Rabbi Philip Weintraub
Congregation B’nai Israel
September 7, 2024
For the last week I have been numb. I have gotten up each morning, tried to be a parent, gone to minyan, to work, visited folks in the hospital, made phone calls, met people for coffee and to talk Torah over vegan food. At the same time, I have not been myself. This week there was another school shooting. It happened at a high school near where I grew up, with personal connections, yet I barely registered it. School shootings usually enrage me. They frustrate me at the lack of movement, that seemingly nothing has changed in two decades. Having briefly been a student at Sandy Hook Elementary School, I usually have very strong feelings about school shootings, yet this time I felt nothing.
Instead my heart was in Israel, broken, shattered, for the millionth time. Sunday night we gathered for minyan. We remembered Ori Danino, 25; Alex Lobanov, 32; Carmel Gat, 40; and Almog Sarusi, 27. Eden Yerushalmi, 24 Hersh Goldberg-Polin, 23. Tomorrow at CBS in Clearwater at 1PM (please register on their webpage) there will be a vigil for them. This past Monday I watched Jon Polin and Rachel Goldberg speak about their son. I watched Israel’s President, Isaac Herzog, speak. I wondered how 336 days since October 7, Jews, Christians, Muslims, Buddhists and others kidnapped from the Nova Festival for Peace and Love or communities in the Gaza Envelope remain hostages in Gaza. I wonder about these innocent victims who were celebrating Shabbat and Simchat Torah, enjoying a concert, or simply going about their day had their lives interrupted, destroyed, broken on that terrible day.
I remain in awe of Jon Polin and Rachel Goldberg Polin. They have eloquently, beautifully, ripped their hearts out of their bodies and shared them with us day, after day, after day. They have shared hope and optimism, even when speaking of the fear that consumed them day after day, month after month, until it was truly realized this past week.
A quote widely attributed to the murderous dictator Josef Stalin says that one death is a tragedy, a million is a statistic.
For the last 336 days, I have tried to think of the individuals who have been stolen from us. It is hard to understand the weight of the more than 1200 lives destroyed on October 7. It is hard to hold in our hearts, souls and minds the more than 100 hostages who remain in Gaza, but the story of an individual, that we can hold on to. We can think of Hersh, of a young man who loved music, Judaism, peace and even our own Camp Ramah Darom.
Speaking of his son, Jon Polin said:
“‘Appoint for yourself a teacher and acquire for yourself a companion and judge all people with the benefit of the doubt.’” Some ask: What is it that connects these two distinct parts of this verse? First, appoint for yourself a teacher, a companion. And second, judging all people with the benefit of the doubt. This verse is Hersh. A teacher and acquire for yourself a companion. Hersh always used his intellect to strengthen his companionship…
Opening his English eulogy, he connects his son to Torah, to our holy traditions, sharing with the world the core of Hersh’s being. After speaking of the messages the family received, he shared:
For 330 days, mom and I sought the proverbial stone that we could turn over to save you. Maybe, just maybe, your death is the stone, the fuel that would bring all the remaining 101 hostages. Od lo havda tikvatenu.
In one of the darkest moments of their lives, this family has found a way to bring hope to those around them. If only we can emulate them in this holy task! Speaking to us and to his late son, Jon said:
But you’re a dreamer, an expensive thinker, so you would keep on pushing for a rethinking of this region. You would say, you have said, that we must take a chance on a path with potential to end the ongoing cycle of violence. You would ignore people’s public posturing, what people say for press conferences, and you would push every decision maker to truly look at themselves in the mirror and ask themselves, selflessly, every single day, will the decisions I make today lead to a better future for all of us? And you would tell any decision maker who cannot answer that question with an emphatic yes to step aside…”
Jon reminds us that none of us can live in a state of conflict forever. Even if the path seems unclear, there must be a just solution, a path towards peace--as our Torah teaches of Darchei Shalom, so too must we find them--and if they cannot be found, they must be created.
Our parsha this week speaks of justice. It opens with Moses speaking about jurisprudence:
That last line has been commented on from generation to generation. I won’t go through them all, but the commentators take the repetition of the word Tzedek, justice, not only as an emphatic, but to teach us that the judges themselves must be just judges.
As we have seen with the ridiculous charges against Israel through the International Criminal Court and International Court of Justice, false justice can be worse than no justice at all.
This week the United States Department of Justice announced criminal charges against leaders of Hamas. While I do not know what will happen, I am pleased that these charges have been made.
Powerfully, Ibn Ezra on Deuteronomy 16:20:1 says
JUSTICE, JUSTICE. Moses speaks to the disputants. Moses repeats the word justice to indicate that one should pursue justice whether one gains or loses… (sefaria.org)
Rabbi Adin Steinsaltz expands the translation of the verse to say:
Steinsaltz on Deuteronomy 16:20
It is not enough merely for the law to be just; rather, justice, justice you shall pursue, take the initiative to impose justice, so that you will live, and take possession of the land that the Lord your God is giving you, by establishing a civilized state, where integrity and justice reign.
Every day that has passed since October 7th has been heartbreaking. Yet, as Jews we remain strong. While we may have felt the pain was overwhelming, the world was too dark, our Torah teaches us that not only is justice possible, we must work towards it. We must fight for it. We must build it from nothing.
If the courts have not done their job, then we need new courts. Let us live to see true justice for those who have been taken from us--and for those that remain alive in captivity, may we see them returned to us in the best of health. For those that are no longer living, let their memories be for a revolution!
Shabbat Shalom
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