Dvar Torah: Shared Graves, Shared Grief

Over fifteen years ago, some Jewish activists launched an initiative they called Project Chayei Sarah. The idea was simple and uncomfortable. They wanted rabbis and rabbinical students to speak honestly with their communities, on this Shabbat, about the on-the-ground realities in the city of Hevron, in the West Bank.

The link between this week’s parashah and that project is clear. After Sarah dies, Avraham seeks a place to bury her. He ends up purchasing a cave from the Hittites, Me’arat haMachpelah. The text says: “Sarah died in Kiriath Arba, now Hevron, in the land of Canaan.” [1] At the end of the parashah, Avraham himself dies and is buried there by his sons, Yitzchak and Ishmael. This small piece of land becomes a shared family burial place, a place that binds together a deeply fractured family.

But that was then. What is the reality in Hevron now?

To answer that, we need to talk briefly about what happened in that area in the past century.

In 1929, during a period of growing tension between Jews and Arabs, sixty-nine Jews were murdered in what became known as the Hevron massacre. A few years later, the British authorities decided to remove all Jews from the city, in order, as they saw it, to prevent further massacres. After more than a thousand years of continuous Jewish presence, Hevron became a place where Jews were forbidden to live.

When Israel conquered the West Bank in the Six Day War of 1967, Jews began returning to the area, first to the settlement of Kiryat Arba, then into the centre of Hevron itself.

When I lived in Israel in 2010, I visited Hevron with a group of former Israeli soldiers called Breaking the Silence. In a city of roughly 250,000 Palestinians, there are fewer than a thousand Jews. The number is small, but the measures adopted to protect them are enormous. To defend this tiny population of settlers, the Israeli army has imposed rules that have closed the main commercial street, sealed the entrances to shops and residential buildings and forced Palestinian residents to improvise new, often humiliating ways of entering and leaving their own homes.

At the heart of the city stands the site that is so central to our parashah, the place we call Me’arat haMachpelah, known today as the Tomb of the Patriarchs and Matriarchs, and as the Ibrahimi Mosque. Jews and Muslims follow a very choreographed and carefully negotiated script. On some days, Jews may pray in certain sections and Muslims are excluded. On other days, Muslims pray and Jews are excluded. It is a place that should speak of shared ancestors, yet it has also become a site of terrible violence. During Purim in 1994, an American-born Israeli Jew, dressed in Israeli army uniform, opened fire with an assault rifle and killed twenty-nine people, including children as young as twelve, and wounded one hundred and twenty-five others. [2]

These were the kinds of realities the organisers of Project Chayei Sarah wanted rabbis to speak about on this Shabbat. Until now, I have never really engaged with that invitation, because I recognise how divisive the Israeli-Palestinian conflict has become in Jewish communities around the world. I know that in any room there will be people whose hearts, histories and politics are very different from one another.

This week, though, following a significant increase in terror brought about by far-right Israeli activists against Palestinian civilians in the West Bank, I began to feel that remaining silent on this is also a choice, and not a neutral one. For the first time, I decided to speak about it directly from the bimah.

Let me share how one Israeli journalist recently described what is happening. An article in the newspaper Yediot Acharonot reported it like this:

Once or twice a day, sometimes more, a notification buzzes in the Hilltop Youth Telegram group. The wording is always similar. “Arabs report that Jews attacked the village of Raba, in the Jenin district,” with a photo of masked men from Palestinian media outlets. The day before: “Arabs report that Jews attacked Arabs near Hevron,” or “Arabs report that Jews set fire to several vehicles in the village of Mukhmas, east of Ramallah,” with a video of burnt-out cars.

The asterisks are interesting: attacked. set fire to. The wording “Arabs report” is there to make sure the messages cannot be understood as accepting legal responsibility. It is only a report. By “Arabs”. From time to time there are messages of support for detainees, those held for questioning and then released.

This week, footage was released that stirred reactions: dozens of masked Jews torching a factory, a sheep pen and trucks in the Palestinian industrial zone at Beit Lid and in the village of Deir Sharaf. The sheer scale of the terrorist act managed to break into the news cycle. Yet, as the Hilltop Youth forums show, the attacks are a daily occurrence. They stretch from the Jenin area in the north all the way to Hevron. [3]

There was also a short video I saw on Instagram, in which Gilad Kariv, a personal friend, a Reform rabbi and a member of the Knesset, complains about Minister Itamar Ben Gvir handing out baklava in the Knesset plenary to celebrate these attacks. [4] This is an imitation of a practice we know from radical Palestinian militants, who sometimes hand out sweets to celebrate when terror attacks kill Israeli Jews. For many of us, that has always been one of the most painful and offensive images. To see a Jewish minister of internal security now mirroring that behaviour, rejoicing in Jewish violence against Palestinians, is profoundly shocking.

The dehumanisation of the other, which used to belong only to the radical margins of Israeli society and of Jewish communities in the Diaspora, is, tragically, moving closer to the centre. It is becoming, for many, the default way of thinking about how Palestinians should be treated.

I know some will ask why I'm speaking about Jewish violence when Israelis continue to face existential threats. The answer is simple: we are responsible for what is done in our name, under the auspices of our religious tradition. That responsibility doesn't diminish with the reality of threats we face, it is intensified by it.

Rabbi Waskow of blessed memory points to a curious moment in our story. After Avraham dies, the two sons he had set against each other, Yitzchak and Ishmael, come together to bury him. The Torah calls them "Avraham’s sons" only then, as if, Waskow teaches, "they became truly his sons... only by joining in their grief." It was only after mourning the father who had threatened both their lives that they could, as the prophecy says, "live face to face with each other."

Waskow then asks the question that we must ask today:

What does this weave of text and midrash have to say (…) about the lethal violence between the two families of Avraham in our own generation? (…) We might draw a lesson from the shared grief of Yitzchak and Ishmael. (…) Can Jews and Palestinians together share feelings of grief about the deaths of members of our two peoples at the hands of the other? (…) When either community mourns the deaths only of those on “its side”... the outcome is often more rage, more hatred, and more death. If we can share the grief for those dead on both “sides,” we are more likely to see each other as human beings and move toward ending the violence. [5]

Rabbi Waskow’s invitation is not a political programme. It is a spiritual practice. It begins with something deeply Jewish and deeply human and very difficult, the willingness to allow our hearts to break, not only for our own dead, but also for the dead of those who are counted as “the enemy”.

What we are witnessing is not just a political crisis; it is a spiritual sickness. The violence in Hevron and the West Bank, the celebration of it with baklava, is not just killing Palestinians; it is killing the Jewish soul. Our task, as Jews who love our tradition, is to reclaim it from those who would twist it into a weapon.

Yitzchak and Ishmael only become, in the Torah’s words, “Avraham’s sons” when they stand together at their father’s grave. They do not resolve every argument. They do not erase the past. They do not undo the harm that has been done. They simply show up, side by side, in grief.

I do not know if Jews and Palestinians will be able, any time soon, to stand together at our many graves, in Hevron, in Gaza, in the kibbutzim and in the refugee camps. I do not know when there will be leaders on both sides with the courage and imagination to make that possible.

But I do know this. If we, as Jews, cannot even allow ourselves to feel sorrow for Palestinian children, women and men killed by Jewish hands, then we are walking away from the Torah of Chayei Sarah. We are walking away from Avraham. If we are unable to weep for Israeli victims of terror without immediately hardening our hearts against Palestinians, we are walking away from Yitzchak and Ishmael as well.

It is easy to hear these stories from Hevron, from the West Bank, from the Knesset plenary, and to feel paralysed. What can we do, from Johannesburg, faced with such entrenched violence and hatred?

Perhaps the answer of Chayei Sarah is modest, but real. Avraham cannot undo what happened between his sons. Yitzchak and Ishmael cannot undo what their father did to them. Yet, at the crucial moment, they choose to act as brothers, not enemies. They choose to walk together, to carry the same body, to face the same grave.

We cannot dictate policy in Jerusalem or Ramallah. We cannot stop the attacks in the West Bank or the bombardments in Gaza. What we can decide is how we will speak, here. Will we join the dehumanising chorus, in which “Arabs” or “settlers” become faceless categories, fit only for hatred or contempt? Or will we insist on speaking of human beings, created in the image of God, whose blood is equally precious?

My hope is that this community will be a place where we can hold complexity. A place where love for Israel and horror at Jewish violence against Palestinians are not mutually exclusive. A place where solidarity with Palestinians does not require erasing Jewish fear and trauma. A place where, week after week, our Torah pulls us back from easy slogans into the hard, holy work of seeing God’s image in all the children of Avraham.

So my prayer for us, on this Shabbat, is simple and impossibly hard. That we keep our hearts open. That we grieve for all who are killed and terrorized, Jews and Palestinians alike. That we resist every attempt, from whatever side, to teach us that the other is less than human. That, in our prayers, in our words, in the way we talk about Israel and Palestine at our Shabbat tables, we choose the path of Avraham’s two sons, not perfect agreement, not naïve harmony, but the courage to stand, at least in our hearts, side by side in shared grief.

And may that be our contribution, small but real, to healing a land that both peoples love. May we be worthy descendants of Avraham, Sarah, Yitzchak and Ishmael. And may the One who makes peace in the high places teach us how to make peace, at least in our words, our prayers and our hearts, here below.

[1] Gen 23:2

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cave_of_the_Patriarchs_massacre

[3] https://www.ynet.co.il/yedioth/article/yokra14579848– translation by ChatGPT

[4] https://www.instagram.com/reel/DQ6QWQUgJMm/

[5] Second comment on this post: https://jewschool.com/project-chayei-sarah-27372

Dvar Torah: The Audacity to Build a Bridge

I remember exactly where I was and what I was doing on the evening of the 4th of November, 1995. It was a Saturday night. I was living and working in Rio de Janeiro, and I had already made firm plans to move to Israel just two months later, to begin my Master's degree. That particular evening, I went to a magician's performance. I was completely offline, disconnected. I did not hear a thing about the murder.

The following day, Sunday, was my father's birthday. I called my parents in Sao Paulo to congratulate him. My mother answered, and her voice was filled with anxiety. "How are you?" she asked, in a tone that clearly implied she expected me to be devastated. "I'm fine," I said, "Why? I'm just calling for Dad's birthday." And it was only then, from my mother, that I learned what had happened. Yitzhak Rabin, the Prime Minister of Israel, had been assassinated.

Two months later, I landed at Ben Gurion Airport. The country I entered was a country deep in trauma. That raw, collective pain, the profound shock of a Jew murdering a Jewish prime minister, and the sudden, violent death of the fragile hope for peace, set the tone for the entire three and a half years I lived in Israel. The dream of the Oslo Accords, a dream of two states living side-by-side, died that night on the pavement of a Tel Aviv square.

This week, we read Parashat Lech Lecha. The text tells us, "God said to Avram, 'Go forth from your land, your birthplace, and your father’s house, to the land that I will show you.'"[1]

The text tells us that Avraham was 75 years old when he heard this call. Seventy-five. This was not a young man seeking adventure. This was a man established in his life, his career, his worldview. And at 75, he is told to abandon everything: his geography, his culture, and most importantly, the ideology of his "father's house." He is told to leave behind everything that had defined him for three-quarters of a century and to follow a new, radical vision for the future.

This Shabbat, as we prepare to mark the 30th yahrtzeit of Yitzhak Rabin, I find the parallel inescapable.

Here was a man, Rabin, who was Israel's "Mr. Security." His entire life, his identity, was forged in the military. From the Palmach to IDF Chief of Staff during the triumphant Six-Day War, his "father's house" was the doctrine of military strength. His vision for Israel's future was, for decades, one secured exclusively by a powerful army.

And then, late in his life, like Avraham, he heard a different call. He was convinced by a different vision, a different hope for the future. He began a journey that was a complete 180-degree transformation from the man he had always been. He set out on a new path, one of diplomacy and compromise, towards a future that was utterly different from the one he had spent the previous 71 years of his life building.

Changing one's whole approach to life is frightening, and it is difficult. Regardless of your opinion on the Oslo Peace Process—and there are many valid and painful critiques to be made—one must agree that Rabin's transformation took profound courage. He wanted what he had come to see as the best, perhaps the only, path for Israel's survival.

But this kind of change is threatening. It threatens many of the narratives we tell ourselves about Israel, about the conflict, about our relationship to the land. And the reaction to his Lech Lecha was not just disagreement. It was visceral, poisonous hate.

What we now call "Hate Speech" was running rampant in Israel in 1995. I am sure many of us remember the images. The posters of Rabin in an SS uniform. The chants, at rally after rally, calling him a "בוגד," a traitor. Pamphlets were distributed in synagogues debating the religious validity of applying din rodef (the law of the pursuer) to Rabin and the Oslo Accords—pronouncements that, in essence, gave religious permission to kill him.

We pride ourselves, rightly, on a Jewish tradition that is open to debate. We cherish machloket l'shem shamayim—disagreement for the sake of Heaven. But nothing of that worked in this case. This was not debate. This was dehumanisation. Yigal Amir might have pulled the trigger by himself, but his action was the direct result of a political and religious climate that steeped itself in vitriol and made political violence acceptable.

This morning, I was listening to a HaAretz podcast interview with French rabbi Delphine Horvilleur.[2] She was speaking about the current war, but her words echo with chilling precision the events of 1995 and the legacy we still live with. She said:

"What very often comes to my mind is the image of bridges... I feel that I've always been someone who tried to build bridges... And I think one of the first effects or consequences of war... is that it destroys bridges. We actually want to get rid of bridges and of people who are trying to build them...

Suddenly, we are... unable to do what a bridge does, like to make a connection with the other's world. So it started with... empathy... people have a hard time being in empathy with the other. So sometimes the other is the other with a big O. I mean, you cannot find empathy for the enemy... and slowly, slowly this lack of empathy kind of contaminates everything in your life.

Because suddenly you lack empathy for your own tribe, for your neighbour, for the one in your own people who disagree with you. And slowly, slowly you lack empathy for the intimate... It's a pity and it's disastrous... how we can't manage to put ourselves one second in the shoe of the other. Not necessarily to agree with him, but just one second to see from another point of view..."

And then she said this, which struck me to my core:

"It's also what is striking for me is that for us Jews, it has been our absolute talent. I believe that the talent of interpretation, Jewish interpretation, which is the most sacred thing we do religiously, is an ability to step aside... an ability suddenly to look... at the text or at the word in another direction.”

Yitzhak Rabin, in his final years, was trying to build a bridge. It was a bridge to the "Other," yes, but to do so, he first had to build a bridge from his old self to his new one. He had to perform that most sacred of Jewish acts: interpretation. He looked at the same reality he had seen his entire life, and he had the audacity to "step aside" and see it in another direction.

The forces of hate did not just want to stop the Oslo process. They wanted, as Horvilleiur says, "to get rid of the bridge-builder." The assassination was the ultimate act of this "contamination" of empathy. It began with a refusal to see the humanity in the Palestinian people, but it "contaminated" sectors of the Israeli society until it reached the point where a Jew could no longer see the humanity in his own prime minister. The lack of empathy for the "other" became a lack of empathy for "the one in your own people who disagrees with you."

Thirty years later, we are living in the rubble of that destroyed bridge. The trauma I encountered in 1996 has not healed; it has metastasized. The refusal to see from another's point of view is no longer a fringe position; it is the mainstream.

The parallel legacies of Lech Lecha and Yitzhak Rabin's yahrtzeit present us with a stark choice.

Avraham's story teaches us that at any age, we can be called to leave behind the "father's house" of our old certainties, our prejudices, and our fears, and journey towards a new, unknown, but more hopeful future.

Rabin's story is the warning of what happens when we refuse that call. It is a testament to the courage it takes to be a bridge-builder, and a horrific reminder of the forces that will always try to tear those bridges down.

The question for us, 30 years on, is not whether we agree with the specifics of the Oslo Accords. The question is whether we can reclaim our "absolute talent" as Jews. Can we be brave enough to "step aside" and see the world, and the "other," from a different direction? Can we find the courage to build bridges, even when it is frightening, even when it is difficult, and even when others respond with hate?

May the memory of Yitzhak Rabin, and the eternal call of Avraham, be a blessing and a challenge for us all.

Shabbat Shalom.

[1] Genesis 12:1

[2] https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/podcasts/2025-10-28/ty-article-podcast/rabbi-delphine-horvilleur-french-jews-dont-know-who-their-friends-are-anymore/0000019a-2a79-db3e-affa-bf7dd71d0000

Dvar Torah: The Courage to Mend

I want you to think, for a moment, about the last two years. Not about the headlines or the politics, but about the feeling in your own body. For two years, since the terrible attacks of October 7th, many of us have been living in a state of heightened alert. Psychologists call it the ‘fight or flight’ response. It is a state of chronic stress where our nervous systems are primed for threat. We become quicker to anger, faster to defend, our words sharpened into weapons before we have even had a chance to think.

Here at Bet David, we are a diverse community. Over these two years, each one of us has held and developed different positions and opinions regarding the conflict. Our anxieties have pulled us in different directions. But the one thing most of us have shared is that feeling of stress, that readiness to fight for what we believe, to protect what we hold dear. It has been exhausting. It has created distance between friends, tension across family tables, and cracks in relationships we once thought were solid.

But now, something is shifting. I fear to be too optimistic, but it seems there is a real, tangible prospect of a lasting peace on the horizon, and with it, the air is beginning to change. The constant alarm bell in our minds is quieting just a little. And this presents us with a new, and perhaps even harder, question. The question is no longer, ‘How do we fight?’. The question is now, ‘How do we rebuild?’. Not just the physical rebuilding of shattered towns and cities in Israel and in Gaza, but the delicate, intimate rebuilding of fractured relationships right here, in our own lives.

Our ancestors, standing at the foot of Mount Sinai in this week’s parashah, knew this moment. They were standing amidst the ruins of a shattered certainty. They had just committed the ultimate betrayal with the Golden Calf. In response, Moshe, in a fury of grief and rage, smashed the first set of tablets. Those tablets, the text tells us, were “the work of God, and the writing was the writing of God, engraved on the tablets.” They were a top-down, pristine revelation. But they were brittle. They could not survive their first contact with messy, flawed, complicated human reality. They shattered.

And in the aftermath of that shattering, what does God command? Does God create another Divine-only set? No. The process for the second chance is entirely different. God says to Moshe, “Pesal lekha, Carve for yourself two tablets of stone like the first.” Moshe, the human being, must hew the raw material. He has to do the difficult, physical work of preparing the vessel. Only then will God write the words.

This is the Torah’s model for repair. It is not a magical return to an unbroken, pristine past. It is a partnership. The second covenant, the second chance, is stronger and more resilient precisely because it has human effort, human struggle, and the memory of failure baked into it from the very start. It is made for the real world.

This idea, that what is repaired can be even more precious than what was never broken, is captured with breathtaking beauty by the late poet, Chana Bloch, in her poem, “The Joins,” which I have already quoted in another drashah a few weeks ago, when we read about the shattering of the tablets in the book of D’varim, Deuteronomy. The poem introduces us to the Japanese art of kintsugi, where broken pottery is mended with lacquer dusted with powdered gold. The philosophy is that the breakage and repair are part of the history of an object, not something to hide. The cracks are illuminated, turned into a source of beauty. The “scar tissue is visible history,” and it is magnificent. She writes:

What's between us

seems flexible as the webbing

between forefinger and thumb.

Seems flexible but isn’t;

what's between us

is made of clay

like any cup on the shelf.

It shatters easily. Repair

becomes the task.

We glue the wounded edges

with tentative fingers.

Scar tissue is visible history

and the cup is precious to us

because

we saved it.

In the art of kintsugi

a potter repairing a broken cup

would sprinkle the resin

with powdered gold.

Sometimes the joins

are so exquisite

they say the potter

may have broken the cup

just so he could mend it. [1]

“Repair becomes the task.” That is where we are now. For two years, our task was to endure. Now, repair becomes the task. Like Bloch’s cup, the relationships in our lives are made of clay. Many have developed cracks under the immense pressure. Some have shattered. And now, with tentative fingers, we are being asked to glue the wounded edges.

This is our challenge today. Can we become artisans of kintsugi? This is not a theoretical question. This difficult, sacred work is happening right now. I was listening recently to a Ha'aretz podcast about a powerful short documentary called The Path Forward. [2] The film showcases duos of Jewish and Palestinian citizens of Israel who refuse to succumb to the cycle of hatred. It features people like Maoz Inon, whose parents were murdered on October 7th, yet who immediately chose to channel his grief into building bridges with Palestinian peace activist Aziz Abu Sarah. Aziz’s own brother died of internal injuries after being released from an Israeli jail, where he had been detained for a year for stone-throwing.

These are people who have every reason to retreat into their pain, to build walls of anger. Instead, they are choosing to become artisans of repair. Their work sends a powerful message to us, right here. If they, who have suffered the ultimate loss, can reach across that immense divide to begin gluing the wounded edges, then surely, we can find the courage to do the same, each of us in our own context. Can we, like Moshe, take on the hard work of carving the stone, of initiating the difficult conversations, of reaching out across the divides that have grown between us and those to whom we were once close?

And can we find the powdered gold to sprinkle on the joins? In our tradition, that gold has many names, quite a few of them named directly in this week’s reading. They are known as the Thirteen Attributes of Divine Mercy, and you may recall them, since they were repeated multiple times during Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur: El Rachum (compassionate God), ve Chanun (gracious), Erech Apayim (slow to anger), verav chessed (abundant in kindness), veEmet (and truth), notzer chesed la-alafim (keeping kindness to the thousandth generation), nosse avon va-fesha (forgiving iniquity, transgression), ve-chata ve-nake (and cleansing sin). [3] These are not abstractions. They are a curriculum for how to mend. Compassion in tone. Patience in timing. Kindness in assumption. Truth that does not flatten people. Forgiveness that does not erase accountability. The gold is also in acknowledging the shared pain of the last two years, even with people with whom we have disagreed on fundamental aspects of what was happening.

This Shabbat, we sit in our sukkah, a structure that is, by design, fragile. The sukkah reminds us, as Chana Bloch’s poem does, that what is most sacred is often what is most breakable. But it does not leave us there. This week’s Torah reading gives us the blueprint for what comes next.

Our task is not to pretend the cracks do not exist. It is not to erase the painful history of these past two years. Our task is to find the courage of Moshe and the vision of the kintsugi artist: to see in the breaks an opportunity, to illuminate our scars with the gold of compassion, and to build a second tablet, a renewed community, stronger and more beautiful precisely because we had the courage to mend it.

Mo’adim le-simcha. May we all be blessed with the strength for the sacred work of repair.

Shabbat Shalom.

[1] https://www.versedaily.org/2015/thejoins.shtml

[2] https://open.spotify.com/episode/4dZj1h9wVYi1BZMDCVT1Yi?si=b9806fde36a543bf

[3] Ex. 34:6-7.

Hidden Face, Open Heart

This Shabbat finds us in a place of tender and complex memory. We are nestled between two solemn anniversaries of the 7th of October attacks: the secular date which has just passed, and the Jewish date which arrives on Simchat Torah, this coming Tuesday. For so many, the emotional landscape is still fragile. The trauma of that day remains close to the surface. Yet, two years later, as the slow and difficult work towards peace in Israel continues, the first hints of solace may finally be emerging.

It is into this very space of fragility and yearning that our Torah reading for Shabbat Chol haMoed Sukkot [1] speaks with uncanny power. The portion is set in the aftermath of another national trauma: the sin of the Golden Calf. The covenant is broken, the people are lost, and the relationship with God hangs by a thread. It is from this place of communal despair that Moshe cries out with a plea that echoes our own: “Oh, let me behold Your Presence!” It is a cry for reassurance, for a sign that healing is possible after the shattering.

What follows is a beautiful and complex choreography, a Divine dance at the cleft of a rock. God’s response is a lesson in how we might recover from trauma. A full, direct view of God's “face”, a reality in which the pain is erased, is not possible. Instead, God offers a protected encounter with goodness. “I will place you in a cleft of the rock,” God says, “and I will shield you with My hand... you shall see My back, but My face shall not be seen.” This is a model for finding solace. We cannot unsee the horrors of the past, but we can create safe spaces from which to witness glimpses of hope: the resilience of a community, the enduring strength of our people, and the courage to believe in peace even after such an immense trauma.

This brings us to the very meaning of the sukkah this year. As Rabbi Michal Shekel points out, this dialogue between Moshe and God occurs at a moment of supreme vulnerability [2]. The firmest walls are often the ones we build to protect our hearts. Sometimes, those walls isolate us. The sukkah proposes a different kind of shelter, thin yet held by presence, porous yet capable of hosting blessing.

Rabbi Nina Beth Cardin, cited by Shekel, puts it beautifully, “Sukkot reminds us that ultimate security is found not within the walls of our home but in the presence of God and one another… The walls of our sukkot may make us vulnerable, but they make us available, too.” These fragile walls “help us understand that sometimes the walls we build to protect us serve instead to divide us.”

This Shabbat, let us see the sukkah as our communal cleft in the rock. It is our safe space to sit with our fragility, to honour our memories, and to be shielded as we look for signs of goodness passing by. It is where we can hold our sorrow and still allow the possibility of peace to be a balm on our aching hearts.

Mo'adim le-simcha and Shabbat Shalom.

[1] Exodus 33:12–34:26

[2] http://bit.ly/4h2bj73

Dvar Torah: Between the Rock and the Sukkah

What a journey this has been! Over the past ten days, we have been through a marathon of spiritual experiences. From the sounding of the shofar on Rosh Hashanah to the deep introspection and fasting of Yom Kippur, we have journeyed to the very core of our souls and back again. It has been demanding, beautiful, and, let's be honest, exhausting. And so, tonight, my words will be shorter. But while we may welcome this brief respite, our spiritual marathon isn't over yet. This moment of transition still asks us to assess our own conduct with seriousness and sincerity.

In the article I sent out on AdKan this week, I wrote about the collision of joy and grief, and the challenge of living in the space between the wound and the healing. Tonight, I want to add another dimension to that search for balance, one that is presented to us with stark clarity in the contrast between this week’s parashah, Haazinu, and the festival of Sukkot, which begins on Monday night. It is the tension between the rock and the sukkah.

Parashat Haazinu is Moshe’s final, poetic address to the people of Israel. It is a song of memory and warning, of love and lament. And woven through this powerful poem is a single, dominant image for God: HaTzur. The Rock. Five times in this short parashah, God is called The Rock.[1] The rock is a symbol of everything we crave when we feel vulnerable. It is permanence in a world of fleeting moments. It is strength in the face of our own fragility. It is stability, security, and power. To lean on the rock is to seek safety from a position of unshakeable strength, to build walls that cannot be breached, to exercise the power necessary to ensure survival. It is to identify with the powerful, because we know all too well the cost of powerlessness.

And then, just as this image of the mighty, eternal Rock echoes in our ears, the Torah commands us to do something utterly counterintuitive. On Sukkot, we are told: בַּסֻּכֹּת תֵּשְׁבוּ שִׁבְעַת יָמִים – for seven days, you shall dwell in booths.[2] We are commanded to leave our sturdy, comfortable homes—our own little rocks—and move into a temporary, flimsy hut. A sukkah is, by definition, an unstable structure. Its roof, the s’chach, must be sparse enough that we can see the stars through it. It leaves us exposed to the elements: the wind, the rain, the chill of a spring night.

The sukkah is the mirror opposite of the rock. It is a symbol of impermanence, fragility, and radical vulnerability. For one week, we are asked to intentionally inhabit insecurity. We are asked to develop our empathy by trying to imagine, just for a moment, what it would be like to live in such conditions permanently. On the one side, the parashah gives us the Rock, inviting us to identify with the powerful. On the other, the chag gives us the sukkah, commanding us to identify with the vulnerable.

This is not just a theological paradox. For the Jewish people, and for all who care about the future of Israel and its neighbours, this tension is the central, agonising challenge of our time. The context of the last two years has pushed us, with terrifying force, towards the extremes.

On Monday night, we will sit down for the first meal in the sukkah. We are commanded for it to be z’man simchateinu, the season of our joy. But this year, as we do so, we will also be marking a solemn and painful anniversary. For on Tuesday, the first day of Sukkot, the world will mark two years since the 7th of October, 2023. We will be asked to hold our impulse toward simcha—toward joy—and make space for memory and grief. A week later, on Simchat Torah, as we prepare to dance with the Torah scrolls, we will be asked to do it again, as we mark the second anniversary of that terrible day according to the Jewish calendar. The calendar itself is forcing us into this impossible balance.

The trauma of that day, and the ongoing pain of the past two years, has sent many of us running for the shelter of the Rock. There are those among us, and in our global Jewish family, whose hearts are, rightly, focused on the victims of that horrific attack. They feel the immense, unending pain of the families of the captives, who have lived every single day of the last two years in a state of suspended agony. Their focus is on security, on strength, on ensuring that our people never have to endure such a horror again. This is the impulse of HaTzur, The Rock—a legitimate, deeply understood, and necessary response to existential threat.

At the same time, there are those among us who, looking out from the fragile walls of their sukkah, feel their hearts breaking for others. They see the tens of thousands of innocent Palestinian civilians whose lives have also been shattered by this conflict. They see women, children, and men who reject Hamas and its cruelty with all of their being, but whose homes, families, and futures have been destroyed. This is the impulse of the sukkah—the call to empathy, to see the humanity of the other, to feel the pain of all who are vulnerable, no matter who they are.

Our world, and the algorithms that drive our discourse, tells us we must choose. You must be for the Rock or for the sukkah. You must stand with the powerful or with the vulnerable. You must wrap yourself in the flag of your own people’s pain, or you must dedicate yourself to the pain of the other.

But Jewish tradition says, no. You must do both. It is a breathtakingly difficult demand. As I wrote in my article this week, "compassion is not a scarce resource, and Jewish conscience does not permit dehumanisation. We can condemn cruelty and still pray for the protection of all innocents. We can pursue security and still yearn for a future where no child goes to sleep afraid."

We must find the moral courage to live in the space between the Rock and the sukkah. To demand security for our people and to see the humanity of our neighbours. To mourn our dead and to mourn the innocent dead on the other side. To hold our own trauma and to recognise the trauma we have, in turn, inflicted.

This is not a path of easy answers. It is a path of constant, soul-wrenching struggle. But it is our path. We are the people who are commanded to be strong as a rock and vulnerable as a sukkah, all in the same week. We are the people whose season of greatest joy is now forever intertwined with a memory of profound sorrow.

And so, as we prepare to enter the sukkah, let us not choose between these two sacred obligations. Let us choose to hold them both. Let us build our sukkah with strong foundations, but leave its roof open to the stars. Let us find the strength to protect ourselves and the compassion to feel for others. And in that spirit, let us pray for the peace that can only come when the security of the Rock and the empathy of the sukkah are extended to all. A prayer for peace for us, for the state of Israel, and for everyone.

Shabbat Shalom.

[1] Deut. 32:4, Deut. 32:15, Deut. 32:18, Deut. 32:30, Deut. 32:31
[2] Lev. 23:42

Between the Wound and the Healing: Reflections for Parashat Ha’azinu – Two Years After 7 October

Yehuda Amichai begins one of his most beloved poems with the line:

“A person doesn't have time in his life to have time for everything.” [1]

Many rabbis, myself included, have turned to this poem in moments of contradiction, when joy and grief collide in sacred space. Over the years, it has become a go-to text for wedding ceremonies held shortly after funerals, for baby blessings after miscarriages, for any moment when celebration and sorrow come too close to separate. But over the past two years, since that terrible day on 7 October 2023, Amichai’s words have taken on a deeper, more haunting resonance.

“A person needs to love and to hate at the same moment,

to laugh and cry with the same eyes…

to make love in war and war in love.”

The Jewish calendar doesn’t avoid contradiction, it crystallises it. On that day, Simchat Torah, as we were dancing with scrolls, singing with children, and kissing sacred words, our people were being attacked, in what would become the most brutal assault on Israeli civilians in a generation. Simchat Torah, the “Joy of Torah”, remained written on the calendar. But something inside many of us broke open. And now, two years later, we are still living in the echoes of that collision: between what should have been and what was; between joy and grief, presence and absence, comfort and terror.

This week’s parashah, Ha’azinu, comes to us in the form of poetry as well. It is Moshe’s final song, a deeply layered, often stark poem that summarises Israel’s journey with God. In last week’s column, I wrote about the emotional force of music and memory, and the Torah’s invitation to “write this song” and place it in our mouths and hearts. Ha’azinu takes up that invitation in full.

But the Torah’s poem is not just a farewell, it is a tapestry of warnings, lament, and hope. Near its close, God says:

“I deal death and give life; I wound and I will heal” (Devarim 32:39).

We have been living in that verse. We have buried and we have blessed. We have sat shivah and danced under chuppot. And we mourn, not only for Israelis murdered and soldiers fallen, not only for hostages still in captivity and families torn apart, but also for Palestinian civilians killed, for children bereaved, for communities shattered. Every human life is of infinite worth, created in the image of God. Our grief must not be reduced to a ledger, nor measured in competing sorrows.

To say this aloud is not to blur moral responsibility; it is to insist on another kind of moral clarity, that compassion is not a scarce resource, and Jewish conscience does not permit dehumanisation. We can condemn cruelty and still pray for the protection of all innocents. We can pursue security and still yearn for a future where no child goes to sleep afraid. This, too, is something the Torah’s poem models: poetry capable of holding covenantal joy and searing lament in the same breath.

And now, we return to Amichai’s poem, which ends with this image:

“He will die as figs die in autumn,

Shrivelled and full of himself and sweet,

the leaves growing dry on the ground,

the bare branches pointing to the place

where there’s time for everything.”

This week, may we give ourselves permission not to resolve the tension but to honour it. May we hold the wound and the hope together. May the songs of our lives carry the names of those we love and those we have never met. May our prayers reach toward healing: for the injured, the traumatised, the bereaved on all sides. And may we remember that our lives, like our Torah, contain both prose and poetry, and that sometimes the only way forward is through song.

Shabbat Shalom.

[1] https://shira-ovedet.kibbutz.org.il/cgi-webaxy/item?2478

A Shattered World: Trying to learn from Mishpatim in the Wake of Loss

As I write these words on Thursday morning, the bodies of four Israeli hostages have been transferred to the Red Cross, being returned to their families in Israel. Among them are the youngest of the 250 hostages taken by Hamas and associated groups on October 7th—Kfir, who was nine months old at the time of the attack, and Ariel, who was four years old then—as well as their mother, Shiri Bibas, and Oded Lifshitz, a peace activist who volunteered in an organisation helping Palestinians in need of medical care to cross the border for treatment in Israeli hospitals.

Wars are rife with tragedy, and people far from the conflict often build emotional defences to endure the anguish they bring. Yet, certain events—charged with profound symbolism—can break through these barriers, forcing us to confront the full weight of suffering. Amid a war that has claimed tens of thousands of lives, the deaths of two children have resonated deeply across the globe. Just as, a decade ago, images of three-year-old Alan Kurdi lying dead on a Turkish shore awakened the world to the horrors of the war in Syria, the deaths of the Bibas brothers have rekindled our awareness of the brutal toll the Israel-Gaza conflict has taken on children. The deaths of the Bibas brothers have shaken the world, as have the images of countless Palestinian children who have lost their lives in this war — the grief is universal, and our humanity demands that we feel the pain of all innocent victims, regardless of nationality.

This week’s parashah, Mishpatim, also known as the “Book of the Covenant,” provides instructions on how to build a society rooted in justice and care for all people. Among them are obligations to protect foreigners, orphans, and widows; to treat enemies with dignity and return their lost property; and the principle that punishment should be proportional to the damage, as expressed in the formula “an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth.”[1] These are the values that have guided Jewish conduct throughout history—while practices may have evolved, the principles they embody have remained steadfast.

May our current pain for all victims on both sides of this conflict, especially children, remind us of our commitment to building the kind of society delineated by the Book of the Covenant: one in which justice prevails, in which everyone feels safe, and in which the most vulnerable receive our full attention. At the same time, may we remain steadfast in the pursuit of securing the release of all hostages, ensuring the safety of innocent civilians, and striving toward a future in which such tragedies no longer occur.

Shabbat Shalom

[1] After extensive discussion in the Talmud, the Rabbis determined that this principle guided the scale of financial compensation in each case but did not grant the injured party the right to inflict the same injury in return.

O nome Israel: nosso passado e nosso futuro

A primeira evidência arqueológica do povo judeu é uma estela (uma placa de pedra em que eram feitas inscrições na antiguidade) do século 13 aEC, em que aparece o nome “Israel” associado a um povo que teria sido destruído pelos egípcios. Mais de 3.200 anos depois, continuamos aqui, sinal de que quem escreveu esse texto muito antigo não tinha plena consciência da resiliência do povo judeu. Ao longo dos séculos, foi principalmente pelo nome Israel que o povo judeu foi conhecido, um fato marcado nos nomes das principais instituições judaica brasileiras (por exemplo, CIP, FISESP e CONIB). Um salto para o passado mais recente: nas vésperas da declaração da independência de Israel, um grupo de líderes da comunidade judaica na Terra de Israel se reuniu para discutir que nome dariam para o estado judeu. “Iehudá”, a proposta que tinha mais apoio inicialmente, foi descartada porque as fronteiras do estado bíblico com este nome caíam fora do que a partilha da ONU estabelecia para o estado judaico. Outras alternativas, como “Tsión” e “Tsábar” foram consideradas, mas ao final o nome “Israel” venceu a votação por 7 a 3. [1] A parashá desta semana, Vaishlách, nos conta a origem do nome “Israel”, que o patriarca Iaacóv recebe depois de duelar com um misterioso “homem” nas margens do rio Iabóc. Para entendermos o significado deste nome, é melhor darmos alguns passos para trás e revisitarmos a jornada que levou Iaacóv àquele lugar e àquela luta. Desde o seu nascimento e ao receber seu primeiro nome, Iaacóv foi um enganador [2]. Ele manipulou seu irmão para obter sua primogenitura [3] e recebeu a bênção de seu pai através de uma mentira. [4] Em vez de enfrentar as consequências de seus atos, Iaacóv fugiu de seus problemas com a ajuda de sua mãe. Como se isso não fosse o bastante para considerá-lo o menos nobre dos patriarcas, em sua primeira interação com Deus, depois de deixar sua casa, Iaacóv estabeleceu condições para seu compromisso com o Divino! [5] Uma vez em Aram, o destino de Iaacóv mudou lentamente, e, além de ser um enganador, também foi enganado várias vezes: especialmente, por seu sogro e tio, Laván, que lhe deu Leá como esposa em vez de Rachel; [6] Laván tentou enganá-lo novamente na divisão do gado, mas, com a ajuda de Deus e o uso de "genética prática", Iaacóv evitou ser ludibriado. Mas suas táticas lhe renderam o ódio dos filhos de Laván, e cansado do conflito, Iaacóv decidiu fugir novamente e retornar à terra de seus pais. [7] Neste ponto, Iaacóv estava começando seu processo de redefinição, mas ainda havia um longo caminho a percorrer; ele tinha tanto medo de seu encontro com seu irmão que não sabia o que fazer: por um lado, orou a Deus mostrando uma humildade que não estava presente quando ele rezou em Bethel, mas, por outro lado, tentou comprar o perdão de seu irmão, enviando-lhe presentes. Quando ele atravessou o rio Iabóc e chegou à terra de Cnaán, ele precisava de algum tempo sozinho para refletir sobre a pessoa que tinha se tornado. Ele deixou sua família de um lado do rio e voltou para o outro lado. É lá, nas margens do Iabóc, que ele viu Deus face a face. Ele viu a pessoa que se tornou, o enganador, o manipulador, alguém que não podia desenvolver relacionamentos com aqueles ao seu redor e que estava sempre fugindo em vez de enfrentar seus problemas. Ele sonhou com um “homem” que era simultaneamente um anjo, Deus e o próprio Iaacóv. Ele viu um Deus que "forma a luz e cria a escuridão, que faz a paz e cria o mal” [8]. Ele finalmente entendeu seu papel, a responsabilidade de ter a escolha entre o certo e o errado. Foi um processo doloroso, pois Iaacóv teve que reconhecer todos os erros que cometeu. Ao amanhecer, uma parte dele queria acordar desse sonho, se juntar à sua família e seguir em frente, mas Iaacóv resistiu à tentação e continuou lutando consigo mesmo nesse processo de autoanálise, até sentir que era digno de todas as bênçãos que tinha recebido. Em algum momento, o "homem" perguntou seu nome e, chorando, ele respondeu "Iaacóv, o enganador", e a resposta que recebeu foi "você não precisa mais ser um enganador; seu nome será ‘Israel’, porque você lutou com Deus e consigo mesmo e se tornou uma pessoa melhor". Intrigado, Iaacóv perguntou "e quem é você para mudar meu nome?", "você não precisa perguntar, você sabe quem eu sou" foi a resposta. Iaacóv reconheceu a natureza transformadora da experiência que teve nas margens do Iabóc e nomeou o lugar “Peniel” (“face de Deus”), porque ali, pela primeira vez, teve a coragem de se olhar no espelho, e ao fazer isso, viu o rosto de Deus. Quando o Sol nasceu, encerrou uma noite muito longa na vida de Iaacóv. Quando ele foi encontrar Essáv, ele estava pronto para assumir a responsabilidade pelo relacionamento que tinha com seu irmão (ou pela falta dele). Ele liderou seu acampamento e se curvou ao chão sete vezes, indicando seu arrependimento pela forma como tinha agido, e quando encontrou Essáv, ofereceu-lhe sua bênção. Não era a bênção de seu pai que ele havia recebido no lugar de seu irmão, mas era o que Iaacóv podia oferecer a Essáv. Mas Iaacóv ainda tinha com medo e se recusou a desenvolver um relacionamento profundo com seu irmão. Assim como qualquer pessoa que já tenha passado por um profundo processo de transformação pessoal ou coletiva, a mudança de Iaacóv, “o enganador”, para Israel, “aquele que lutou consigo mesmo e com Deus”, é um processo longo e não linear. Ao longo do caminho, o antigo Iaacóv ainda aparece às vezes, exigindo esforço de Israel para manter a mudança e continuar em seu novo caminho. Também pelo nome “Israel”, o povo judeu foi instruído a sermos aqueles que duelam com Deus e com os homens, que questionam, a cada passo, a si mesmos e as autoridades estabelecidas, que rejeitam os dogmas e as verdades inquestionáveis. É um legado maravilhoso e empoderador e, ao mesmo tempo, difícil e complicado. Não raras vezes, saímos machucados deste processo, mas aprendemos que não há sentido em deixarmos de ser quem somos. Neste comentário da parashá, me despeço deste espaço. Espero que, ao longo dos quase cinco anos em que participei dele, tenha contribuído um pouco ao processo judaico de reflexão e crítica através do texto da Torá. 

[1] https://bit.ly/3R1WNiT [2] Gen. 25:26 [3] Gen. 25:29-34 [4] Gen. 27:1-40 [5] Gen. 28:20-22 [6] Gen. 29:16-26 [7] Gen. 30:25-31:3 [8] Isaías, 45:7

Dvar Torá: Mantendo nossa humanidade e a deles mesmo em situação de Guerra (CIP)

[nota: Essa é a prédica mais difícil que eu já escrevi e eu peço a vocês um pouco de generosidade na reação. Todos vivemos uma semana terrível e estamos tentando fazer sentido em uma realidade absolutamente caótica. Muita gente vai discordar do que eu tenho a dizer — com sorte, alguns concordem também e possamos refletir, crescer e amadurecer juntos. Se você quiser fazer parte dessa conversa, use os comentários do blog. Comentários ofensivos, antissemitas, islamofóbicos, etc. serão removidos.]

Eu lembro exatamente onde eu estava. Tinha ido abrir uma conta no Itaú mas tinha faltado algum documento e não tinha podido abri-la. Dirigia do Brooklin, onde trabalhava e ficava a agência, até o meu apartamento em Perdizes. Liguei o rádio e falavam de um acidente terrível, no qual um avião tinha se chocado com uma das Torres Gêmeas em Nova York. Todos estavam assustados mas tratavam o assunto como uma acidente. Ainda enquanto eu dirigia, um segundo avião se chocou com a outra torre. Aí tinha ficado claro que não era acidente nenhum. Os Estados Unidos estavam sob ataque e o mundo nunca mais seria o mesmo depois daquele dia. Estar no olho do furacão da história, muitas vezes te deixa absolutamente atordoado. Cheguei em casa, liguei a TV e entrei em desespero ao assistir ao vivo e a cores a transformação do nosso mundo. Tem momentos da vida que nunca vamos esquecer…

Este último sábado teve um sentimento muito parecido. Acordei para fazer o serviço de Sh'mini Atséret, como tenho feito nos último anos. Minha prima Silvinha faleceu em Sh'mini Atséret em 2019 e, desde então, fazer este serviço é minha forma de homenageá-la. Ao acordar e olhar o celular, já tinha uma série de mensagens falando de ataques sincronizados do Hamás contra Israel por terra, ar e mar. Apesar de ser shabat, sintonizei em uma rádio israelense para escutar o que estava acontecendo e, mesmo cedo de manhã, já se falava em comunidades inteiras mantidas reféns. Pessoas estavam ligando para programas de TV e de rádio ao vivo de dentro dos quartos seguros de suas casas e contando que terroristas estavam do outro lado de suas portas reforçadas. O quadro era caótico, sabíamos que havia a chance de um imenso desastre humano, mas sua dimensão real ainda não era conhecida.

Conforme as horas foram passando, fomos escutando relatos horrendos cujos detalhes não vou repetir. Todos nós passamos a semana lendo e escutando sobre os terríveis atos perpetrados pelos terroristas, cenas inimagináveis, de uma violência e sadismo indescritíveis. Muitos de nós temos familiares e amigos ou familiares de amigos assassinados pelo terror nestas primeiras horas, mas imagino que todos nos sentimos como se as mais de 1.200 vítimas fizessem parte da nossa família expandida e nos esforçamos para aprender mais sobre as suas histórias… 

• Debora Matias era filha de Ilan Troen, um acadêmico dos estudos sobre Israel na Universidade de Brandeis que eu conheci quando morava nos Estados Unidos. Debora e seu marido, Shlomi, se jogaram sobre o corpo de seu filho, Roten, de 16 anos, e foram ambos mortos. Pelo esforço de seus pais, Roten, apesar de ferido, sobreviveu. [1]

• Vivian Silver era uma militante pelos Direitos Humanos. Ela serviu por muitos anos no Conselho de B’Tselem, a principal organização em defesa dos Direitos Humanos de Israel. Ela fazia parte de vários movimentos trabalhando pela paz entre israelenses e palestinos e foi nomeada pelo jornal HaAretz em 2011 como uma das 10 imigrantes de países de fala inglesa mais influentes em Israel. Ela foi sequestrada do kibutz Beeri, onde ela vivia, e seu paradeiro ainda é desconhecido. As última palavras que ela trocou com seu filho, por mensagens de texto enviadas do quarto seguro em que ela se escondia, foram “Eu te amo”. “Ela estava muito comprometida em fazer do mundo um lugar melhor e ela falhou”, ele disse ao The New York Times. [2]

• Eyal Waldman é um bilionário israelense ligado à indústria de tecnologia, que vendeu sua empresa por US$7 bilhões em 2020 e que defendia a contratação de programadores palestinos da Cisjordânia e de Gaza. [3] Sua filha, Danielle e seu namorado, Noam, tinham acabado de contar a Eyal que eles iam se casar, depois de terem mobiliado e se mudado para um novo apartamento. Danielle e Noam estavam no festival de música eletrônica Supernova e foram ambos emboscados e assassinados. [4]

Para qualquer pessoa minimamente sensível, estas histórias deveriam causar choque e consternação. Estas não eram pessoas que oprimiam palestinos — pelo contrário, cada um ao seu modo, eles estavam todos envolvidos na construção de pontes, na melhoria das condições de vida da população palestina. Pessoas assassinadas ou sequestradas de forma brutal e covarde, sem chance alguma de defesa, simplesmente por viverem onde viviam e por estar onde estavam.

Para quem acompanhou os eventos desta última semana daqui do Brasil, foram dois choques. O primeiro foi o choque do ataque em si, pela sua estupidez, pelo assassinato de bebês, de crianças, de pessoas idosas; pelo estupro e outras violências cometidas contra populações civis; pela forma irreverente como os terroristas trataram esses atos, divulgando-os nas redes sociais e se gabando deles para quem quisesse prestar atenção.

O segundo choque foi causado pela forma como esses atos foram recebidos mundo afora. Não foram raras as lideranças na política e nos movimentos sociais no Brasil e em outras partes do mundo que celebraram os atos terroristas como iniciativas genuínas de libertação nacional. Pessoas que até a semana passada admirávamos, de quem éramos amigos; pessoas com quem marchamos juntos pelos direitos humanos, contra o racismo, pela democracia, contra o feminicídio, contra a LGBTQIAP+ fobia. Pessoas que, apesar de se manifestarem por todas essas pautas ao nosso lado no Brasil, decidiram apoiar o Hamás, um grupo fundamentalista, que envia homens homossexuais à cadeia por 10 anos [5],  que limita o acesso de mulheres que buscam a Justiça contra casos de violência doméstica, que apela à tortura como estratégia de investigação e onde opositores do regime desaparecem. [6] Contra Israel e contra judeus, as piores formas de violência passaram a ser consideradas estratégias legítimas de resistência. 

Para ser justo, também tivemos muitas lideranças que adotaram um tom bastante crítico com relação aos atos terroristas, tanto no mundo da política quanto no dos movimentos sociais.

Nesse cenário de terra arrasada, de nos sentirmos fragilizados pela violência e abandonados pelos nossos companheiros de luta, o maior risco é cedermos ao desespero e abrirmos mão daquilo que temos de mais valioso: nossa humanidade, nossos valores e nossa conduta moral. Quando sofremos o tipo de ataque que Israel sofreu no último final de semana, com esse nível de brutalidade e de terror, nada mais natural do que querermos causar a mesma dor ao outro lado, garantir que eles saibam que nossa dor não será em vão, que haverá um preço muito alto a ser pago. Em alguns grupos judaicos aos quais eu pertenço, o desejo de vingança, qualquer que seja o preço, é paupável. De alguma forma, essa foi a resposta norte-americana aos atentados de 11 de setembro — e vejam onde estamos hoje: o Taleban de volta ao poder, o sentimento global antiamericano em recordes históricos, o estilo de vida americano mais ameaçado do que jamais esteve. Como um analista israelense disse na rádio naquela manhã de sábado: “a vingança não é um plano de ação.”

Hoje de manhã, ao recitarmos a benção Iotser Or, que faz parte da liturgia diária da manhã, eu mencionei que ela é baseada em um versículo no livro de Isaías, capítulo 45, no qual Deus se apresenta a Ciro, imperador da Persia, que tinha conquistado o Império Babilônico. “Eu sou ה׳ e não há nada mais. Não há outros deuses além de Mim. Eu te empodero, ainda que você não Me conheça. Para que todos saibam, do leste ao oeste, que não há nada além de Mim, eu sou ה׳ e não há outros. [Eu] produzo a luz e crio a escuridão, faço a paz e crio o mal.” É esta última frase que foi parafraseada na brachá que dizemos todas as manhãs. Como dizia uma professora querida, a rabina Rachel Adler, é um ato corajoso reconhecer Deus como a fonte do mal, mas agradecer por isso toda manhã é pedir demais e os Rabinos trocaram a palavra “mal” por “tudo” e a benção ficou: “produzo a luz e crio a escuridão, faço a paz e crio tudo.” Nossa parashá desta semana, Bereshit, nos ensina que somos, TODO ser humano, criados à imagem Divina, com o potencial para decidir nosso caminho. Dessa forma, precisamos, cada um de nós, escolher a cada manhã entre a luz e a escuridão, entre o bem e o mal. 

O Hamás fez suas escolhas e decidiu negar a humanidade de israelenses e de judeus para poder cometer as atrocidades que cometeu. Responder à violência inconcebível do Hamás abrindo mão da nossa humanidade e da deles seria permitir que eles tivessem o maior triunfo nessa disputa.

Da mesma forma, temos visto a humanidade de judeus e de israelenses colocadas em cheque por quem apoia, daqui do Brasil, as ações de terror cometidas em nome da libertação nacional palestina, ainda que não avance nem um milímetro essa causa. Um jornalista, recorrendo à imagem nazista do judeu como rato, citou um ditado chinês para justificar os atos terroristas, dizendo “não importa a cor dos gatos, desde que cacem ratos.” [7] Novamente, nossa humanidade foi descartada para legitimar a violência de que fomos vítimas. 

Frente ao abandono que temos sentido por parte de nossos antigos aliados nas causas humanistas no Brasil, podemos nos sentir tentados a nos retirar desses movimentos, mas é importante lembrar que não nos manifestamos contra o racismo, só para dar um exemplo, esperando apoio a causas judaicas quando precisássemos, mas porque consideramos verdadeiramente que o racismo é um pecado que precisa ser extirpado da cultura brasileira, assim como o machismo, os preconceito por identidade de gênero e sexual e outras formas de violência. 

Hoje eu conversei com o Marcelo Semiatzh, sócio da CIP cuja tia e primos viviam no kibutz Kissufim, ao lado da faixa de Gaza, e que foram assassinados neste final de semana. Eram pessoas carinhosas e bem humoradas. Sua tia Gina, aos 90 anos, pedia para ele levar cachaça quando fosse para Israel para ela poder fazer caipirinha. O primo Itzchák desenvolvia projetos conjuntos com os palestinos de Gaza até a ascensão do Hamás. Marcelo me falou de como é difícil alguém defender os direitos humanos quando a tia que ele tinha como mãe foi assassinada com a brutalidade que foi. “A raiva estava tomando conta de mim”, ele me disse. “Mas eu sou o que eu sou e não vou ficar vivendo em função do ódio do outro.” 

Nos mantermos quem somos e não permitir que sejamos definidos pelo  ódio ou pelo Hamás é o maior desafio que temos nesse momento. Que possamos todos escolher a luz e não a escuridão; a paz e não o mal. Que possamos nos defender, como é nossa obrigação, sem nos tornarmos a cópia daquilo que combatemos.

 

[1] https://news.yahoo.com/mother-died-saving-son-pro-110752324.html

[2] https://www.nytimes.com/2023/10/10/world/middleeast/peace-activists-killed-israel.html e https://www.nytimes.com/video/world/middleeast/100000009124371/israel-gaza-missing-mother-zeigan-silver.html

[3] https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/israeli-palestinian-initiativesbuilding-bridges-business-jon-simmons/

[4] https://www.timesofisrael.com/danielle-waldman-24-daughter-of-mellanox-founder-killed-at-music-festival/

[5] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LGBT_rights_in_the_State_of_Palestine

[6] https://www.amnesty.org/en/location/middle-east-and-north-africa/palestine-state-of/report-palestine-state-of/

[7] https://twitter.com/brealt/status/1712408972869661111

Dvar Torá: Justiça e democracia em Israel (CIP)

Na semana passada, eu estava dando uma aula sobre as novas tradições de Pessach, que é uma dos feriados judaicos mais antigos, dos que ainda são muito celebrados entre as famílias e nos quais, nas últimas décadas, nós encontramos mais inovação. Eu coleciono hagadot com propostas inovadoras e eu trouxe algumas pra mostrar para os alunos: uma hagadá surpreendentemente interessante e profunda que usa como pano de fundo Harry Potter e sua turma, uma hagadá como uma teologia linda escrita pelo poetisa Marcia Falk, algumas hagadot de sedarim de mulheres, uma hagadá que busca o diálogo inter-geracional, uma escrita por e para mulheres vítimas de violência doméstica, uma que conversa com os temas do movimento sindical, com questões dos refugiados contemporâneos. Uma hagadá linda e difícil, escrita por sobreviventes da Shoá para seu primeiro seder de Pessach depois de libertados dos campos de extermínio, ainda em um campo para refugiados em Munique. Lemos juntos um texto escrito por Arthur Waskow, um rabino vinculado ao movimento Renewal que escreveu sobre sua experiência comemorando Pessach apenas alguns dias depois do assassinato de Martin Luther King, enquanto o caos imperava nas ruas de Washington, onde ele vivia — toque de recolher, tanques nas ruas e centenas de manifestantes negros presos. No ônibus, Waskow ia planejando os detalhes do sêder, o momento do calendário judaico em que mais nos identificamos com os oprimidos. De repente, ele começou a cantarolar no ônibus: “Este é o exército do faraó e estou voltando para casa para fazer o sêder”. Naquele momento, ele tomou uma decisão importante na sua vida: “De novo, não! Nunca mais uma bolha no tempo. Nunca mais, nunca mais, uma recitação ritual antes da vida real, da refeição real, da conversa real.” [1]

Esse é o dilema da vida religiosa — quando permitir que a recitação ritual tome o lugar da vida real, da conversa real e quando não. Muitas vezes, quando eu conduzo o serviço de Shacharit, eu digo que há toda uma sessão introdutória, chamada Psukei deZimrá, dedicada a permitir que esqueçamos dos problemas que nos acompanharam até aquele momento, de tal forma que possamos verdadeiramente nos dedicarmos à nossa vida interior. Uma vida espiritual equilibrada é uma necessidade de quem quer poder transformar objetivamente nossa realidade social: precisamos de força interna para lidarmos com as questões de todo dia e se não dedicarmos tempo a construí-la, também não temos como agir no mundo. E, ao mesmo tempo, temos que reconhecer que há situações frente às quais focar exclusivamente na nossa realidade interior pode configurar uma heresia.

Algumas semanas atrás, em Shabat Shirá, quando lemos sobre a saída dos hebreus de Mitsrayim, o texto nos contava que quando o povo reclamava com Moshé por uma intervenção Divina, quando os soldados do Faraó os perseguiam de um lado e o Mar, ainda fechado, estava do outro, a resposta de Deus foi 

 מַה־תִּצְעַק אֵלָי?! דַּבֵּר אֶל־בְּנֵי־יִשְׂרָאֵל וְיִסָּעוּ!! 

Por que você grita comigo?! 

Fale com os israelitas e que eles sigam em frente!! [2]

Há momentos em que, mais que reza, precisamos de ação ou pelo menos de solidariedade com quem age.

A sociedade israelense está em ebulição, como estava Washington naquele abril de 1968 seguindo o assassinato de Martin Luther King Jr. Há semanas que centenas de milhares de manifestantes têm saído às ruas de todo o país em protestos contra uma mudança tão radical no seus sistema judicial que os analistas dizem que comprometeria o caráter democrático do Estado de Israel. Uma explicação bastante superficial é que há dois pontos principais no projeto que tem avançado em velocidade recorde na Knesset: um ponto garante que a coalisão do governo indique a maioria dos membros da Suprema Corte. Outro ponto estabelece que a Knesset passe a poder derrubar decisões da Suprema Corte pela maioria simples de seus membros. Lembrem-se que uma das funções de cortes constitucionais, como é a Suprema Corte de Israel, é defender os direitos das minorias contra leis que infrinjam suas garantias legais. Da forma como a reforma judicial está proposta, direitos estabelecidos poderiam ser revogados com a anuência da coalisão da vez.

No mundo todo, comunidades judaicas têm se mobilizado, buscando reverter a proposta encaminhada ou desacelerar seu processo de aprovação, possibilitando que, através do diálogo entre os grupos políticos, uma proposta de consenso social possa ser formulada. Rabinos de todos os movimentos tem se manifestado pedindo ao governo de Israel que reconsidere sua proposta. A JFNA, a entidade guarda-chuva das Federações Judaicas nos Estados Unidos, emitiu uma carta aberta endereçada tanto ao primeiro ministro Biniamin Netaniahu quanto ao líder da Oposição, Yair Lapid, apontando para o impacto que uma mudança deste tipo teria na relação entre Israel e a comunidade judaica norte-americana [3]. Eles pediam, sem sucesso, que fosse adotada, no lugar do projeto encaminhado pelo governo, a proposta de  Itschak Herzog, o presidente de Israel [4].

Segmentos da comunidade judaica brasileira também têm se mobilizado em solidariedade aos manifestantes que pedem a proteção ao caráter democrática de Israel. Em uma carta endereçada ao governo israelense e assinada inicialmente por um grupo de entidades judaicas, incluindo a CIP [5], reafirmamos nosso Sionismo e compromisso com Israel como um Estado Judaico e Democrático e, reconhecemos o impacto que acontecimentos em Israel projetam sobre nós. Ao final do documento, “manifestamos nosso apoio e solidariedade aos israelenses que lutam pela manutenção da democracia, e conclamamos a população judaica brasileira para que faça o mesmo, repudiando qualquer ameaça ao Estado Democrático de Direito no país.”

Nesta semana começamos Vaicrá, o terceiro livro da Torá. Nesta primeira parashá, o texto trata de diversos tipos de sacrifícios, incluindo a “chatat” e o “asham”, ofertas para casos em que as pessoas deixavam de cumprir as instruções da Torá por negligência, descuido ou má fé [6]. Uma parte importante dessas regras dizia respeito à preservação da integridade do sistema judicial, garantindo que não houvessem testemunhos falsos nem omissão em testemunhos que poderiam inocentar um suspeito. 

A decisão sobre sua estrutura judicial pertence apenas aos israelenses, mas suas implicações claramente nos afetam também. Se informe sobre o processo em curso, procure formar a sua própria opinião e, se achar apropriado, se manifeste e ajude a defender a Democracia israelense!

Shabat Shalom!

 

[1] https://religiondispatches.org/take-history-into-your-own-hands-why-i-wrote-the-freedom-seder-and-why-its-still-necessary/

[2] Ex. 14:15

[3] https://cdn.fedweb.org/fed-42/2/Open%2520Letter%2520to%2520the%2520Government%2520of%2520Israel%2520from%2520Jewish%2520Federations_English.pdf?v=1676947860

[4] https://www.lemonde.fr/en/international/article/2023/03/16/israel-proposed-compromise-on-judicial-reform-promptly-rejected-by-netanyahu_6019533_4.html

[5] https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLScuzcaldesWCgc-cP6qj-Je8hFP1EyF-ALJivgOUWuo3WzVuQ/viewform

[6] Lev. 4:27-5:26