From the Rabbi's Desk

We’re just about on the cusp of the High Holidays, and as such, things are quite busy at the synagogue to get ourselves ready. In thinking about the High Holidays, I also think about the attitude we have towards all of our holidays. We’re all familiar with the strange and false statement that all Jewish holidays can be summed up in three statements: they tried to kill us, they failed, lets eat. These statements do not describe Rosh Hashana, Yom Kippur, Sukkot, Tu B’Shvat or Shavuot. They do describe Hanukkah, Purim and Passover… to a degree. So, if the joke isn’t accurate, why is it perpetuated?

The answer can be found in psychology: generational trauma. We, the Jewish people, have inherited a legacy of pain and fear. We come from a people who hid under floorboards while their friends and families were being murdered. We come from a people who have been wandering for millennia as we were thrown out of country after country. We’re a people who have perfected the act of memorializing as we have too many tragedies to list in this short article. This generational trauma is a collective burden all Jews carry. We thought in America we were safe and nothing could go wrong here, and while this remains the reality for the most part, it has been diminished.  We now know even here, even in the year 2024, our neighbors can turn on us. The trauma is real and it’s something we need to be more aware of.

The opening of פרשת כי תבוא/Parshat Ki Tavo is a history lesson. We were commanded that when we crossed the Jordan River and came to offer our first fruits for the first time, we were to make a declaration. The words were a history of our struggle. Even in our joyous moment of celebrating our harvest, we were still required to reflect on the pain that had gotten us to where we were. That’s something that has stuck with us. Look at the סדר של פסח/Passover Seder, the words of the declaration are the very words we say each year:

You shall then recite as follows before your God ה': “My father was a fugitive Aramean. He went down to Egypt with meager numbers and sojourned there; but there he became a great and very populous nation. The Egyptians dealt harshly with us and oppressed us; they imposed heavy labor upon us. We cried to ה', the God of our ancestors, and ה' heard our plea and saw our plight, our misery, and our oppression. ה' freed us from Egypt by a mighty hand, by an outstretched arm and awesome power, and by signs and portents, bringing us to this place and giving us this land, a land flowing with milk and honey”. (דברים 26:5 – 9) 

These words reflect that we’ve always been a people of memory and memorial. We’ve always been a people that carry our past with us as we look forward. The pain of yesterday is meant to push us to pursue a better now, and an even better tomorrow. But there’s the real problem of our generational trauma and pain. We struggle to break the chains of fear and reactiveness. The world wants us to lick our wounds and move on with our lives but we’re not able to do that. We’re not able to walk away if there remains a threat to our people and our country. We cannot ignore the existential threats and accept we did the best that we could. We have a responsibility to our past, present, and future to fight to protect our people. As we’re closing in on a year since the catastrophe of last October, we see a world demanding we move on, and we find ourselves time and again feeling more and more alone. The nations of the world will never know what it’s like to walk the road we’ve walked and continue to walk. The nations of the world do not understand, or fail to accept, that we cannot allow another catastrophe to strike. We’re all too well acquainted with what can happen to our people.