Groundhog Day Judaism

This is Yossi Hershkowitz.

They’re both Yossi Hershkowitz.

 

The one on the right was born in 1924 in Romania and immigrated to Israel in 1944. He was a member of the Haganah and was killed in action fighting in July 1948 in the War of Independence, leaving behind a wife.

 

The Yossi Hershkowitz on the left was killed in action in Gaza in November, leaving behind a wife and five children. He served as the beloved principal of ORT Pelech High School for boys in Jerusalem. “Today in Israel there is no right wing, no left wing, no Haredim. Just Jews,” he said in a video he sent his students, wearing his green fatigues. He offered words from Torah, and quoted the late chief rabbi of Great Britain, Jonathan Sacks, about holding onto one’s faith during times of crisis and the Jewish people’s power to bring light to the world.

 

The more things change, the more they stay the same.

 

These last months, each day brings similar headlines.

“Dozens of terrorists killed in clashes with IDF”

“Rocket alerts sound in Gaza border communities”

“IDF says fighter jets struck Hezbollah sites across southern Lebanon”

“Houthis target ships in Red Sea”

 

It can feel like the movie “Groundhog Day,” in which the main character experiences the same day over and over again. Like the movie, maybe our takeaway is to appreciate the ability to improve while moving forward and not get stuck without some elements of growth each day.

 

These days, we need a reminder more than ever of “the miracles we experience each day and the wonders and goodness present at all times – evening, morning, and afternoon” (Modim blessing of Amida prayer).

 

The truth is, like in the movie, no two days are ever the same. Each situation is different and experienced differently by those involved. There may be two heroes named Yossi Hershkowitz, but each is unique, their wars were unique, and the Jewish situation has changed over the 75 years of Israel’s existence between their sacrifices.

 

Judaism can sometimes feel like “Groundhog Day.” We wake up, daven three times a day, and celebrate Shabbat each week and the same holidays each year. Didn’t we read Parshat Yitro last year?

 

Judaism is a great big ball of similar, familiar, interconnected experiences that transcend time. They may repeat, but our mission is to find ways to make them relevant, new, and exciting. Each day we read in the Shema (Devarim 6:6), “Take to heart these instructions with which I charge you this day.” The Midrash teaches that “this day” means each day, Judaism should feel fresh and new.

 

And Judaism is not as powerful without the shared experience of everything that came before and will come after.

 

Rabbi Pini Dunner uses a terrific text that shows the entire Jewish experience as having been produced already. The Talmud (Menachot 29b) tells of Moshe being transported to the Beit Midrash of Rabbi Akiva.

“When Moses ascended on High, he found the Holy One sitting and tying crowns on the letters of the Torah. Moses said before God: Master of the Universe, who is preventing You from giving the Torah without these additions? God said to him: There is a man who is destined to be born after several generations, and Akiva ben Yosef is his name; he is destined to derive from each and every thorn of these crowns mounds upon mounds of halakhot. It is for his sake that the crowns must be added to the letters of the Torah.

Moses said before God: Master of the Universe, show him to me…Moses went and sat at the end of the eighth row in Rabbi Akiva’s study hall and did not understand what they were saying. Moses’ was distressed as he thought his Torah knowledge was deficient. When Rabbi Akiva arrived at the discussion of one matter, his students said to him: My teacher, from where do you derive this? Rabbi Akiva said to them: It is a halakha transmitted to Moses from Sinai. When Moses heard this, his mind was put at ease, as this too was part of the Torah that he was to receive.”

Like Moshe, we may be frustrated as to our role in the story. Maybe the story doesn’t seem to be going anywhere. We need to seek the connection. We need to find meaning and purpose and freshness and relevance in the repeating rituals, the recurring headlines, and in the death of the two Yossi Hershkowitzes. We are all connected across the Jewish world and Jewish history.

 

Let’s find a way to distinguish each day and contribute our mitzvah, our action, our small element to the glorious production of Judaism.