"I don’t have crises of faith because my theology is built off existential crisis. It is a theology immune to being shattered by the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune precisely because it comes pre-shattered."
-"more theos, less ology" by rabbi jeremy gordon
-op-ed piece by david horovitz, 10/20/2023
Today, for the first time in 14 days, I didn't cry. A small miracle. I've been slow. I've had that privilege: to take it easy here in NYC, to check in on friends, listen to broadcasts, to attend events and donate what I can, all the while attending to the heavy grief in my heart with compassion, the fear in my soul with love and understanding, and the PTSD with breathing and grounding exercises, and going back to my self-defense gym.
After another very hard week, I put in my headphones, put on Yossi Azulay's rendition of "Vehi Sheamda", and I walked out my door with my head held high. The music swelled and I thought about the spirituality of breathing, the very sacredness of breath itself -
(That ruach in Hebrew means wind, breath, and spirit, and the word appears in the Torah more than 400 times; that the silent prayer is whispered because prayer requires the effort of breath; that in the Pinchas portion of the Zohar, the windpipe is considered a ladder that allows angels to connect us to upper realms; that the mechanisms of "breath" and "life energy" are so intertwined it's difficult to understand one without the other, and impossible to truly understand at all...)
What a true gift it is to be alive.
I've taken my cue from so many others in the Jewish community, from spiritual leaders, to mothers in Israel, to wounded soldiers in hospital beds:
We grieve, we cry, we may fear what is to come -- but we also get to work, we appreciate the littlest kindnesses and joys of the day, and we keep moving, we keep doing -- because sustained misery paralyzes us, and paralysis serves nobody.
Three days ago I went to a meeting where I heard a young soldier's account - from his hospital bed in Israel - of his experience as his unit was called to action on Oct 7. The only time his face lit up was when he talked about the civilians they were able to rescue. In the same zoom call, a young woman told us how she survived that day, nearly fatally wounded, hiding under the bodies of her friends killed at their base; she didn't smile, but she did when someone in the room asked her if she knew their cousin, stationed in the same area, who also survived. She didn't, but they laughed a little, shrugging. I emphasize young because both were under the age of 23.
There are so many tragedies to count in the last 2 weeks, starting with the worst. The unspeakable, horrific brutalities inflicted by Hamas against Israeli civilians in the worst terrorist attack and crisis of terrorism this century has seen. The hostages taken, some Holocaust survivors and young children, still unreleased. The intelligence failures that left the IDF relatively unprepared for it. The frenzied trauma inflicted on the Jewish community and the world at large as terrorists shared videos of their disgusting acts. The terrifying rise of antisemitism, violence, and hate in the Middle East, Europe, and America. The declaration of war that will destroy innocent lives, Israeli and Palestinian and more, and displace millions. The lives already lost, already taken. The psychotic exchanges on social media that stoke hate and more misery in the compulsive sickness of share it, share it, share it...!
Truly, I don't recognize this world - only in history. Only in history books where, from 65-70 CE, the Romans looted the Holy Temple in Jerusalem and murdered, r*ped, and tortured everyone they could find - Jews in the land of Jerusalem, occupied by Rome. Or the numerous other pogroms and inquisitions of the early, middle, and late Medieval era throughout North Africa and Europe. The pogroms in Russia in the 19th century. The Holocaust, where, from 1939-1945, 6 million Jews in Europe were systematically murdered by the Nazi regime. And after the Holocaust? When the Jews of Egypt, Algeria, Tunisia, Lebanon, Iraq, Iran, and many other countries in the Middle East had their citizenship revoked as communities turned against them in violence: ostracizing, looting, and killing.
The shouts I've heard online and off - calling out: Which side are you on? Who do you stand with? Who are you? What do you stand for?
The shouts get louder and louder - and then I silence them.
In normal times (if we can call any times "normal" these days), my goals as a human being orbit around central themes: to treat others with kindness, to be a safe person for those who (like me) often feel vulnerable or scared, to disengage from darkness, whether in my own thoughts and deeds, or as I may perceive it in others. But always to strive for kindness, warmth, goodness, to walk towards light (to borrow a phrase from one of my favorite poets - "a high tower among high towers"), and I tell you, I often fail.
While I try to be kind to every creature, I know that sometimes kindness is not about good deeds. I shy away from confrontation, which, although uncomfortable, can ultimately cause a stalemate in one's heart to be released, and connection to be made. I fail when I want to be warm and generous but anxiety causes me to set a low bar: get through the day. How many opportunities for connection I have missed when this is the way I operate.
Human beings fail. The degrees to which we fail exist on a spectrum, and part of our failures are what inspire us to greater accomplishment, greater connection - to try harder, to try again, not to fail.
And psychologically, for most people who have not been indoctrinated into a distinct system of Jew-hatred on the level of Nazis or Hamas terrorists, there’s a sentiment that makes antisemitism so insidious and pervasive: “If you’re so good, then why x, y, and z?” We’ve seen this time again on a personal, theological, and political scale - from internalized antisemitism that seeks to delegitimize the oppression and discrimination our families and antecedents faced, in favor of the opposite (majority) narrative. From blaming the world's ills on the Jews, spreading propaganda about secrecy and blood libel and "divine" control. And calling Israel, the only democracy in the Middle East, and with a healthy activist community that demands its (often deaf) leaders to commit firmly to civil and progressive human rights - evil.
I plead: nobody is perfect, no society is without its ills, and indeed, we are not "so good" - but we make an effort and a study of what it means to be good human beings on this planet. We have commandments - not just the ten. We have rules against cruelty - to humans and animals. We struggle about goodness. And while I am no expert on Judaism - I study, and it's literally the study of these things, this history, this spirituality, these traditions, the reasons why we seek goodness, that make me proud to be part of it. To throw my hat in the ring and say: yes, these concepts and practices matter to me.
And I see how the double-standard is almost woven into our theology, but it is meant to teach us that on the spectrum of good and evil, light and dark, do your best to lean towards the good, towards light. And your best often isn't good enough. I think that's a beautiful thing.
But in a world torn apart by hate, cruelty, and violence, the imperfections - great and small - of those who strive for goodness become the very reason for the evil on the opposite end of the spectrum. And as we have seen, there are those out there who run away from goodness and towards hate and destruction. This is their rhetoric.
And while Israel as a democratic state has many failures, its very existence is not evil. I feel almost stupid writing that, but here we are. Ask any Israeli about their family history and you will understand that the country is made up mostly of refugees from the Holocaust, the Middle East, Africa, and Russia. Its purpose was always to provide a safe space for Jews who didn't have anywhere else to go.
("But policy!" Yes, policy. The Netanyahu government is right-wing and, to me, disturbing, enabling violence and the erosion of human rights against those most marginalized in Israel. When the Supreme Court of the United States overturned Roe V. Wade, it created one of the worst human rights disasters the US has ever seen. We saw people take to the streets with "my body, my choice" - some of us in tears, feeling the pain of those who will die, be forced to give birth, be put in prison for protecting themselves or their daughters -- we fail, we fail so dangerously when we do not prioritize human rights. But no bombs exploded, no one was gunned down claiming their violence was justified.)
All of us live on a spectrum of grief, failed by our governments.
Compare this to Hamas, which seeks to terrorize civilians, inflict carnage and sow chaos, and indeed, if given the chance, won't stop at Israel. Hamas is indelibly linked to the Islamist movement (not Islam) that has co-opted the pan-Arab movement and seeks to pit the Muslim world against the Western world, and vice versa. Their values espouse those of Islamic fundamentalism, and it is disturbing to me how many people on all ends of the spectrum don't seem to be able to separate those who practice Islam from those who espouse Islamic fundamentalism right now. We have descended into tribalism, some of us shouting for our team, or the other team, some proud and others simply ashamed to be part of it.
But it is an insult to peaceful and intelligent people everywhere to wave a flag in the name of "the Other" when the reality is: real people out there are tired of dangerous and murderous rhetoric, they don't want war, and they don't want to be a pawn in the political agendas of the Powers. Full Stop.
I came across an article that I thought was written on October 9, 2023, two days after the massacre of October 7. But then I checked the date, and it was written October 9, 2022. The sentiments are eerie, the article is called "The Silence That Screams," and it marks the 40 year anniversary of the Palestinian terror attack on a synagogue in Rome, Italy in 1982:
"Over my career as a journalist, I have met many terrorists. When you meet them, you realize that their upbringing and training have made them immovable, and that their hate has nothing to do with territorial issues. It is ideological and religious, and turns the “martyr” who kills Jews into a sanctified figure. At home, at school, on the walls of town squares and in summer camps, they learn to follow the road of rejection, hate and terrorism. As they boast, “We love death as much as they love life.”
This is the truth. The mothers who rejoice in the death of their shahid sons are the exact opposite of our mothers, the exact opposite of Daniela, who has fought alongside Gadiel ever since that terrible day 40 years ago. Today, she returns the memory of Stefano to us, alive, a child of us all."
Because to strive for goodness is also to be reminded of our failures, and there is something deeply uncomfortable about sitting with our failures and trying to correct them. But this is also at the very heart of Judaism. Because the Torah teaches that life matters, goodness matters, peace and the safety of our children matter - and even though it's full of examples of our failures, Rabbi Akiva reminds us that perhaps the most important tenet is: "Love your neighbor as yourself" (Lev 19:18). There is no irony in this. When we fail, we fail. But are we really tasked to love innocent children and psychotic, rampaging terrorists in the same breath? That very breath of spirit, the force of our life energy?
And this is when we're brought starkly back to reality. The reality that Iran is funding this mass psychosis by the billions for a hand in the power of chaos. That Hamas is using and perpetuating the oppression of the Palestinian people to inflict terror on Israel, to call for the murder of all Jews. That Hezbollah, also funded by Iran, is mobilizing. That Egypt and Jordan still won't open their borders to refugees. That it seems the whole Middle East is vying for blood: Jewish and Palestinian; Jewish because of decades, centuries-long, millenia of hatred, and Palestinian because they can't wait to blame Israel, one Islamic Jihad rocket at a time.
And that once again we're at a turning point.
And that once again the world we live in seems very fragile and shaken by the aggressors of war (I see you, Ukraine, I see you still).
That the call is not for an endless war, not a perpetuation of this conflict, but a true never again - and that enough is enough. We need peace in Israel, Gaza, and the West Bank. We need peace in the Middle East. We need peace in Ukraine. We need peace on this earth, peace among people.
How can I say these things about peace, knowing that a cease fire will not solve the problem? Knowing that war against a terrorist organization is also terror itself?
I recall all the photos and videos I've seen of the concentration camps and extermination centers of the Third Reich - and if you're Jewish and reading this, you know that these photos and videos are not seen just once in a classroom one day or at a museum trip, but over many years, they're imprinted on your brain and become a part of your story - my whole life I've seen this, the photos and videos of Jews in striped uniforms with yellow stars lined up en masse, the ones who survived - starving, brutalized, and worse.
I think of these photos, and I compare them with the energetic videos we're seeing now of the IDF and reservists in uniform singing and dancing together, and I am at once filled with pride, disgust, sadness, and hope. Pride first because these are the people who are fighting for that "never again," and how far we have come: not only do we study, write about, and proclaim our right to exist as people - now we necessarily fight for it, and defend it.
But disgust because war and the machines we use to kill each other are disgusting to me, no matter your nationality, religion, or ideology - I will always believe that war is hell. But is war a necessary evil in the face of unspeakable evil? I don't know. Every fibre of my being doesn't want to believe it, but in the face of Hamas? In the face of Russia? On the spectrum, no matter what, it's pretty fucking awful. In NYC, these are unequivocally uncomfortable and terrifying questions as people - Jews and Arabs - face protests, division, poison on social media, and hate crimes. But in Israel and Gaza, in Ukraine, this is the reality today: war.
And sadness, of course, because of the tragedies that got us here, to this very moment in time, that tore people from their families and put guns in their hands.
And hope because, well, I still hold onto the idea that the poisonous rhetoric behind this horror can be reversed. Is war the antidote? I pray that it isn't. But it looks like it is, and regardless of my opinion, war continues. We can rage against it or shake our heads, devastated. We can send strength to those who need it and recognize their bravery, because that is the decent thing to do, knowing that there is nothing decent about war and violence, or the systems that perpetuate them.
To sit with these feelings is deeply painful. But if I can remind you that to have these feelings proves your very humanity.
To sit with seemingly contradictory ideologies is painful. But if I can remind you that the ability to retain and express multiple ideologies is a privilege and probably a sign of your intelligence - be proud.
To be a peace-loving human being when war breaks out, when atrocities are committed, is painful. If I can remind you that your commitment to peace is what sustains our communities.
To know that more lives will be lost is painful. If I can remind you that your life matters and that to breathe, body and soul, is a joy and a privilege, and that your empathy will inspire you to act with kindness and generosity in the coming months to those who have lost loved ones through violence.
To see hate in the streets - even the energy of hate - is as painful as it is terrifying. But to know that you have emptied your own heart of hate will set you free, as you focus on what matters.
To be faced with the very real question: kill or be killed? is the most painful, the simplest, the most existential, the easiest, the most primal, and the most difficult question of all.
My heart breaks.
And in the midst of all this destruction and hate - you're asking me:
Who am I? What do I stand for?
I can only tell you who I want to be, and what I want to stand for: I want to be a person who loves, and I want to stand for fierce loving-kindness. May the light of this universe hold me to my commitments.
This mission, akin to what Rabbi Jeremy Gordon writes, comes pre-shattered. No matter. It's the only thing that will keep me sane in this insane, irrational world.
Because in the midst of all this destruction and hate, I haven't lost this mission - indeed, the more it shatters, the stronger it gets. That, more than anything, is the paradox - the miracle - of life.
I invite you to hold onto these paradoxes, all of your painful contradictions on the path towards peace, and turn off your social media tonight.
Shabbat shalom - may you find the strength to create a little peace in your heart.