for our excesses, our abuses, our evil actions-otherwise “our “return to Judaism” is false, it is bullshit, and it is an desecration of the Name of God and what the Bible truly stands for. No matter what the Orthodox, the war-mongers say, the overriding concern of the Bible is: LOVE the STRANGER, BE DECENT, CHOOSE LIFE, stop whoring yourself for gold, for power, for …. Yet, here we are-Rabbis are condemning the virulent anti-semitism that is rampant once again throughout the world without calling out the abuses of Netanyahu and his Idolatrous “religious” coalition.
I am a JEW, I am a ZIONIST, I am NOT a Netanyahu follower, I am not a believer that Israel right or wrong is always right, I believe in Isaiah 49:6, that Israel (Jews) is to be given “for a light unto the nations that salvation may be…” We are not here to serve ourselves, to get rich, to take advantage of the poor, the needy, the stranger! We are not here to be all powerful and dictatorial, we are not here to violate the words of Moses, the promises to Abraham, the ways of King David who could admit his errors when pointed out to him and, at times, on his own. NO, Israel is here to be accountable, we are to show the world how to be accountable and how to do TSHUVAH, how to Repent, Repair, have a New Response to the triggers that caused us to forget our mission, our purpose. I am a Jew, I am a Zionist, I am a Baal T’Shuvah, a master of return precisely because I come back each day, each Elul and do my inventory, make my amends, plan on how to not make the same errors and enhance the good I do. I believe in “Never Again” and believe that the message of the Los Angeles Holocaust Museum: “Never again Can’t Only Mean Never Again for Jews” and continued with “Jews must not let the trauma of our past Silence our conscience…” and they were vilified for this truth, they deleted it 2 days later and issued an apology! APOLOGIZE for TELLING THE TRUTH!?!?!?
This, then, seems to be “the state of our repentance, of our “return to Judaism”-NOT! When we, as a Jewish People, cannot live in the both/and of the trauma of October 7, the horror of the evil of Hamas, AND be accountable for our part in what happened-which Netanyahu has not allowed a review of the days preceding 10/7, he has not allowed anyone to hold him accountable, he has not allowed anyone to criticize his keeping his son in Miami, Florida-safe and sound, not subject to serving as a reservist-, he is not caring about the Hostages-leaving Israelis to die and the ones who are dead, leaving their bodies to rot in Gaza-, and JEWS are APPLAUDING THIS?? “The state of repentance” is NILL, We the Jews have made null and void the words of Isaiah, the words of Hosea, Jeremiah, of all the prophets, of our teachers and spiritual guides of the past, by refusing to do a CHESBON HANEFESH on and for ourselves. We the Jews are called to be “a light unto the nations that salvation may be” and We the Jews are failing, We the Jews need to get our heads out of our asses and be JEWS, BE REPENTANCE, BE HUMAN.
The issue of Gaza, of Hamas, of what to do is complex and I am not trying to be stupid about the necessity of Israel to defend itself nor of the difficulties in living next to people who hate you! I am speaking only of the need for JEWS, like me and you, to take our own inventories, to see where we have been wrong, to not whitewash our inequities because of the EVIL that Hamas perpetrated upon Israel. I am saying that Netanyahu and the Israeli government has to look at the ways it supported Qatar giving BILLIONS to Hamas so the Palestinian Authority could be weakened and how Netanyahu and his gang did not heed warnings given to it about the possibility of Hamas breaking through. It isn’t easy, I don’t have the answers, I do have the solution- TSHUVAH, improve “our return to Judaism” by being human! God Bless and stay safe, Rabbi Mark