“History Repeating Itself” | March 10th
Many have asked about the complicated and worrisome nature of the situation in Israel. It is existential and scary.
To know me is to know my deep Zionism. Like all things we love, we can criticize things we love. It doesn’t make our love conditional.
This is an editorial I penned about the situation in Israel and my concerns of how our enemies are looking at this moment.
Since Benjamin Netanyahu first took the reigns of the premiership in 1996, and each of the five other times he has secured victory and a coalition in the Knesset, he has been singularly focused against those who seek to harm Israel. Most notably Iran, and curtailing its nuclear ambitions but equally worrisome and closer to home, Hizbollah amassing weapons on the northern border and Hamas gaining traction and engaging in asymmetric warfare have been the alarm siren of Bibi and his followers.
“He will keep us safe,” his loyal followers have chanted at his rallies. Around Shabbat tables people will admit, they feel safest with his leadership. Kitschy commercials were even aired about Bibi looking after the country like a baby sitter – calling him the Bibi-sitter – so parents can live worry free.
In his most recent quest for continuing leadership Bibi did NOT make his campaign’s primary goal to deepen and broaden the Abraham Accords. He did not present a plan to conclude the decades long conflict with the Palestinian people. He didn’t place at the top of his agenda any major programs for affordable housing and lowering inflation. Rather, he has led with a judicial overhaul that will create a forcefield around him and any transgressions he might be indicted for, along with those fringe elements of his coalition.
Since the Israeli government is parliamentary, Bibi needed a majority to form a coalition. Not unlike what Speaker McCarthy had to do in “selling his soul” to the extremists for votes, Bibi sought out the support of convicted felons and extreme right-wing ideologues and those who sympathize with likes of Jewish terrorists, Meir Kahane and Baruch Goldstein to help him gain power. Bibi did just that. As the saying goes, he laid down with dogs and now the country is full of fleas.
As a result of this strategy and the majority’s fixation with bulldozing forward, Bibi will ironically do what the enemies he swore to protect against could only have dreamt about. He is pulling apart the fabric of Zionism. He is whittling away the strings that tether Diaspora and Israel relations. Bibi’s actions are calling into question whether Israel will be democratic OR Jewish and forsaking the notion that it is and can continue to be both. He is thumbing his nose at Diaspora Jews and making them AND Israeli Jews choose loyalties. He is tilling the soil for a full fledged civil war in Israel.
This is illustrated in the hypocritical stunt of sending his finance minister, the unapologetic and blustery Betzalel Smotrich, one of those very right-wing fringe characters who recently incited violence against Palestinians, to the United States to ask for $1.3B in Israel Bonds purchases from North American supporters, to benefit Israel. But the funds he is soliciting come predominantly from the very Jews Smotrich continuously disavows, Reform and Conservative Jewry of the Diaspora.
Iran is laughing. Hizbollah is howling and Hamas is befuddled. Our sworn enemies haven’t even fueled the rockets and are getting the result without placing a finger on the deadly launch button.
In Bibi’s pursuit of self protection, the Sayeret Matkal (special elite forces) IDF soldier who was trained to fall on a grenade to save his platoon is doing the opposite. He is throwing the explosive on the population to save himself. Bibi will be nothing and his legacy meaningless if the dream and miracle of the Jewish state self-destructs.
My grandmother was one of the wisest people I ever met. She used to say, “what we do to ourselves, our worst enemies would not do to us.” How true! Jewish historians know too well about the cause of Temple’s destruction in Jerusalem. It was not because of the evil plots of our adversaries, rather because we hated each other so much and sought to protect only ourselves, our self-interests and promote our own narrative, that we lost the entire enterprise. We can feel the impact of its demise and mourn its loss, still today.
History is indeed repeating itself. What a damn shame!
Rabbi David-Seth Kirshner
“The Most Joyful Time of the Year” | March 3rd
What is the secret to a long life? If we’re to believe Mel Brooks’s ancient character in the classic comedy routine, The 2,000 Year Old Man, then the answer is of course…Nectarines! Ever since hearing that joke as a kid, nectarines have been a staple of my diet. But as much as I love them, I know that delicious fruit is not going to sustain me forever. Megillat Esther gives us a much more realistic answer to this question. The secret to a long and fruitful life, as we learn with the Purim story, is resilience and a little luck.
Each year, when we usher in the month of Adar when we celebrate Purim, we sing “Mishenichnas Adar marbim b’simcha–when Adar comes, our joy is increased!” Purim represents a time of pure joy, frivolity and jubilation. We dress up, eat hamantaschen and shake our graggers to drown out Haman’s name. Every part of the Purim celebration is filled with happiness and goofiness. But beneath all of the colorful costumes and raucous carnivals, there is a deep story with a timeless message of Jewish resilience that sometimes feels forgotten in all the hoopla.
As Haman prepares to wipe out the Jews, it feels as if there is no hope left. Esther and Mordechai stare certain death in the face. And then in one sudden moment, the whole story is flipped on its head. The Jews of Shushan suddenly find themselves going from helplessness to a position of power. Purim teaches us that even when it feels like all hope is lost, our outlooks can change in a second. That is the reason the month of Adar and Purim bring so much joy, and that is what we should be celebrating— the triumph of both the human spirit and the Jewish spirit. Purim is the perfect encapsulation of the Jewish story of survival: “they tried to kill us, we won, let’s eat”. In that spirit, whether you’re eating your favorite flavor of hamantaschen or a juicy nectarine, wishing you all a happy Purim!
Rabbi Gabe Cohen
“A Modern Day Miracle: The Opening of the Abrahamic Center in UAE” | February 24th
In 1990, I remember sitting down in my kitchen to tell my aging grandmother, an immigrant from Riga, Latvia who lived most of her adult life in Michigan, that her youngest grandson was going to spend a year living in Israel and studying.
Her eyes welled up with tears and a familiar look of awe was in her gaze. I had seen those tear-filled eyes and that stare before. On Yom Kippur, on Passover and a few other choice moments when we said the words, that look would wash over her face.
My Bubbie was raised in a religious home where liturgy and customs were native. But that line – L’Shana Haba’ah Beyerushalyaim – Next year in Jerusalem, which her grandparents whispered at Passover Seders while hiding from Cossacks or when the town cantor – who also doubled as the local butcher – chanted that verse at the conclusion of Yom Kippur Neilah services, the words were the epitome of Messianic. They were words filled with hope but that seemed unachievable in any lifetime. They were a religious dream. A distant hope that was like grasping for stars and as far away as humans landing on the moon. Little did my grandmother know that in her lifetime, she would witness humans sinking their feet into the sand of the moon and she would watch the State of Israel be established, survive and thrive. So, for her grandson to go and study in Israel was more than a journey or pilgrimage for her. It was a reminder of a miracle she was blessed to witness in her lifetime and that her ancestors prayed for but she watched happen and tasted the fruits thereof.
This Sunday, I found my eyes welling up just like my grandmother, of blessed memory. My ancestral gaze was washed upon my face representing a renewed generation and a new moment of watching a miracle come to fruition.
Temple Emanu-El of Closter, our New Jersey congregation travelled to the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain. 25 people strong came eager to learn, explore, share experiences, dream together and most importantly, tastes the fruits of the Abraham Accords.
Fortuitously, our journey coincided with the opening of the Moses Ben Maimon synagogue in Abu Dhabi. This unique congregation is the realization of a decades long dream of the Emirati people to create a shared prayer place for Muslims, Jews and Christians. The physical campus is called the Abrahamic Center. Its location shares a rooftop garden while each of the three places of prayer have separate entrances, are equal in size with modest adaptations to accommodate the rituals of each religion.
This synagogue is the first new Jewish congregation to open in the Arab world in almost 100 years. Think about that figure! 100 years, and the timing of our program allowed us to have a front row seat for history.
More than 300 people coming from as near as Dubai and as far as New York, Jerusalem and Washington DC came to celebrate the dedication of the space, to bless the affixing of the Mezzuzoth and participate in the gathering of the first prayer service in this sacred place.
What caused my eyes to well up and feel my grandmother’s presence and memory was when a Yemenite boy whose father was imprisoned by the Houthis just a few months ago, and was saved by the Emirati leadership, sang a song of celebration before the open ark. His melodic voice and Yemenite tunes sang directly to our hearts. Then, a Muslim man dressed in full jalebi and kfiyah led a prayer in Arabic for the welfare of the country of the UAE and its leader, Sheikh Mohammad bin Zayed. A prayer for the government by a devout Muslim in a Jewish congregation. Who could have imagined?!
In my lifetime, the government of an Arab neighbor of Israel, which was once a sworn enemy was now funding and celebrating the opening of a synagogue and is supporting the burgeoning Jewish community in its country. In Bahrain, a one hour flight away, the Jewish community has been brought back to life. Jews are encouraged to visit with open arms. The same is happening in Morocco and perhaps soon in Oman, Saudi Arabia and who knows where else next?!
One does not need to look far or search hard to see the broken in our world and feel the brittleness of the ground beneath us. Political division, cruel rhetoric and class strife are rampant in our Diasporic and Zionist world. We have much to work on and improve in the days and years ahead.
But let us not lose sight of the miracles of peace with our neighbors and collaboration with our cousins that once seemed as far away as electric cars and flying vehicles, that now is a reality as close as the next sunrise.
I hope you can have your eyes well up with tears of joy in witnessing this gift in our lifetime and let it stoke us to never stop dreaming and hoping for the world we want our kids to live within. May their eyes tear as they inherit the work of our hands and the dreams of our parents and pass it on to generations to come.
Rabbi David-Seth Kirshner
“Becoming People of Compassion” | February 17th
In last week’s reading of the Ten Commandments, we experienced what is perhaps the most important moment in all of Jewish history. It was not only the laws laid out in the Ten Commandments themselves that are so impactful, but the entire sensory experience of booming voices and billowing smoke that make this a literal scene for the ages. So how does the Torah follow up on that? In Parashat Mishpatim this week, the Torah continues with minimal fanfare as we read what essentially amounts to a list of rules given to Moses and the Israelites that will govern Jewish behavior for all time. And despite the contrast of the majesty of last week to the relative ordinariness of this week, it is one of the laws we read in Parashat Mishpatim that stands out as essential to the core of who we are as a Jewish people.
In two separate instances in Parashat Mishpatim, we read a central tenet of Jewish ideology–the instruction not to oppress the stranger, for you yourselves know that feeling, having been strangers yourselves in the land of Egypt.
Rabbi Shai Held points out that the Torah could have given us the exact opposite instruction – not to embrace the stranger, but to shun them. It would, after all, be wholly reasonable for the Torah to have said that because nobody came to our aid while we were enslaved in Egypt, that we should treat strangers with hostility. Instead however, we see God and the Torah take the approach of care and compassion rather than vindictiveness. This sets the tone for so much about Jewish practice. Judaism is a religion of kindness, and empathy –not hate and pettiness. We grow from our experiences, and they make us more compassionate people. We embrace the stranger, rather than cast them aside. These values are baked into our very Jewish souls. They are guiding principles of the way we live not just as Jews, but as human beings, that feel just as relevant today as they did when first given to us at Sinai.
Rabbi Gabe Cohen
“Appreciating Our In-laws–and a Health Update” | February 10th
I have always been struck by the fact that although we read the most important moment in the Torah with the giving of The Ten Commandments this week, it is Moses’s father-in-law, Jethro/Yitro who steals the show in the first part of the parsha. Distraught as he sees Moses begin to wear down trying to balance all his responsibilities following the exodus from Egypt, Yitro is best remembered for the sage advice he gives Moses not to take on too much of the burden leading the Israelites himself. Coming from a place of concern for his son-in-law, Yitro instructs Moses to instead delegate his duties to qualified individuals who can help him. It is this kind of love, care and guidance that makes Moses’s father-in-law such a significant figure, and perhaps Moses’s most trusted counsel.
Whenever I read about Yitro, I feel a special appreciation for my own father-in-law, who has taken me in as a son from day one, and like Yitro, has always offered me advice from a place of love and care. I have only ever known him as the most incredible father, father-in-law and saba.
Many reading this already know that for the past few months, my father-in-law, Dr. Hugh Pollack, was in dire need of a liver transplant. And I am very happy to report that our prayers were recently answered. We feel extraordinarily blessed that Hugh was the recipient of a liver last week and is now beginning the recovery process. While there is still a long road ahead for him and our family, there is an incredible sense of relief that the period of uncertainty and waiting is now behind us and that we can focus on his return to full strength soon.
The advice that Yitro gave to Moses feels so relevant in the lives of my family right now. Hugh’s recovery will be a group effort, and the support that he and our family received and continue to receive from this community and all the other spaces that he has touched has been nothing short of amazing. Thank you to all those who have held us in your thoughts. We have been moved beyond words by the kindness that countless people, friends and strangers alike, continue to show for my father-in-law.
With immense gratitude,
Rabbi Gabe Cohen