From the Rabbi's Desk

Ya’akov stood in his father’s room giving him food that his mother, Rivkah, had prepared. Ya’akov was wearing his brother’s clothing and had fur on his arms to mimic his brother’s hairiness. The scent, the feel and the food all seemed to be from Esav but the voice was the voice of Ya’akov. Yitzchak said that “the voice was the voice of Ya’akov and the hands were the hands of Esav.” (Bereshit 27:22)  This scene is the most overt episode of impersonation in the Torah, but it is far from the only one: Sarah/Sarai was claimed to have been Avraham/Avram’s sister and not his wife; Rivka was claimed to have been Yitzhak’s sister and not his wife; Yosef’s brothers brought his jacket to their father to convince him that he was dead; Yosef was obscured from his brothers because he looked like an Egyptian… there are so many examples. The act of concealing one’s identity is sometimes used for good and at other times for evil.

In focusing on this week’s obfuscation, Ya’akov posing as his brother, we find it to be a complicated matter in that he was seeking to take something that should’ve belonged to his brother.  At the same time, there is an apparent plan for this to happen and for one reason or another, God was not offended by this and did not disapprove. Today we have a complicated issue in our community in that people are coming forward and using their being Jewish as their bona fide proof that they speak on our behalf. Rabbis are taking this another step and are asserting that, as rabbis, they speak for the Jews. The problem is that what they are saying is both true and false; they are Jewish and are speaking for a Jew and for a segment of our population, but they do not speak for our community as a whole. In all fairness, nobody actually speaks for all Jewish people. At the same time there is a community that is more unified than at any time in recent history and has chosen to have a rather unified voice.

On Tuesday Ayelet chose to spend her 15th birthday with 290,000 people who gathered to show our uniformity and nuanced points of view in our love for and support of the State of Israel (Thankfully she allowed Carrie and I to accompany her on this most critical and important of trips). One of the speakers from before the actual rally began was Congressman Ritchie Torres of the Bronx in New York.  He said: “Not everyone calling for a ceasefire wants Israel to cease to exist. But everyone who wants Israel to cease to exist is calling for a ceasefire.” Those words should be screamed from the rooftop. I am not a war monger and I do not like seeing innocent civilians being caught in the crossfire. I mourn the loss of life of those who are innocent, but I do not want a cease fire because Israel cannot stop until the mission is completed. If Israel is to survive for another 75 years and beyond, then this war cannot end without Hamas being driven from Gaza and from the world. Israel and the Israeli people cannot be asked to accept homicidal monsters on their border. Anyone who asserts that as a Jew or as a rabbi that they speak on behalf of us and our leadership is obscuring the truth. Anyone who asserts that Israel is not bringing honor to the Jewish people in the way in which it is conducting this war is not speaking on our behalf… they are speaking only for themselves.

Jews and rabbis are more than welcome to disagree and to have issues with our Homeland and they are within their rights and within the Jewish tradition of nuance and deep critical analysis. But they are not the Jewish community and they are not our leaders. They are a fringe and they have no right to claim to be something that they are not. They have no right to make it appear that Jews are against this or that and that Israel is acting against Jewish tradition and values. I am tired of writing these articles and giving these sermons but I will not stop. I will not stop until all hostages are back home.  I will not stop so long as Hamas continues to terrorize our people. I will not stop so long as bigots and anti-Semites spread lies and ugliness and so long as Jews are not given the same respect that all people in the world enjoy. I refuse to wear a mask or a disguise. I refuse to back down from where I am as an unapologetic supporter of Israel and the Jewish people. I ask that those who hide behind their masks as representing our people take their masks off.