From the Rabbi's Desk

In 1991, I was called to the Torah as a Bar Mitzvah for Parshat Miketz, and this Shabbat I’ll be reading Haftara at services for the anniversary of my Bar Mitzvah. I’ll spare all of you the math; I’m turning 45 years old today. When I was a kid, we belonged to a non-traditional synagogue that identified as Reform and as such I didn’t chant my haftara, I read it in English. My Torah reading consisted of a few sentences that were not chanted. I’ve tried each year to read to make up for that one day. It was on the day of my Bar Mitzvah that the presiding officer of the synagogue said: “who knows, maybe you’ll become a rabbi…” So, you can all blame her for my being who I am… I don’t recall my speech that day and I don’t have any copies since I bought my first real computer with my money from the Bar Mitzvah.

Parshat Miketz is about the dreams of Pharaoh and the interpretation of those dreams by the recently freed Joseph. It’s about his setting up a system through which Egypt was saved during the years of famine, which helped the neighboring peoples as well. We learn about Joseph’s brothers coming to Egypt and standing before him while not knowing it was him. We learn about his testing them and about the reunion, along with his being reunited with his dad.

Joseph wasn’t a very good brother when he lived with his family. Joseph’s brothers weren’t exactly good either and there was a lot of wrongdoing that had gone around. When Joseph revealed himself to his brothers, they were beyond scared. They feared Joseph sought vengeance towards them. They feared he wished to get even. He hugged them and forgave them… that was his response. Forgiveness is a beautiful gift and a wonderful goal. We should all look to be forgiven and to be forgiving. We should all find room in our hearts to look for forgiveness and grant it as well.

My senior seminar course in college was about conflict resolution and forgiveness. I was “the Jew” in the class. I suppose there were other Jewish students, but I was the one who wore my Jewish identity on my sleeve and saw the world through Jewish eyes. I was appalled by the course and the class was disappointed in my response. The course featured numerous examples of “turning the other cheek” which is a patently Christian value and inherently not Jewish. I couldn’t endure a world in post-Apartheid South Africa where the murderous Afrikaner Nationalists were not punished for their actions and simply “admitted” to what they had done during the years of Apartheid. I repeatedly proclaimed that the world needs true actions and not just words and that apologies needed to be backed up with verifiable behaviors. 

This week, the Dekalb County Board of Commissioners met to consider a declaration that would call for an immediate cease fire in Israel. While this declaration is meaningless since I’m pretty sure neither side cares one bit about what’s said in Dekalb County, it’s meaningful in terms of the struggle we’re having here in America. As more and more people seem to be throwing their support around those who would seek our destruction, it’s important we’re aware of and fight against these voices. I was unable to attend the hearing, but I did watch the video of the two speakers at the meeting. The person who spoke on behalf of the call for the cease fire had the audacity to speak about Jewish power and money being the reason people are too scared to stand up against us and Israel. She employed some of the oldest antisemitic tropes and even claimed antisemitism isn’t about Jews but about anyone from the Middle East. No vote was held this week and the issue was tabled. 

Judaism is a religion of deed and creed. It’s not enough to merely say one is sorry… rather one must appease the aggrieved party. It’s not enough to say words without backing them up with real world actions proving the veracity of your repentant intentions. The world wants the Jewish people to move on and accept a cease fire. This is wrong. It pains me greatly to argue for war and against a cessation of hostilities. I don’t like war. I don’t like seeing people die. But the world cannot demand we live with people hellbent on our destruction who have proven their evil time and again. The world cannot demand we lay down our arms and leave a murderous regime in place that seeks the destruction of our homeland, our nation, and our people.

Every call for a cease fire is a call for the eventual continuation of the attempted destruction of our people and our state. Every call for a cease fire accepts it’s okay to leave the culprits of mass-murder, rape, and torture free and able to do it again. Every call for a cease fire is an acceptance of the kidnapping of men, women and children and their being held against their will in conditions unfit for the living. Every call for a cease fire is a call to return to a world of October 6 but knowing October 7 happened and will happen again. It’s simply immoral to ask the State of Israel and the Jewish people to lay down their arms and accept any of this. Israel must finish this mission and must secure a future of security and peace for their people and thus for the Palestinian people as well.

Joseph found it in his heart to forgive his brothers for trying to kill him, throwing him in a pit, selling him into slavery and so much more. His brothers found it in their hearts to move forward with a brother who tormented them and was unfairly favored their whole lives. But in both of these cases, the ability to move forward only came after verifiable evidence of change was presented. This ability to move forward came because the people had in fact changed and didn’t merely pay lip service through apologizing. This ability to move forward is something we should all aspire to live up to, but only when we’re willing to see that words are only words while words backed up with actions are what matter most. Our world has a lot of changing to do. Our world has a lot of growing to do. Our world isn’t ready to end this conflict because the enemy isn’t ready to change and accept us as we are and live side by side in the world with us.