This morning in shul, my rabbi was an Israel cheerleader. He stood
before our congregation, on one of the only days where the majority of
our people sit within ear shot of our spiritual leaders' wisdom, and he
stood with Israel. And I loved it.
In a world filled with extremists beheading people for being different,
In a world filled with rockets raining down on Israelis,
In a world where synagogues are vandalized,
In a world where Israel children know bomb shelters too intimately,
In a world filled with people that equate Israel's right to exist with Nazism,
And in a world where Israel's right to exists becomes a reason for non-Jews to act like Nazis,
In a world where President Obama asks Israel to 'restrain' itself while living under rain of constant rockets,
And in the same world where President Obama bombs IS in Syria - killing militants and civilians without reproach.
My moral rabbi stood on the side of Christians, Jews, civility, and democracy.
My moral rabbi stood with Israel.
I
loved it. But I was also not surprised because my rabbi has always been
a staunch supporter of Israel. This past summer, while people shied
away from visiting Israel amid its crisis with Palestinians, my rabbi
picked up and traveled Israel's south, letting folks know that we stand
beside them as Hamas tried to push them into the sea, as their charter
states.
You see, my rabbi understands that we have a moral right
to stand up for our Jewish brothers and sisters around the world (not to
mention the Christians world-wide) that are under threat of attack from
extremists that wish to eliminate them. Hamas and IS would love nothing
more than a world free of everyone but Muslims. Some may tell you
otherwise, but the reality is that these extremists have you and I in
their sights - and we have a moral right to stand up for Israel, on the
forefront of the battle against these terrorists.
The nice thing
is that I know that my rabbi is courageous enough to engage our
community on this important issue, and to do it fairly. He is able to
criticize Israel because he loves her - and still be a cheerleader when
he knows it is right. He is empathetic towards the plight of civilian
Palestinians who seem to be caught in the cross-fire between the IDF and
Hamas, but he is also smart enough to understand that Hamas and IS
cannot exist unchecked. The lives of Kurds, the lives of Arabs, the
lives of Christians, and the lives of Jews depend on it.
The
role of a rabbi is to be a moral leader - and I am proud that my rabbi
possesses outstanding ethics and values. These morals help enable him to
help our community forge a love for Israel, a relationship that says -
We Got Your Back. But at the same time, he is intelligent enough to know
that all conflicts and debates have multiple sides and multiple
narratives - to ignore them is to be irresponsible.
To be a
rabbi is to be a moral leader for Jews. Moral leadership requires rabbis
to realize that they have great responsibility to send an important
message on the only days where they will see the majority of their
community. Moral leadership requires us to
move beyond cheerleading to understand and empathize with all sides in
the conflict, and to realize that as Jews, we need to stand strong with
our Israeli brothers and sisters as they pursue peace and wait for a
courageous partner to join them at the table - one that does not rain
rockets down on civilians and one that does not wish to push Israelis
into the sea.
**From me and mine, to you and yours: Shana Tova, a happy and healthy Jewish new year. May this be the year that we all find happiness and peace.
