Clergy Sermons

On the second day of Rosh Hashanah, I shared with our community some of my experiences being in Israel during the Gulf War. I was in Jerusalem on a post-hight-school gap year program. We were mostly Americans, and when the war began, the dorm emptied out. Something like 80-90% of the girls went home. Those of us who remained were issued gas masks, and had the experience of rushing to a sealed room several times a day in response to air raid sirens. 

In the end, Israel suffered no direct casualties from the scud missiles. But at the time, we did not know that we were safe. When my classmates made the prudent decision to fly home - and when I and about 20 other girls made the decision to remain – we had every reason to believe the reports of weapons of mass destruction. That’s why we were issued gas masks.

I was 18 years-old-at at the time. My older daughter, Shira, is 19 years-old now. 

From where I sit now, I sometimes shake my head and wonder – how did my parents allow me to stay?

As I was preparing to write my Rosh Hashanah sermon, I asked them that question. Their answers were vague. They really don’t remember how they felt, were they ambivalent, was it hard on them?

Here’s what I remember.

I truly believed I was safe so long as I stayed in Jerusalem. Saddam Husein wouldn’t want to target Jerusalem, right? 

 My parents told me they did not want me to leave the city for the duration of the war, which helped bolster that feeling.

But I’m not sure what we really thought about the targeting accuracy of those scud missiles. I do remember hearing about people in Jerusalem going out on the roofs during the air raid sirens, to watch the patriot missiles exploding the scud missiles mid-air, which means they can’t have been too far off. I was a good girl - I always stayed in the sealed room, and kept my mask on.

I also remember, before my decision to stay was finalized, telling my father that if there were a lot of casualties in Israel, that I would want to volunteer to help tend to the wounded. 

“War time nursing is very bloody,” he said. 

“All the more so, then, I would want to help,” I said. I really meant it. Which is quite amusing, considering that when I was 16 years old I literally fainted - blacked out and fell to the floor - watching a friend donate blood. When, many years later, I finally overcame my squeamishness and was able to donate blood for the first time, it was a huge triumph. But, yeah, at age 18 I was going to do war time nursing.

My parents certainly did not pressure me to stay in Israel through that war. But they also did not pressure me to come home. They asked me questions, and trusted me to make my own decision, at the age of 18.

Was I a fool? Were they?

This week, we read the story of the 12 scouts, sent to spy out the land in preparation for the Israelite conquest. Ten of the scouts brought back the report that the land is bountiful, but it is inhabited by giants and we will never overcome them. Only two scouts - Joshua and Caleb - made the goodness of the land their primary emphasis, and stressed that with God on our side, we would succeed.

This year, I am struck by something I’m not sure I really thought about before. The ten scouts were not wrong. The land WAS inhabited by giants. And the conquest was very difficult. In fact, 40 years later, the next generation spent the rest of their lives under Joshua’s leadership trying to complete the conquest. Their enemies fell before them one after another, but only because God was working miracles for them. At one point, God stopped the sun moving across the sky, so the Israelites could win a battle, And even with all that heavy-handed divine intervention, they still did not complete the conquest.

If I didn’t know the end of the story, I would have said that the ten nay-saying scouts were the adults in the room. And Joshua and Caleb were the naive 18 year-olds.

But we do know the end. The ten scouts doomed themselves and the entirety of their generation to die in the desert. The text frames the 40 years of wandering as God’s wrathful punishment. It was also the natural consequence of their report. With an attitude that assumed failure, they could not possibly have taken the land.

Of that entire generation, only Joshua and Caleb lived to enter the promised the land. 

This Torah portion works as a powerful metaphor. We have so much longing for a better tomorrow - for our lives individually, for the life of our country, and for our entire planet. But there is little we can accomplish, if we allow the obstacles - giant as they are - to obscure our vision of the possibilities.

Through the centuries, this Torah portion has also influenced our people not just as metaphor, but at face value. Our ancestors never stopped believing that the promised land would be ours again. And until the birth of Zionism, they also believed that the time to reclaim it would not arrive until God indicated willingness to work miracles for us. The sun stopping in the sky, the walls of Jericho crumbling in response to nothing but Shofar blasts - those kinds of miracles.

The power of Zionism came in its merging of the face value with the metaphor. The promised land is, still, literally, the land. For Jews in the diaspora, it never stopped being that. But the path to claiming it was no longer through super-natural miracles, but through our own, human efforts. And that meant, to claim our promise we did not have to wait for God to appear. We just had to believe in ourselves. 

I think, back in 1991, my parents understood this intuitively. If I believed in Israel, if my faith and love for the place and its people was greater than my fear, then I would be able to do things that I could never have done otherwise. 

Our power to accomplish miracles does not end with conquest.

Take a tally of the specific themes of the traditional prayer book, and you will find two dominate above all others. One is God’s promise to return us to our land. The other is God’s capacity to create peace. 

And peace always has the last word.

We end the amidah – three times a day, four on Shabbat - with Sim Shalom.

We end the kaddish - Oseh shalom bimromav, hu ya’aseh shalom aleynu. May the one who makes peace in his heavens, make peace upon us. 

We end the birkat hamazon, the grace after meals - ה׳ יְבָרֵךְ אֶת־עַמּוֹ בַּשָּׁלוֹם: May Ado-nai bless His people with peace.

Joshua and Caleb taught us that it is not naive to believe in miracles, even in the face of giants.

Theordor Herzl taught us that it is not naive to believe in ourselves, even with giant empires aligned against us.

Let us extrapolate from their teachings. It is not naive to believe in peace, no matter the size of the anger, fear and violence.

My parents are in their 80s now. Since my father’s retirement almost 15 years ago, they had been spending 3-4 months of every year in Israel, in the late fall and early winter. 

They had planned to fly out there mid-October, 2023, for their annual visit. The events of October 7th did not convince them to cancel that trip. But when my cousin – their nephew – who made aliyah about 30 years ago, told them they would be a burden if they came now, they heeded him.

A year went by. Their health began to decline a bit. My parents lost confidence, they weren’t sure if they could be on their own in Jerusalem again. So when I took my mini-Sabbatical this past February with my daughter, I invited my parents to join us. 

They had such a good time, their belief in themselves was restored. They no longer feel confident driving in Israel, but they learned to use the trains and buses. And they found their network of Israeli friends and family is as robust as ever.  And so when we learned of three family weddings this summer, my parents decided they were going to go.

They are in Jerusalem right now. In a beautiful rental apartment. The public bomb shelter is right next door, and that’s also serving as a local synagogue, where my father has been joining services at least once a day. When the air raid sirens go off in the middle of the night, sometimes they rouse themselves and make it down to the shelter. Sometimes they don’t. My sister is unhappy about that, and is working on them to take the sirens more seriously. 

As of this moment, there are no flights available out of Israel. My parents are trapped there, whether they like it or not.

But all three of us - my sister, my brother, and I agree. When flights do resume, we are not going to pressure them to take one. If they decide they need to leave, we will do everything we can to claim two seats on one of those planes. But if they decide they want to stay, we will support them in that decision. 

Because, it is never naive to believe in yourself or your people.