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On one of our visits to Israel last year, we had lunch in a little restaurant in Jaffa with our friend Ofir and his girlfriend Yuval.  We first met Ofir when he was a brain science student at Ben Gurion University. But for much of the last two years - and in spite of a medical deferral which would have allowed him to avoid doing so - he has been in reserve duty as a combat officer, commanding troops first in Gaza and then in Lebanon.  It wasn’t long before our conversation turned to the war, and Israel’s dual aims of defeating Hamas and getting its hostages back.  Like so many arm-chair Zionists here in the United States, I could not help but dwell on the idea that these two aims were at odds with each other - that what Israel would have to do to get the hostages back would leave Hamas in power in Gaza. I pressed Ofir on that.  Painful as it is to say, I told him that I believed that winning the war had to take precedence.  But Ofir was adamant.  “We have to get our hostages back,” he told me, his voice unshakably firm and filled with emotion. The pained look on Yuval’s face told me she felt the same. 

It was in that moment that I realized the depth of the trauma coursing through Israeli society.  It stems, I believe, in part from exhaustion, but also from being the object of the world’s hate just for defending themselves.  When people like Ofir and Yuval speak of the absolute necessity of bringing the hostages back, you can’t help but feel that their sense of their country’s moral decency is tied to doing so.  It’s as if they're saying “we can’t prove our humanity to anyone else, but at least let us prove it to ourselves, even if so doing comes at a terrible price.”  I am no psychologist, but this seems like very deep trauma to me.

That is what I want to speak about with you tonight: trauma.  Not just the trauma in Israel, but throughout the Jewish world, including here in our own community.  This trauma is impacting each of us in different ways.  All of us are being shaken by the explosion of antisemitism.  But there are other traumatic experiences our members are enduring where I fear I may be adding to their pain.  I am thinking specifically of those of you who cannot square Israel’s actions in Gaza with your understanding of Judaism’s values.  While I have, over these past two years, nursed and rehearsed my own traumas with all of you, I have done so under the dubious assumption that you all feel the way I do.  And now I fear I have taken too little notice or care for those who disagree with me.  In the spirit of the season, I hope this sermon will be an act of atonement.

Trauma was the dominant condition we experienced when we visited Israel in December of 2023, two and a half months after the massacre of October 7.  Jeff Kaye, one of the administrators at Ben Gurion University, likened the country’s state to the third day of shiva - a moment when our tradition says mourners should still be allowed to wail without attempting to console them.  Jeff could have added that this shiva was for those who suffered a violent and unexpected end.  I was amazed at how such a description accurately captured the mood of an entire country.

But then the idea of trauma faded from my mind.  To be honest, it isn’t a condition I think about much.  Anger, grief, depression, indifference - all are states to which I relate more readily than trauma. But when we went back to Israel this past January and again in May, there seemed to be no other way of describing that which we were seeing.  People seemed punch drunk - unable to fully process what kept coming at them again and again. 

Then, we hosted an Israeli couple in whose home we have stayed multiple times during the war.  They told us of how spending time in the spacious, green, quiet of our lives was soothing an angst they didn’t even realize was gripping their souls.  It gave us a unique chance to see how much trauma Israelis are carrying with them every day.  If I have had misgivings about the course of this war over the past several months, they stem not from the many mistakes and self-inflicted wounds Israel has sustained by prosecuting it, but rather from the way it is adding to the burden placed on what I now see as a traumatized people.

And that got me thinking about us.  Aren’t we traumatized too?  Think about what we have witnessed since October 7: vandalized posters of Israeli hostages, anti-Israel and, frankly, antisemitic encampments on prestigious college campuses, politicians and pundits on both the right and left condemning the Jewish state, physical assaults, and even murder.  Every day there seems to be another recording artist I am dropping from my Spotify playlists, or another actor whose shows I will no longer watch because they are embracing the most horrific libels against Jews.  I even found myself refusing to buy Irish Spring soap because I didn’t want to be reminded of Ireland’s leading role in branding Israel an apartheid, genocidal state every time I took a shower.

But then I got to thinking about so many others in our community who don’t share my view of the conflict - those who cannot reconcile Israel’s actions with what they have been taught are fundamental Jewish values.  What about their trauma?

I am not talking about those who question the right of Jews to a state of their own, or who condemn Israel's fundamental existence.  I am talking about those Jews for whom seeing Israel conduct a prolonged conflict against a vastly weaker opponent in which innocent civilians are suffering and dying violates everything they have been taught about Judaism.  Perhaps their Jewish identity is deeply and proudly rooted in the outsized role our people played in the fight for civil rights for all Americans.  Perhaps it is animated by a universalist dream that Jews are meant to be a light to the nations.  Such beliefs are not only valid, they are at the core of virtually every non-Orthodox Hebrew school curriculum for more than half a century.  If you are among those who feel this way, you are being true to a noble vision for Judaism, and you are deserving of my respect.

But if you are among those so troubled by Israel's conduct of the war, then in addition to the traumas we are all facing, you face the added trauma of isolation.  You love your Jewish identity too strongly to join protests that have a distinctly antisemitic bend.  And yet, in your own community, your beliefs are not shared by your rabbi or by the most vocal of your fellow congregants.  And so you are hurting and have nowhere to turn.   

It hurts me to think there are members of this community who do not see this war the way I do.  But it hurts me even more to think of the isolation they must be experiencing.  In such traumatic times, we must do better - I must do better - for these brothers and sisters of ours.

And yet, how are we to do so?  How does one traumatized person tend to another whose traumas he doesn’t share?  This is the moment where I should wheel out the clichés about this being a safe space where folks are non-judgmental and viewpoint diversity is valued.  There is more than a hint of validity in all these claims, but so what?  Does the fact that we honor the contrasting opinions of Shammai and Hillel mean that we will welcome a challenging voice on a topic so raw and painful as the deaths of innocents in Gaza?  I well remember my first days in rabbinical school being told that this was a safe space to let my guard down and just be myself.  The phrase “safe space” was tossed around like an incantation; just saying it made it so.  Never mind that truly safe spaces are built on trust, and trust is gained over time and experience.

I suppose then, my act of atonement in this sermon is to try and rebuild trust.  So let me attempt to do so by being honest with you.  I am not able to listen to all views on Israel dispassionately, nor do I think I can necessarily affirm your beliefs if you are seeking affirmation. That said, I promise you to try my best to listen to your opinions and concerns and fears respectfully and sympathetically.  Whatever my other shortcomings, I do believe myself capable of honoring the sincerity with which you hold your views.  I know full well that my own views on Israel constitute a paradigm through which I view the conflict and indeed the entire world, and I know it is hard and painful to step outside one’s paradigm.  I will try to do so. 

But I must ask something of you in return.  I must ask you to stay.  I must ask you to engage.  I must ask you to have the courage not to run if I challenge your beliefs, just as I promise not to pull rabbinical rank in the face of yours. Recently Terri was with a friend she has known almost all her life.  Out of the blue, that friend announced to her that Israelis had no one to blame but themselves and their own government for the problems they face.  When Terri pushed back and suggested that Israel’s problems might actually stem from being surrounded by those who wanted the country destroyed, her friend responded “we aren’t going to have this discussion.”  And so they didn’t have that discussion. And that missing discussion has damaged their relationship more than talking about it ever could. 

We have to have these discussions, not because I have to convince you that I am right, but because we are tied to one another.  כׇּל יִשְׂרָאֵל עֲרֵבִים זֶה בָּזֶה, goes the Talmudic adage: all of Israel serves as a source of security for one another.  The Talmud also teaches that the Second Temple was destroyed by the Romans on account of שִׂנְאַת חִנָּם.  That phrase is often translated as baseless hatred.  But the adjective חִנָּם comes from the Hebrew root meaning grace - that is, something we receive without merit.  I think the better translation is gratuitous hatred.  Hatred is rarely baseless, but oftentimes our anger gratuitously exceeds the provocation.  Which is to say that our need for one another - our obligation to serve as a security for one another, especially in these fraught times - has to be more important to us than our hurt feelings.

I know I am asking much and offering little in return, but I worry that a rift is growing in this synagogue.  In prayer, in study, in social engagement, this community is thriving as it has not in my nineteen years here.  Through these trying days, many of us are communicating deeply and meaningfully with one another.

But amid all that, I feel there is also a significant part of our community that is drifting away, and I find myself trying to understand why.   Perhaps it's just the natural, generational flow of American Jews into and out of their dual identity.  Perhaps the cost of being Jewish is just rising too high for some of us.  I will touch on that idea when I speak in the morning.

Tonight though, I speak as one Jew nursing his own hurts, to others who need care for theirs.  I believe with all my heart that, whatever our differences, we need each other.  Tending to each other's traumas will not be easy.  But for the sake of us all, we have to try.