Rabbi Zeitlin

We’ve just completed Rosh HaShana. If we were lucky, it was filled with the introspection, intentions and determination that we generally call תשובה (tshuva), turning/returning/ “repentance” (the actual physical and other repairs to the damage we’ve caused was focused on the entire month of Elul, which immediately preceded Rosh HaShana). Unfortunately, it was probably also filled with now-disappointed expectations.

“Day-After Blues” is likely when we wake up the next morning and see that the world hasn’t changed very much, that the same intractable problems remain just as intractable and that our abilities to change and/or improve things haven’t suddenly expanded. If the Mashiach is any closer at all, it’s only by a few seconds.

The goal of tshuva is not amateur, self-administered therapy and its mark of success is neither comfort nor satisfaction. Rather, tshuva, specifically over these weeks, is a Jewish process (although the techniques are largely adaptable/applicable outside the focused religious process). While it can and likely will have personal emotional and psychological benefits, they are secondary. The actual goal in tshuva is to remove our spiritual blockages/blinders  and thus make us more effective in performing our spiritual mandate (tikkun olam defined as restoring the netzutzot ha’kodesh, “holy sparks” embedded in our physical reality to their proper spiritual location, largely accomplished through Torah, Mitzvot v’Ma’asim Tovim (integrating as many levels of meaning within the Torah, performing ritual commandments (including Tefilla, prayer) and our acts of decency and generosity towards others), bringing the world, one step at a time, closer to its ultimate perfection.

The question is less a matter of what are reasonable expectations for this season and more a matter of how we can use the tshuva we are doing to make a difference in the future. But if we didn’t radically transform ourselves, and we probably didn’t, what did we achieve?

Examining the word תשובה (tshuva) itself, we see that the basic root of the word, שב (shin-bet) has two complementary meanings. The one we commonly focus on this season is to return, but we mustn’t ignore the meaning, to sit/settle. Working together, these provide an insight into the tshuva most of us actually can experience.

As one more year of trying has ended, we transition to a new one and, hopefully, we’re closer to gaining a realistic view of who we really are. It’s natural, and often for very good reasons (i.e. the effor to grow and improve can often blur the distinction between who we are and who we want to be), to actually be very self-unaware, but that can be very harmful (i.e. when we have an unrealistic, exaggerated sense of our faults, shortcomings, mistakes and sins). This long period of introspection provides us, each year, a very rare opportunity to try to discover, with little other distraction, the true reality of our hearts and souls. The goal is to return to our true selves, without embellishment at all.

The second aspect of the word, to sit/settle, directs us to accept ourselves for who we are. It doesn’t preclude wanting to grow and improve, but it allows us to work with reality, not fantasy. Healthy growth requires us to be “comfortable in our own skins” so the changes we try to make can be based on what we are and what we want to change. We want to avoid the twin extremes of panic and complacency. We’re neither so perfect that we need not change at all, nor are we so helplessly lost that all ability to grow is absent.

The advantage of achieving this degree of both self-knowledge and acceptance is that we can realistically get to work, knowing our abilities and our limitations. Rather than fighting against ourselves, trying to achieve something we’re just not going to be able to, we can focus on how most effectively to do that which we can. We have a better chance of understanding what and where are the נצוצות הקודש (Netzutzot HaKodesh), Holy Sparks, which are unique to our נשמה (Neshama), soul, so we can engage and elevate them which is our deepest and truly spiritual mission.

On a personal note, I think I can say that just about every achievement I’ve make is a direct result of my previous failures and inabilities. For example, the bone structure in my skull leaves me unable to hear the pitch of my voice and, thus, to sing in tune (I’ve spent tremendous time and expense in the past trying to “train” my ear, so I know that I really do lack this ability). If I were able to sing along with others, I might very well have never felt driven to create music in an alternate way and would never have picked up a guitar, let alone become proficient on it. Additionally, I realized a number of years ago that I don’t have the type of memory that allows me to retain, note-for-note, or even chord-for-chord, a set composition or tune (nor an extended Torah text, directing me into a non-linear Torah style). Therefore I developed the skill I did discover within and have become a fair improvisor on guitar. Had I fought my own limitations, rather than respond to my true self, I’d probably be, at best, “politely tolerated” in group singing situations and many hours of beautiful instrumental music would never have come into the world.

Rosh HaShana and Yom Kippur provide a mechanism for each of us to fine tune our efforts for the coming year. There is so much to be done and each of us is the only one capable of those tasks that uniquely resonate with our unique souls.

G’mar Chatima Tova

Assimilation goes much deeper than intermarriage, dropping out of synagogue or eating at McDonalds. It has much more to do with integrating and adopting “foreign” values which, though they be popular in, sometimes even predominate, the surrounding society, are actually inimical to Jewish values. But with an almost two-thousand year history of dispersal and exile throughout the world, it’s hard to imagine that this isn’t even more pervasive; as protective coloration, as camouflage, the technique has been an essential and time-tested survival tool.

There are two values, each from a different spiritual path, that seem to inspire some elements of progressive and secular Judaism these days. The first, usually parading as “non-violence”, “social justice” and “universalism”, especially in response to the life-and-death threats currently facing Israel (and, increasingly, European Jewry), comes straight from the New Testament: “turn the other cheek”. Misapplied, it self-righteously justifies suicidal appeasement and falsely claims to be a true expression of Jewish values. Not only could nothing be further from the truth, but it attacks one of the crucial foundations of Jewish values which is Jewish survival. If one finds value in any authentic Jewish values at all, it should be obvious that those value will never contribute to the “betterment of mankind” if there are no Jews left to model and teach them. Additionally, it insults the very Jewish concept of Justice which requires rewarding good behavior and punishing bad behavior, not the other way around.

There is another very popular value, one much closer to an authentic Jewish one, which is self-surrender/self-sacrifice/demolishing-the-ego. Often these words are offered as a translation of the holy concept ביטול היש (bitul ha-yesh), but with a major difference. Since the contemporary concept is largely borrowed from Buddhist practice (ignoring the Jewish expression of it), and Buddhism doesn’t contain, or even contain the room for, the concept of God as experienced in Judaism. Thus, “killing of the ego” is often described as a gentle falling into Nothingness, or into The Universe. I’m not evaluating Buddhism or Buddhist practice, but recognizing distinctions between Buddhism and Judaism is as valid as recognizing distinctions between Judaism and Christianity in our first example.

Especially as we approach Yom Kippur, we can take advantage of our tradition’s path. The Kedushat Levi, mines the last section of the Mishna Yoma (which presents the Oral Torah of this festival), אָמַר רַבִּי עֲקִיבָא, אַשְׁרֵיכֶם יִשְׂרָאֵל, לִפְנֵי מִי אַתֶּם מִטַּהֲרִין, וּמִי מְטַהֵר אֶתְכֶם, אֲבִיכֶם שֶׁבַּשָּׁמַיִם (Rabbi Akiva says, Rejoice Israel! Before Whom are you purified and Who purifies you? Your Father in Heaven!) He relates the word מי (mi) in this passage, which means who/whom with מה (mah), meaning what (the essence of the unknown/unknowable)–then, through comparison to Biblical statements of Avraham and Moshe, he explains that, in a much deeper and more profound sense of understanding the passage, they are “code-words” for the state of being of self-nullification (ביטול היש) where a person is at-one with The Simple Unity, אחדות פשוט (achdut pashut), i.e. God. When Rabbi Akiva asks “Before Whom”, he uses the phrase לפני מי (lifnay mi), with the word לפני (lifnay) meaning “before” in a sequential/spatial sense. In other words, the process of purifying ourselves on Yom Kippur involves ascending to a spiritual level even above the “mere” losing of ego/identity and separate existence, to an elevated state of דבקות (devekut), merging with God!

We don’t seek to self-destruct into Nothingness, but rather to fully surrender ourselves into God. It makes a vast difference, merging with a spirit of universal benevolence and wisdom rather than letting ourselves slip into a value-“free” void which, in many ways, is the ultimate selfishness of irresponsibility. And by means of this, we are purified.

We should, indeed, rejoice in our Jewish tradition, in the paths of wisdom revealed to us that enable and encourage us to be the most responsible and thus the most loving beings we can possibly become. Modeling this is a good portion of the concept of being  אור לגוים (Or l’Goyim) a light to the nations. It’s one of our critical roles, as Jews, in the human endeavor, and one demanding our survival.

As a friend once wrote me, they feel fortunate to have something so worth fighting for to protect.

G’mar Chatima Tova

Each year I enter Rosh HaShana totally unprepared.

I want to share this Bracha (blessing) with each of you.

The second perek (chapter) of Mishna Berachot concludes with  רַבָּן שִׁמְעוֹן בֶּן גַּמְלִיאֵל אוֹמֵר, לֹא כָּל הָרוֹצֶה לִטּוֹל אֶת הַשֵּׁם יִטֹּל, Rabban Shimon, son of Rabban Gamliel, says that not everyone who wants to assume the title (of a tzadik) is authorized to. Although the mishna is technically discussing the ruling of a bridegroom reciting the Shema on his wedding night (whether he can achieve the proper kavana (spiritual focus) for this while nervous about consummating his marriage), the real lesson is about arrogance and pretentiousness. While a very few special people (Rabban Gamliel, for example) are able to function at a much higher level than the rest of us, rather than wasting our energy pretending we’re holier than we really are we should, better, focus on our job.

Of course it’s much more glamorous to be the sexy, sophisticated model driving a new car on a tv commercial, actually building the car requires an entire range of human endeavors, some glamorous and some not no much (from mining the metals out of the earth to engineering and designing, to turning the screw that holds the door on). If everyone insists on being the spokesman, no one will actually manufacture the car to begin with!

Perhaps the major theme of the upcoming Yomim Noraim (Days of Awe) is tshuva (returning/resetting, but often badly translated as repentance). A famous lesson of this season is that our prayers can fix our sins against God, but we must personally, directly and specifically ask for forgiveness from the people we’ve harmed over the year. We’re also taught that when sincerely approached we’re absolutely obligated to forgive.

Given this principle, wouldn’t it be even better to forgive the people who’ve harmed us even before they ask? After all, the Prophet Isaiah (65:24) describes God, וְהָיָה טֶרֶם־יִקְרָאוּ וַאֲנִי אֶעֱנֶה עוֹד הֵם מְדַבְּרִים וַאֲנִי אֶשְׁמָע (Before they call and I have already answered; while they are still speaking I have already heard). Aren’t we mandated to imitate God? This is a real dilemma, since we’ve also given detailed instructions how to live as humans, and as Jews.

Especially in an environment where everything is considered relative, where exclusivity is considered, at best, boorish and parochial, it’s very tempting to reject our own tradition and just “go shopping” for ideas that, on the surface, appear “better”, “holier”, “more compassionate”. Especially when, after millennia of abuse which, to one degree or another, has led most of us to internalize at least a little of the anti-semitism we’ve experienced, we’re often not even aware when we’ve assumed non-Jewish values as Jewish ones. “Turning the other cheek”, while sounding nice, often leads to self-victimization and a sense of deserving the abuse. The phrase “Stockholm Syndrome”, in which the hostages identify with their kidnappers, describes a pathology, not a value to admire and aspire to. This is the extreme case of “forgiving before being asked”, and when performed by a human, rather than by God Himself, is self-damaging rather than self-enlightening.

But the damage doesn’t stop here. In a less extreme case, much more common in normal human interaction, the process of asking forgiveness from one we’ve harmed is a fundamental and essential step in our own tshuva, self-repair. Denied this opportunity, our path towards healing ourselves has been blocked. In halachic terms, the person who forgives before being asked, rather than being beneficent, has just stolen our mitzva! In more extreme cases (such as the wholesale terror campaign against the State of Israel and Jews worldwide), those with the pretensions of “godliness” only validate the evil that others do. Assuming that somewhere down the road, once our own survival has been secured, we do want even our enemies to return to a righteous path, we haven’t done them any favors either by validating their savagery.

God provided us the framework of a justice system (one of the seven Noahide laws that are incumbent on all humans, not just Jews, which define being civilized) to teach us by practice how to become a just person, a צדיק (tzaddik), something every human being is capable of becoming. We create a just society, not to mention a safe and secure one for everyone, when we don’t try to shortcut it out of the egotism and narcissism of believing we’re God rather than human.

Give ourselves and others the opportunity to experience the process of these holy days.

Ketiva v’Chatima Tova.

I often wonder if each of us is really expected to do it all. The number of  religious people who take an active part in Israel’s defense has dramatically increased. Likewise, a growing number of formerly non-religious people, who historically have taken the lead in Israel’s military, are returning to tradition as they begin to explore our shared religious heritage.

Tragically, the long-standing divide persists. With a few notable exceptions (including, of course, much of the Sephardi, as well as the national religious/hesder factions, which I’m not discussing since they’ve already developed a fine balance), most prominent and inspiring (orthodox and charedi) rabbis discuss the yearly cycle of holy days and Torah readings with no reference (except, perhaps, when an actual war is raging) at all to Israel’s life-and-death struggles with its neighbors. Likewise, again with some notable exceptions, most people writing about Israel’s many challenges address military and diplomatic issues as if Israel were “a nation like all others” (either an unrealistic hope of an unintended curse, depending on your orientation) with no mention of the spiritual reasons why it is this specific piece of real estate we must defend..

Although it’s only speculation (and I invite your thoughts as comments to this post) I wonder if it would really make more than a marginal contribution if more people from the religious camp, specifically the ultra-orthodox/charedi, took an active role in the IDF and other national service options and if more people in the military, government, diplomatic as well as our public advocates in the media, were to involve themselves more (at least privately) with Judaism.

From another angle, I can restate the question by asking if, ideally, we should all be generalists or if strict specialization is required in at least some areas. I ask this question as a deeply spiritual one–I take it for granted that God’s oversight (hashgacha pratit) leads to every situation we find ourselves; perhaps those involved in the practical have already, in previous incarnations, “ticked all their checkboxes” in terms of religious observance that could only have been done by their unique neshamot (souls), just as those now devout have, previously, taken care of all the “practical world” tikkunim they were assigned.

(The above is based on the teachings of our mystical tradition that each soul has specific netzutzot, holy sparks, embedded in physical reality that it must identify, integrate and raise up to the Holy Source Of All.)

It’s been said by many, including my own rebbe, Rabbi Shloime Twerski zt”l, that our generation is spiritually and in other ways very weak. While that is observably true, our era, both practically and spiritually, requires very special neshamot, souls, to address our challenges. Perhaps one parameter in which these neshamot are, indeed, weak is that most of us are incapable of successful “multi-tasking”. However, our neshamot match what our times require us to be:  highly focused specialists, often working in one realm or the other. Instead of fighting among ourselves, religious versus worldly, devaluing and delegitimizing each other, we each need thank, appreciate and celebrate our fellows. כל ישראל עֲרֵבִים זה לזה, Kol Yisrael Arevim Zeh l’Zeh, all of Yisrael are woven together in a single fabric where each of us, soldier and Torah scholar alike, complement our unique and absolutely vital contributions.

Ketiva v’Chatima Tova

As we focus on the Yomim Noraim, the days of fear and awe (Rosh HaShana and Yom Kippur, the Jewish New Year and, ten days later, Day of Atonement), there’s value in exploring whether we actually buy into the whole package. Is God real? Even if we grant the possibility of ourselves not occupying the highest rung of existence, is there any  validity to Judaism? Torah? Israel (either/both as a nation and/or a people)? Is there any reason at all, beyond nostalgia, to sit for hours in synagogue? To fast a week later?

While we dedicate this month, Elul, to introspection, perhaps we should include our beliefs in this inspection.

The Netivot Shalom (Slonimer Rebbe) writes about Emunah, belief. He distinguishes between intellectual belief, אמונת במח, Emunat b’Moach (belief in the brain), and emotional belief, אמונת בלב, Emunat b’Lev (belief in the heart), placing strongly felt belief much higher than mere  conceptual belief. But he also talks about an even deeper level, אמונת באברים, Emunat b’Avarim (belief in the limbs) belief that infuses every aspect of one’s entire being.

When our Judaism remains shallow–an ethnic identity or “multi-cultural” choice, a sentimental evocation of earlier, supposedly simpler or purer times–when it’s expressed by eating a bagel, spicing our language with a word or two of Yiddish or even by strict halachic observance, and/or wearing antiquated clothes and pretending it’s the shtetl or by mere allegiance to the country (if one is fortunate to live in Israel) we happen to live in, it will be easily derailed. Anything that comes down the pike which also satisfies longing and emptiness can mount at the very least a very serious challenge to our faith.

But when you are your belief, when your Judaism is more than a set of clothes to don when pleasing, when Torah and Yisrael are integrated with your very life-force, your true being, participation no longer feels optional. Our connection with the Land of Israel is no longer a political preference or a result of the Holocaust, but is a natural part of the universe, as invariable and inevitable as the laws of physics.

At that point we no longer apologize for our lives. We don’t ask permission to observe our holidays and to eat our special food. Rather, we proudly fill our land and don’t even begin to entertain the folly of granting anyone else sovereignty to the smallest portion of Eretz Yisrael. At this point we can finally begin to work on our destiny of bringing this world to perfection.

Kativa v’Chatima Tova

Har HaBayit, the Temple Mount, a mere 35 acres at the top of a very small hill in Jerusalem, is the most hotly contested real estate on earth. It’s a political hot potato, to the degree that when Jerusalem was fully liberated in the 1967 “Six-Day War”, this tiny plot, the holiest place on the planet for the Jewish people, was immediately returned to the political and religious control of the Jordanian Waqf, a Muslim institution which has continued, to this day, to make it almost impossible for Jews to even visit and on which it is completely impossible for a Jew to pray. A venue for picnics, soccer games and, quite often, violent anti-Jewish riots, while at the same time it has remained the focus of Jewish prayer for two thousand years (the Amida, the essential core of each of the three daily prayer services, is recited by Jews all over the world facing that single point), it’s really the prize all the superficial arguments about a Palestinian capital in “East” Jerusalem is really about.

While I suspect that the main function the two mosques on Har HaBayit serve the Moslem world is keeping it out of Jewish hands, this tiny plot of land has been our obsession ever since our Holy Temple was destroyed. When our daily prayers call for the rebuilding of Jerusalem, we really mean the Holy Temple, the Bet HaMikdash. When we plead, three times a day, for the Shechina, the feminine Divine presence to return to Zion, we mean to a rebuilt, rededicated and re-functioning Temple. Even though the sacrificial service has been suspended for millennia, not only have we preserved descriptions of it in great detail, we recite many of these descriptions daily. In fact, Tefilla, the prayer service itself, is largely an attempt to reproduce the spiritual benefits that used to flow to earth via these Temple services. (I’ll not here discuss the question of whether restored Karbanot, “sacrifices” will include animal sacrifice (largely a means of approaching God (karbon is based on the Hebrew word קרוב, karov, which means close, and, in verb form, to approach) by imitating God as Giver by providing food for the landless Kohanim, priestly class) or will only include the meal and grain offerings.)

Not only are most people outside the living practice of daily Jewish prayer unaware of and largely disinterested in the holy flow of transcendent life energy that animated and nourished the entire planet through our service, even those of us who do maintain the prayer and study practice only understand the tiniest hint. While we can, and do, talk about it daily, none of us, Jewish and non-Jewish, are able to actually experience the world in such an elevated state.

Our literature uses metaphors such as the light being cut off and our current existence is described as stumbling around in the dark. It’s like the “giant antenna” that received all the energy needed to sustain existence and give it meaning was destroyed and now only a trickle of very dim light gets through. It’s so dark and we’re all so weakened that most of us, most of the time (myself certainly included) are usually unaware that we’re wandering, blind and aimless and that a higher reality is even possible. We can tell ourselves that not only we, but the entire world once existed on an entirely elevated level of experience, but those are only words and promises that too many of us no longer believe in at all. To a very real degree, the universe limps along in “artificial life support” mode.

When we pray for a rebuilt Jerusalem and a restored Temple, it’s not so we can deny and deprive any other group or religion. As Isaiah teaches (56:7), כִּי בֵיתִי בֵּית־תְּפִלָּה יִקָּרֵא לְכָל־הָעַמִּים, “For My House shall be called a house of prayer for all peoples”. Without diminishing the contributions other peoples and other spiritual traditions make to the betterment of mankind, it is our unique and exclusive responsibility to restore and operate  this “gate” through which flowed, and can flow again, the greatest bounty of Divine energy we, all mankind and the entire universe can handle.

May we soon see the world in all its vibrancy, hear its song in all its beauty, taste our food with all its true flavor, love each other with all our passion. May all mankind be reunited with the Creator and bask in love. May it be soon.

Rosh Chodesh Elul, a new month, an eternally new month. This morning I began to sound the shofar, not merely practicing for “the real deal” on Rosh HaShanah, but beginning the daily call to seriously go over my actions, correct my failures, refine my successes. We call it Tshuvah and are supposed to make it a priority all year, but of course, being human, we often let it slide.

It seems that I’ve been here before, but I know that I never have. Of course I’ve experienced quite a few Rosh Chodesh Eluls, one each year I’ve been alive, but I never before experienced this one. I’ve heard many of the stories numerous times, know the exhortations by heart, am familiar with the feelings of urgency and inadequacy, but also with the feelings of questioning the value of it all. I mean, here I am again, back where I was last year and the year before and the year before that. Have I progressed? Have I changed? Is our world any closer to the שלימות Shleymut, “perfect completion”, that is our goal, our project both personal and communal? Have I learned anything at all? Do the cries of the shofar reveal any new truths this year? Will they with the final Tekiah Gedolah at the end of Yom Kippur?

I also started my twice-daily recitations of לדוד ה′ אורי L’David HaShem Ori, the 27th Psalm, which we begin saying this day and, with it, bind together all the days through the end of the fall holy days, Sh’mini Atzeret at the end of Sukkot. There are so many phrases which are so familiar, as familiar as the voice of the shofar. אַחַת ׀ שָׁאַלְתִּי מֵאֵת־יְהֹוָה אוֹתָהּ אֲבַקֵּשׁ שִׁבְתִּי בְּבֵית־יְהֹוָה כָּל־יְמֵי חַיַּי, Achat Sh’Alti M’Ayt HaShem Ota Avakesh–Shivti B’veyt HaShem Kol Y’mei Chayai, “One thing, just one thing I ask and beg of God, to dwell in the House of God all of my days.” These words sing themselves.

The poetry is deceptively simple but what do we mean “to dwell in the House of God”? We certainly don’t mean to squeeze ourselves into the Holy Temple, may it soon be rebuilt–especially if we’re not Cohanim, members of the priest caste, who are the only ones allowed in much of its precincts. Rather, the plea is to achieve a 24/7 intimacy with The Creator. Did my almost 100 yearly repetitions of this plea last year and the year before and every Elul, year after year, bring me closer to this goal? Will it this time around?

שְׁמַע־יְהֹוָה קוֹלִי אֶקְרָא וְחָנֵּנִי וַעֲנֵנִי, Sh’ma HaShem, Koli Ekra, V’Chaneyni V’Aneyni, “Listen, God, my voice calls–and grace me and answer me.” I hear my late Rebbe, Rabbi Shloime Twerski zt”l sing those words, his emotion and plea for relationship stark, intense, filled with love and longing. If the holiest person I’ve known felt such longing, felt so far separated, what hope do I have?

כִּי־אָבִי וְאִמִּי עֲזָבוּנִי וַיהֹוָה יַאַסְפֵנִי, Ki Avi v’Imi Azavuni v’HaShem Ya’Asfuni, “Although my father and mother have left me behind, God gathers me in.” No matter how abandoned I might feel, I’m never alone–but, reaffirming this so many times, year after year, have I reached that sense of being always accompanied?

Warming up for the Yomim Noraim, the Days of Awe, but also the days of truly seeing, despair, frustration and fear rush through my emotions. But so does hope. I’ve been here before….. sort of. The person I was has now become the person I am, just as the world at the end of 5773 has become the world looking backwards at 5774 and with hope to 5775.

Quite a few years ago, speaking with one of my oldest and closest friends, I complained that things never seem to work out the way you thought they would. Her reply was, “Sometimes they work out better.” Sometimes….

We humans are inherently short-sighted creatures. While we can look backwards quite a distance, forward we can only see up to the next turn in the road. Predicting the future, whether basing those predictions on the past or on any analytical tools we might invent, is a very low-yield activity. If it were otherwise, we’d all be sitting at the beach after striking it rich on the stock market.

I’m old enough to have been called “Christ-killer” as a child and beaten up for that. I grew up in a very close Jewish community in Denver, not long after the Holocaust, and everyone who heard about it was shocked, sympathetic and supportive. I was certain in those days that this reality was permanent–Christians would always, at least deep in their hearts, hate Jews and Jews would always come to the rescue of other Jews.

One of the miracles of the current war against Hamas and other Gaza-based terrorists is the unprecedented unity of the Jewish people in Israel. As the cliché goes, if you have two Jews you have three opinions, and if they’re Israeli you have thirty! But today only a tiny group of idealogues in Israel refuse to see the life-and-death necessity of engaging in this war.

Ironically, the story in the United States is radically different. While support for Israel used to be the one issue that would unite American Jews across the denominational (including non-affiliated) spectrum, moral relativity and “narrative” theory, the new pornography, are the beliefs-of-choice of a very significant and extremely influential segment of our people. The usually admirable instinct to protect the underdog has been hijacked by evil cynically masquerading as victim. For too many of them, Israel is the villain, God forbid.

Things don’t seem to be working out like I imagined they would.

On the other hand, Israel’s greatest friends in the US these days are Christian. The children and grandchildren of the people who cursed me now bring legislation and use their political leverage to protect Israel. They witness that the people who used to be condemned as Christ-killers are the only protectors of Christians in the entire middle east.

Sometimes they work out better.

Rosh Chodesh (first of the month, new moon) represents the realm of hard judgement. This month, Av, on the ninth of which we fast to remember the destruction of the both holy Temples as well as a myriad of other tragedies that have struck the Jewish people throughout history, is the hardest of the months. So today, Rosh Chodesh Av, is the hardest of the hard, and as Israel battles for its very survival against the terror regime in Gaza, and while it’s under diplomatic attack by its major “ally”, we indeed experience today the hardness within the hardness.

Two weeks from now, at the full moon of Av, is Tu (ט״ו–the Hebrew numerals for 15) B’Av, described as the most joyous day of the year. The full moon represents fullness, chesed, loving kindness. Following our deepest struggles, it is more than mere relief, but the joy of victory, the joy of rebuilding, the joy of hope and future.
May it be so this year.