We Need Israel: Thoughts from Jerusalem

Israeli and German Air Force planes fly over Knesset on Yom Ha'atzmaut

Why did our generation deserve Israel?

On Yom Ha'atzmaut 1968, Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik asked why was it that the generation of 1948 - his generation - merited a State of Israel? Why not the generation of the Rambam or the Vilna Gaon? The Rav answered, "Because we needed it."

The Rav described the dark spiritual mood in the aftermath of World War Two and the Shoah. One-third of World Jewry was murdered. The future of the community looked bleak. Some Christians said to Jews, "See, God is sending you a message." How would Judaism survive?

Then came 1948. Everything changed. Israel saved Judaism. It gave Jews a purpose, a mission, renewed confidence, hope, and optimism. After spending Yom Hazikaron and Yom Ha'atzmaut in Israel, it is clear the Rav is still right. We need a State of Israel.

These are turbulent times with hundreds of thousands protesting for and against the government and disagreeing on a host of issues. Nevertheless, being here is a reminder that Israel is the glue that can bind the Jewish people together and serve as an indispensable foundation for Jewish identity. 

As Yom Hazikaron began, I attended the memorial ceremony at Ammunition Hill, the site of a brutal battle in the fight for Jerusalem in 1967. Alon Wald, whose father, Rami, fell in the battle when Alon was just ten months old, spoke movingly to his father during the event. I'll never forget what he said:

"Abba, I forgive you for choosing your country over your family."

While his words were personal, they remind each of us with a reminder that Israel is the most important aspect of our Jewish identity. Whatever our politics may be, the State of Israel matters more. 

Today, I attended the World Orthodox Israel Congress, a gathering of rabbis, educators, and lay leaders from around the world. At a session on Diaspora Jewry's connection to Israel, several leaders noted, "Ein umah Yisrael b'lo Medinat Yisrael - There is no Jewish nation without the State of Israel." With so many Jews not affiliating, and a diminishing consensus on how to be Jewish, Israel represents a point - a place - of convergence. 

Israel is a young country, and it's just getting started. I spent several days participating in the Jewish National Fund - USA's Israel at 75 Mission. We saw the Negev and JNF's efforts to develop the south of Israel and make it a place more people will live and visit. The group brought together Jews from around the country of different backgrounds, denominations, and affiliations. The common denominator is that Israel is the home of the Jewish people, and we can make a difference in making it better. 

Speaking of Israel as a place of convergence, I never visit without a crazy, chance encounter. Today, it was a former colleague who lives near the Windmill. I was coming back to the area by bus and was unsure where to get off. I chose a stop I thought was closest and started heading to my destination. One block later, we meet. Think of all the variables involved - his schedule, my schedule, my timing his timing. Israel is home, so it's the place we can expect to meet the people in our extended family. 

Israel is the place in which being Jewish is natural. That's part of its greatness. Just one month after Israel was created, the Rav spoke at a Mizrachi convention about the spiritual benefits of the Jewish State.

"With regard to redemption...life in Israel will to a certain extent be completely Jewish. I read in the press that the kitchens of the Israeli army are strictly kosher. When, on that fateful Friday, the establishment of the State of Israel was proclaimed, the ceremony was held eight hours early so as not to desecrate the Sabbath...I can assure everyone that Shabbat in Eretz Yisrael will be holier than it was in the Jewish neighborhood in Berlin, in the Frankfurt Ghetto, or even on Bedford Avenue in Brooklyn...I also believe that in Israel, Santa Claus will not have as white a beard, and the radio will not play 'Silent Night, Holy Night...'"

There is a unique soul to being in Israel. I can also feel the specialness of Israel in the US, but it's not the same. I get chills watching videos of Yom Hazikaron, but it doesn't compare to being on Har Herzl when the two-minute siren goes off and speaking to bereaved families at the graves of loved ones. A blue and white cookie with some Israeli music and dancing are wonderful ways to celebrate Yom Ha'atzmaut in America, but it doesn't compare with watching people of all ages celebrate late into the night. These feelings, emotions, and experiences can't be replicated in the diaspora. 

I realize the situation in Israel is complicated. There are internal challenges and external threats. Being here the last few days, though, reminds me that Israel is unstoppable.

I met with a member of Knesset from the Yesh Atid party, Moshe Tur-Paz. He is a Religious Zionist educator turned politician, and we have a lot of mentors in common. He is obviously opposed to the current government. At the same time, he remains optimistic because you can't stop Israel and the Jewish people. 

One has to have heart. 

Rabbi Dov Zinger, a noted educator and spiritual guide, introduced the musical Hallel at the Yom Ha'atzmaut outdoor service attended by 1,000 participants (and interrupted by an Israel Air Force jet flyover) by encouraging everyone to engage with Israel using the heart of Israel. He invoked the words of Yeshaya HaNavi (40:2) "Dabru al lev Yerushalayim" as a call to connect to Israel on a heart and soul level. 

There is the external Israel, and then there is the inner, deeper Israel. On an external level of headlines, politics, and challenges, it is hard to feel secure. From a "lev," internal vantage point, we have nothing to fear and everything to celebrate. 

The Emotional Rollercoaster of the Yom’s

There is something overwhelmingly emotional about Yom Hazikaron and Yom Ha’atzmaut just a week after Yom Hashoah. First, we try to properly capture the magnitude of the Holocaust – the trauma, horror, and heroism. Then, in what is very different than our American experience, Israel transitions in a mere 24 hours from somberly remembering those killed establishing and defending the State to joyously celebrating her independence. Talk about a busy week!

We’re on a rollercoaster ride of emotion with a lot to process. Here is a story that touches all the bases.

Rabbi Yisroel Zev Gustman may have been one of the greatest rabbis of the 20th century that nobody ever heard of. His meteoric rise from child prodigy to the exalted position of religious judge in the Rabbinical Court of the famed Rabbi Chaim Ozer Grodzinski at the age of 20 was the stuff of legend - but nonetheless fact. While a long productive career on the outskirts of Vilna could have been anticipated, Jewish life was obliterated by the pain of World War II. Rav Gustman escaped, though not unscathed. He hid among corpses. He hid in caves and under bushes. He hid in a pig pen. He somehow survived.

After the war, and a brief sojourn in America, Rav Gustman became the head of a yeshiva in the Rechavia section of Jerusalem, Netzach Yisrael. He taught a small group of loyal students six days a week. But on Thursdays at noon, the study hall would fill to capacity: Rabbis, intellectuals, religious court judges, a Supreme Court justice and various professors would join along with all who sought a high-level Talmud class. When Rav Gustman delivered a lecture, Vilna was once again alive and vibrant.

One of the regular participants was a professor at the Hebrew University, Robert J. (Yisrael) Aumann. Once a promising yeshiva student, he had eventually decided to pursue a career in academia (and was awarded the Nobel Prize in Economics in 2005) but made his weekly participation in Rav Gustman's class part of his schedule. The year was 1982, and, once again, Israel was at war. Soldiers were mobilized, reserve units activated. Among those called up for duty was a university student and young father who made his living as a high school teacher: Shlomo Aumann, Professor Aumann's son. On the eve of the 19th of Sivan, in particularly fierce combat, Shlomo fell in battle.

Rav Gustman mobilized his yeshiva to participate in the funeral and burial of the fallen soldier. After the burial, he told his driver, "Take me to Professor Aumann's home."

The family had just returned from the cemetery and would now begin the week of shiva mourning for their son, brother, husband and father. Rav Gustman entered and asked to sit next to Professor Auman. He spoke, first in Yiddish and then in Hebrew, so that all those assembled would understand:
 

I am sure that you don't know this, but I had a son named Meir. He was a beautiful child. He was taken from my arms and executed. I escaped. I later bartered my child's shoes so that we would have food, and I gave it away to others. My Meir is a kadosh - he is holy. He and all the six million who perished are holy.
 

I will tell you what is transpiring now in Gan Eden. My Meir is welcoming your Shlomo into the minyan and is saying to him “I died because I am a Jew, but I wasn't able to save anyone else. But you, Shlomo, you died defending the Jewish People and the Land of Israel.

 

My Meir is a kadosh, holy, but your Shlomo is a Shaliach Tzibbur -- a Cantor in that heavenly minyan."

Rav Gustman continued: "I never had the opportunity to sit shiva for my Meir; let me sit here with you just a little longer."

Professor Aumann replied, "I thought I could never be comforted, but Rebbi, you have comforted me."

Rav Gustman and his wife would attend an annual parade held in Jerusalem before Pesach. They would join their fellow spectators and excitedly watch the children march through the streets. When asked by a colleague why he participated in this annual event, he replied, “We who saw a generation of children die will take pleasure in a generation of children who sing and dance in the streets of Jerusalem.”        

Rav Gustman experienced firsthand the horrors of the Shoah, appreciated the heroism and sacrifice of those who defend Israel, and rejoiced in the miracle of Israel’s rebirth. He and those with similar experiences lived the rollercoaster of the days we commemorate and are the perfect guides for our generation. We need to remember. We need to acknowledge the murder of the innocent and the sacrifice of brave warriors, and then we need to celebrate God’s gift of the State of Israel. Am Yisrael Chai!

Thumbing Our Nose at Hitler

The announcement of Felice and Alan Feldstein’s 1955 wedding at the Eagle’s Nest, the Nazis’ former mountain retreat in the Bavarian Alps.

Tisha B’Av or Yom Hashoah? That is the question in some parts of the Orthodox community.

In 1951, the Knesset passed a resolution declaring 27 Nisan as Yom Hashoah V’hagevurah, the day to commemorate the Holocaust along with the heroism of those who fought in the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, which started on Pesach 1943. In 1957, this annual day was enshrined in the Martyrs' and Heroes' Remembrance Day Law, instituting an annual "commemoration of the disaster which the Nazis and their collaborators brought upon the Jewish people and the acts of heroism and revolt performed."

There was significant discussion and debate as to the best time to commemorate the Holocaust. Some in the Orthodox community felt that Tisha B’Av is the only date to commemorate all Jewish tragedy. They also objected to instituting a sad day in the joyous month of Nisan. In particular, the opposition to a separate Yom Hashoah by Rabbi Joseph Soloveitchik and Rabbi Moshe Feinstein limited the embrace of this day by the Orthodox community.

We need Yom Hashoah. The Holocaust is too big a topic to be relegated to Tisha B’Av – or any one day in particular. Yom Hashoah is a day to reinforce the dual themes of recounting the horrors of the Holocaust and our obligation to move forward.

Remembering, commemorating, or learning lessons from the Holocaust can be very personal. It transcends the calendar and defies ritualization. Each person – survivor, children of survivors, relatives, everyone else – will bring their own experiences, opinions, and worldviews. Expressions like “Never again” or “Remember the Six Million” offer some context, but we will each respond differently to the horror of the Shoah. That’s the nature of tragedy.

This week, we read of the death of Aaron’s two sons. Aaron, famously, is silent – “Vayidom Aharon.” (Vayikra 10:3) Moshe, on the other hand, calls on the remaining sons of Aaron to get back to work despite their loss. We see that those most directly impacted have the right to respond in whatever way moves them. At the same time, there is an obligation to move forward.

We must seek out the stories of survivors while also rededicating ourselves to our obligation to ensure the Jewish people remain strong. Each of us can do this in our own way.

In February, the JTA reported on one couple’s response.

Felice Jacobs and Alan Feldstein could have tied the knot in Phoenix, where they met and where his mother worked at the local Reform synagogue. Or they could have held their wedding on the U.S. Army base in Austria where Alan was stationed at the time. Instead, they chose the Eagle’s Nest, the Nazis’ former mountain retreat in the Bavarian Alps - a location that, as far as anyone knew, had never before hosted a Jewish wedding. “We got married there because my husband wanted to thumb his nose at Hitler,” Felice Feldstein recalled last week. Taking place just 10 years after Hitler’s defeat and death, the Feldsteins’ August 1955 nuptials were so notable that the Jewish Telegraphic Agency covered them at the time, identifying the event as “the first Orthodox Jewish wedding celebrated in the town of Berchtesgaden, Hitler’s mountain retreat and to this day a hotbed of Nazism…”
 

According to family lore, Mark Feldstein recalled, his father’s mother was critical when the couple announced their third pregnancy. She asked why they were having so many children. “Well, Hitler murdered 6 million,” his father responded. “She shot back, ‘You don’t have to make up for all of them, do you?’”

This is the story of one couple’s response to Hitler. They couldn’t dance on his grave, but they could dance at their wedding at his vacation home.

Remembering the stories and the atrocities is essential, and it must be accompanied by what we are doing to ensure Jewish strength, survival, and continuity.

In 1965, Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson, the late Lubavitcher Rebbe, wrote to a survivor:

...To remember is indeed an imperative and a duty - particularly in light of the growing campaign to forget and to make forgotten. And yet, remembering is only one part of the task that rests upon us. The other, and far more crucial, part is to actively counteract Hitler's so-called 'final solution'...Your first duty is to live: to assume an ordered life, a married life, to establish a Jewish home and a Jewish family. This will most definitively underscore Hitler's defeat: that not only did he not succeed in eliminating a certain Vishnitzer Chassid, but that this Vishnitzer Chassid will raise up children and grandchildren, generations upon generations of Vishnitzer Chassidim…

The dual obligation to grapple with memory while committing to move forward is appropriately captured by Israel’s commemoration of Yom Hashoah. Everyone is going about their day. Suddenly the country halts for two minutes as the siren blares. People spend time with their own emotions and reactions. Then, the country gets back to the task of living.

How will we commemorate Yom Hashoah? What can we do to remember the Holocaust? What are we doing to ensure the continued strength and vitality of the Jewish people?

Four New Seder Sons & Seeking a Fifth

We all know the classic Four Sons - Wise, Wicked, Simple, and One Who Doesn’t Ask. This year, let me introduce you to another four sons: Active, Affiliated, Ambivalent and Alienated.

The Keren Keshet Foundation recently undertook a new survey that found American Jews are splitting along new lines. Respondents appear to break down into four new descriptive categories: Active, Affiliated, Ambivalent and Alienated. As reported in Tablet:

“Active Jews, some 16% of the American Jewish population, are those who center Jewish communal and religious life; Affiliated Jews, constituting 34%, have strong Jewish identities even if traditional or communal practice plays a less central role in their lives; Ambivalent Jews, again 34% of the American Jewish community, straddle the line between interest and avoidance; Alienated Jews, representing 16% of respondents, are those with little Jewish connection at all.”

As with the Four Sons of the Seder, I think we can find a little of each category of Jew in ourselves. I try to be wise, while, at times, I might be wicked. I’m a big believer in keeping things simple, and, sometimes, I just don’t want to say anything to anybody and be left alone. Similarly, I pride myself on being an active and affiliated Jew. At times, I may be ambivalent, and there are times I want nothing to do with my fellow Jews.

We can probably discuss the Four Sons of the Haggadah and the “new” Four Sons of the Jewish community for hours. On Pesach, the most important thing about the Four Sons is that they’re sitting around the table together. The Seder is a “Night that Unites.” Whichever “Son” we are, we‘re incomplete without the others. It is not always easy to see ourselves as one family, but that is the beauty of Pesach. We all left Egypt. Most American Jews today (some 70%) attend the Seder and are anchored in our common origins. Whether we’re Orthodox or Reform, Wise or Wicked, or Active or Alienated, we are all Jews, and that is reason to celebrate.

And yet…

In 1957, Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson, the late Lubavitcher Rebbe, issued a pre-Pesach letter with a call to find and invite “The Fifth Son,” any Jewish man or woman who “is conspicuous by his absence from the Seder service.” He writes:

This presents a grave challenge…For no Jewish child should be forgotten and given up. We must make every effort to save also that “lost” child, and bring the absentee to the Seder table. Determined to do so, and driven by a deep sense of compassion and responsibility, we need have no fear of failure…There is no room for hopelessness in Jewish life, and no Jew should ever be given up as a lost cause.

The Rebbe is clearly speaking the language with which he inspired his followers to engage Jews world-wide. He is also speaking to each and every one of us. On Pesach, gathered around the table are all types of Jews, but they are the ones who choose to be there. We need to be aware of those who opt out completely from the conversation or the celebration and commit ourselves to seeking them out.

The word “Haggadah” comes from the root which means “to tell.” The same letters also form the Hebrew word “to join.” Retelling the Exodus story is meant to bring us together as well as to reach out to bring all Jews together. In an age when more and more Jews are opting out, separated, or divided by different viewpoints, we need to be mindful of the call of the Haggadah to connect with all Jews – even those who don’t seem to want to connect with us.

This year, there are Jews polarized by politics both here and in Israel; there is a large Jewish community in Ukraine still plagued by war; and there is a Jewish journalist, Evan Gershkovich, jailed in Russia. Let’s keep them all in mind. Let’s discuss the ways we remain connected. Let’s focus on what unites us and discuss how to live with what divides us. Let’s commit to find ways to meaningfully seat everyone around the table.