Many of you might remember that I gave over a large portion of my first Rosh Hashanah sermon this year to a letter that Rabbi Daniel Gordis regularly sends out from Israel. I know of no better way to grasp the events now unfolding in our ancient homeland, than through the eyes of people like Rabbi Gordis.

 

Ordinary radio, television and newspapers fail to convey the true extent of all that goes on in the land of Israel. The standard news media simply cannot do justice to the reality. However, after reading this, you’ll probably agree that Rabbi Gordis succeeds in bringing it all back home, even half a world away, here in the wintry, wind-swept plains of Canada.

 

This is the real news: the mega-history that is unfolding in the presence of our friends, relatives and fellow Jews who live in the land of our ancestors. This is why I gladly surrender my space in this edition of the Shofar to Rabbi Gordis: that we might share in the making of this history together, as a concerned, empathetic family and community.

With all best wishes for a prosperous, peaceful secular New Year,

 

Rabbi Alan Green

 

Dispatches from an Anxious State (excerpts)

Daniel Gordis

In New York last week, I had occasion to be interviewed on NPR. It still amazes me how many people listen to talk radio, and of those, how many find the time to write email comments about what they’ve heard. I was flooded with responses to the interview, and rather struck by one particular theme that appeared in many of the letters. The following is typical:

 

“Listening to you on the Leonard Lopate show, I couldn’t but be amazed at your disregard for the lives of your children. When the neighborhood we were living in deteriorated to the point that it was no longer safe to walk the streets, we moved. We could have stayed, worked with the neighborhood association, joined the block watchers, etc., but in the meanwhile we had images of our children coming home from school mugged, bloodied or even killed. It wasn’t worth it to be heroes…

 

“How will you feel if one of those suicide bombers kills your child, when you could have avoided it by moving back to the States? Israel does not need you. It has many, many people who will fight the good fight, and in any event, the problems are caused by forces beyond your control. Doesn’t your family come first? (Signed), Richard”.

 

Well, Richard, I didn’t answer that e-mail until today, because I didn’t really know where to begin. But today was the kind of day in Israel that clarifies everything – why we’re here, why this isn’t anything like the neighborhood that you left, and why we’re not killing our children, but giving them something to live for.

 

We were at a Bar Mitzvah at the Kotel (The Western Wall) this morning. After the service was over, I grabbed a cab to head back to the office for a meeting. The news was prattling about something that “even we were unprepared for”. Uh-oh. That was the first I’d heard about the attack in Mombassa.

 

Details were sketchy, and the only way the news could get any information was to speak on cell phones to Israelis who were actually at the site. One woman, just shy of hysterical, told the story of the explosion, and recounted how it took just under two hours for the first Kenyan ambulances to arrive. When asked what she expected would happen next, she said, “I assume Israel will send doctors, medicine and soldiers, and then they’ll bring us home.”

 

And she was right. The news immediately cut to an airfield, where five IAF planes were being loaded with the medical equipment and personnel that the Kenyans couldn’t seem to amass, and shortly thereafter, the planes and their cargoes were on their way.

You see, Richard, this isn’t some dumpy neighborhood somewhere in the States that makes no difference to anyone except those who can’t get out of it. This is what we call home. Muslim extremist evil knows no borders. We’ve known that for a long time. Remember Munich? Remember New York? Muslim terrorism isn’t about the settlements or the “occupation,” but about Israel herself, and about Israelis and Jews, wherever they may be. And when Jews end up butchered in Mombassa, they know one thing. Kenyan incompetence will not allow them to be stranded. We’ll get there. And we’ll bring whatever’s left of them home.

 

And then we heard about the two shoulder-mounted missiles fired at the Arkia jet carrying 271 people, and how they missed. And on tonight’s news, CNN showed a home video one of the passengers had taken as the plane prepared to land. Outside the window, IAF F-16s were flanking the jet, making sure that it hadn’t been damaged and was safe to land. They were so close that from the cabin window, the passenger was able to film the pilot and navigator relatively clearly. And as the plane landed, the video caught the clapping and spontaneous singing of “Heveinu Shalom Aleichem” – a kitschy old Israeli homecoming song that no one on that plane had sung for decades.

 

But no matter. There was no reason to be embarrassed by the kitsch. Six decades ago, when people fired at Jews across the world, there was no one willing to do anything. The F-16s outside the window showed our children, Richard, that we’re not disregarding them or their safety. We’ve brought them to the only place on the planet where Jews can take care of themselves.

 

Of course, we’re not always successful, Richard. You’re right. Sometimes, they get us. In the past two years, there have been 14,500 terrorist attacks in Israel. No exaggeration. What’s amazing is that relatively few have killed people. Still, when two terrorists shot up a Likud Party headquarters this afternoon, killing six people (so far), it was the culmination of a rather horrible day. But no one’s running away.

 

The Likud party primary didn’t get cancelled or delayed. The polls stayed open. The countries these terrorists “represent” don’t have a single democracy to their credit, but we do. They blow up a hotel, try to shoot down a jet, shoot up a bus station, and we still vote. Quietly, peacefully, democratically. And in the midst of all the sadness and grief, many of us are proud of that. I think we have a right to be.

 

You weren’t proud of that neighborhood you left. Probably because it didn’t stand for anything too important; because it reeked hopelessness. So you left, and rightly so. But this place does stand for something important. And even on dark days like today, in which everyone I know was sullen, recovering from one bit of news only to hear another, this place pulses with hope. Those doctors flying to Mombassa are what this place is all about. The F-16s shadowing the 757 as it made its way home are what this place is all about. The quiet, orderly voting is what this place is all about.

 

Yes, Richard, our family does come first. And that’s why we’re here. To raise our kids in a place that’s all about them, about their history, their future, their sense of being at home. To live in a place that, unlike that old neighborhood, matters very much. Not because we’re heroes, for we’re not; but because we know just a bit about Jewish history; and because we have no right to expect other Israelis to “fight the good fight” if we’re not willing to do so.

 

On the news this afternoon, they interviewed some alleged aviation expert about the attempted attack on the Arkia 757. He explained how these missiles work and gave a whole dissertation on the ease of operation of heat-seeking shoulder-launched missiles. When he was done, the interviewer asked him, “Then how did they miss? After all, a lumbering 757, barely off the ground? How do you explain this?”

 

His answer, I thought, was telling. He said, “I can’t explain it. Either they fired without priming the heat-seeking element on the missiles or they were faulty. But normally, there’s no way to miss. It was a miracle.” He didn’t mean anything theological by the comment, of course, but today is the day before Chanukah…

 

Tomorrow night, when you look outside our living room window, in the windows of virtually every other apartment within sight, there are going to be Chanukah candles flickering. Religious families, secular families, left wing families, right wing families, native families, and immigrant families. American families and French families, young families and old families, Sharon families and Netanyahu families. They’ll all have candles in the window.

 

Because Richard, somehow, in spite of everything, we still believe in miracles. Some of them happened a long time ago. But others are still happening. We understand them in different ways, and we disagree passionately about how to keep them going. But after a day like today, somehow, we find ourselves still believing in them.

 

It’s a crazy, dangerous place, this neighborhood of ours, Richard. But it’s home. And it’s a miracle. It really is. And from that, you see, you just don’t walk away. Now do you get it? Happy Chanukah.