Yom Kippur Day Sermon - 5784 - Dreaming about what Israel Can Be

Imagine this scene:

It’s Jerusalem in early July. A Saturday night. I’ve slipped away from the Federation Mission that I’ve been leading and found myself on a street corner surrounded by Reform Jews walking toward a weekly rally to protest the Israeli’s government’s efforts to weaken the power of the Supreme Court.

It’s dark and next to a banner for the Israeli Movement of Progressive Judaism, we pray the Havdallah service. A quick glance to the left and right shows that other groups are doing the same. The conservative movement, Judaic scholars, and LQBTQ organizations are all practicing their Judaism publicly in their own affinity enclaves before joining together in one jumbled mass to speak out for justice and democracy. The street is blooming with blue and white. Israeli flags as far as the eye can see.

As we extinguish the candle in the wine, the last ritual act of the service, all eyes turn to Gilad Kariv, the first Reform Rabbi to serve in the K’nesset, Israeli’s parliament. I wish I could tell you I followed every word of his, but he was speaking in Hebrew, and I could only catch glimpses. What I do know is that he spoke with a passion and fervor matched by few, and that those who could understand him, hung on his every word.

Knowing what I do about Gilad Kariv, I’m not surprised.

There’s a scene in the Israeli movie footnotes where a famous scholar travels from place to place on the holiday of Shavuot teaching Torah. He’s lecturing here at 7 PM rushing off there to talk at 9 PM and then inspiring a full house at 11 in a completely different part of the city. There’s something farcical about it. No teacher of Torah is really that heralded.

Or so, I thought, until the judicial crisis began in Israel, and so many eyes turned to Gilad Kariv.

If you can’t tell, I am a little fascinated by him. How is it that a Reform Rabbi turned politician from a relatively powerless political party, can become the darling of the Israeli protest movement, and the voice for the democratic left?

Like anything, there isn’t one reason that every protest, every rally, every news agency seems to want him. And the reasons range:

He has invested a lot in his social media presence

He’s a clear and passionate speaker

He shows up, consistently

He can speak in Jewish language and Jewish values, which even secular Israelis crave

But as I’ve looked more into his success one things has jumped out, something authenticated by Hebrew speakers who understand his speeches much better than I do:

In a climate where so many people are against things – against the government, against Netanyahu, against judicial reform, against the treatment of the Palestinians – Rabbi Gilad Kariv is one of the few people who are for things as much, if not more, than he is against.

I can’t go through all of his interview and writings to make this claim, so you will have to trust me on this. But to give you a taste, here is an excerpt from his debut speech to the Israeli knesset when he took the helm as one of 120 members of government.

After telling the story of his work as a Reform Rabbi in Israel and taking issue with the way the Ultra-Orthodox have misused the Zionist vision for their own political benefit he turns to the positive, reminding us to pursue:

...the promise of equality and opportunity to each and every citizen; the protection of human rights; the reduction of economic inequalities; the reparation of the relationship between the Jewish majority and the Arab minority and encouraging coexistence; the prioritizing of the public interest over individual preferences; the promotion of social mobility and equal access to resources; the cultivation of a pluralist and tolerant society; the deep concern for the environment;...the striving for a political agreements and peace – not only with the Gulf state, but more importantly with those with whom we share the promised land... creating a just, tolerant and peaceful society are exactly the weight we are willing to carry.

The truth is, Gilad Kariv’s way of speaking is actually a return to the essence of Zionist discourse.

The late 1800 and early 1900 were full of some of the most colorful personalities in modern Jewish history. And boy did they disagree about what Israel could and should be. But every single one could articulate a positive message. They were building something real, and the urgency of their words expressed that.

Theodore Herzel, often called the father of Zionism, wanted a safe-haven for the Jewish people, a place that Jews could go where they would be in charge of their own political destiny, away from the rising antisemitism of Europe. Knowing that the Jews weren’t just a religion but a nation as well, he sought to find a national homeland for us. Just as the French had France, and the Germans had Germany, the Jews would have a “Jewish land” to call our own.

Other thinkers had different visions. Berl Katznelson and Ber Borochov fell into a camp called the Labor Zionists. Unlike Herzel, they cared about using Israel to create a socialist utopia. They were the ones who made the desserts bloom, who dried up the swamps, and who built the Kibbutz movement. For them, their vision was to create a “new Jew.” One that didn’t stay inside and study all day, but that could be strong, tan, and could use their hands to work the field.

Then there was Asher Zvi Hirsch Ginsberg, known as Ahad Ha’am. His vision was of an Israel that was steeped in Jewish culture. He wanted Israel to exist so that it might produce the best Jewish art, the best literature, the best dance. Unlike others who wanted to build a country where all Jews would one day settle, Ahad Ha’am valued the Diaspora, hoping its culture would be in dialogue with that of Israel. And since sovereignty wasn’t important to him, as it was for a guy like Hertzel, he didn’t really care much if Israel was a binational state with the Palestinians.

Somehow, over time, we’ve lost these pioneer's spirit. With few exceptions, our discourse around Israel is not hopeful or forward looking. We are no longer dreamers.

We are cynics.

We’ve watched the struggles and trials of this still budding nation, and we’ve turned away from allowing ourselves to dream, to hope, to affirm. Open up any press release from any Jewish organization critical of some aspect of Israel. Almost universally it will focus on what Israel has done wrong, without then turning to what Israel could be if they did right.

And this way of thinking is to our peril.

You may not realize it, but there have only been two other times in all of Jewish history when Jews have actually had sovereign control over Israel. The first happened during the eras of Kings Saul, David, and Solomon in the Bible, 3000 years ago. The second happened in the years right after the Hannukah story, a little over 2000 years ago when the Jews succeeded in kicking out the Greeks.

In both instances, Jewish sovereignty lasted between 75-80 years. And in both instances, the Kingdom fell because of infighting. After Solomon’s death, a group pulled out of the kingdom starting their own in the North of Israel because they were angry over the taxes Solomon had levied on them. After the Hannukah story, the Romans got called in to settle a squabble over who might be the next leader of the Jewish people, and liking they land so much, they decided to stick around and occupy it.

Now for the scary part – Israel turned 75 this year, the same age where things usually crumble. And predictably, we are mirroring history; Israel is facing some of the deepest rifts in Israeli society in its modern iteration. Like in our own country, Israel has had to recon with a divided society, one where people hate one another because of how they vote and who they support.

There is an Israeli hip-hop song that has turned viral and is making its way around Israel now of two men sitting around a table. Each takes turns speaking to the other, beginning with the refrain, “I don’t hate you.” But then, each side, a left-wing protester and a right-wing government support, tear into one another in as vicious a rap battle as I’ve seen. The message: despite wanting unity, neither side can see past their anger and hurt. Both need to be right. And both spend much more time talking about how they are against the other side, than for what they actually stand for.

I wish I could tell you that there is an easy answer to what’s happening in Israel. But there isn’t. And we, living in the diaspora, have little agency to change things.

The biggest thing we can do is to model how to talk about Israel. And this begins, by taking a page out of Rabbi Gilad Kariv’s playbook, and finding ways to stand for our values more than we stand against those of others.

If you think about it enough, every one of us has a vision of what Israel could or should be.

Maybe for you it’s about Israel being a democracy in the Middle East.

Maybe it’s Israel being a beacon of justice and an ethical light, showing the best of what Judaism is to the rest of the world.

Maybe it’s Israel as a place where all Jews can practice their religion however they see fit.

Maybe you want Israel to right the tides of history, where Jews are no longer the perpetual victims, but the stewards of their own destiny.

Maybe Israel is a case study in how to treat minorities living in one’s midst.

There is no question that positive messages resonate.

Think back to the great speeches in our country’s history. Martin Luther King had plenty negative to say about the treatment of African Americans in the 1960s, but it was the hopeful message of his “I Have a Dream” speech that captured the hearts and imaginations of the American people. Lincoln could have disparaged the South during his Gettysburg address, but instead he chose to remind his listeners, and future generations, that our task is enact the ideal set forth in our Declaration of Independence that “all men are created equal.” John F Kennedy could have called us lazy, but instead he gave us a challenge, “ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country.”

There is a place to be critical of Israel. There is virtually no Israeli, on either side, who is not. Why then, shouldn’t we also be?

But don’t just stop there. Dream. Vision. Hope. Yearn.

I believe Israel can realize the aspirations of its founders. I believe that somewhere, buried in that messy, complicated, gnarled, maddening land that I love is the will to balance the needs of so many religions, peoples, and expressions of Judaism. I believe Israel is capable of the kinds of sacrifices needed to find peace with its neighbors, near and far. I believe that there is a common language that left and right can learn, that might one day bridge the gap between them. I believe that Israel can realize the message of the prophet Micah, that “each of us will sit under their own vine and fig tree, and none will be afraid.”

I think back often to the night I attended that Jerusalem protest. What stands out to me is not the anti-government sentiment, though there was plenty of it. It is the flags. In America it’s rare to see an American flag at the left-wing protest, but in Israel the flag is a key part of the movement.

And that gives me hope. Flags matter. Symbols matter. They stand FOR something. It may be a vision of an Israel not fully realized. But within that blue and white are the collective hopes and dreams of all who want to see a just and secure Israel.

Our task is to find a way to put those visions into words, words that will move people to action.