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Reflections of Israel on the 40th Anniversary of the Yom Kippur War

Yom Kippur Morning – Reflection of Israel on the 40 Anniversary of the Yom Kippur War

Boker Tov, Good Morning.Gmar Chatimah Tovah. May you all be sealed in the Book of life.

As many of you know this summer I completed my Shalom Hartman Institute Rabbinic Leadership Initiative and graduated as a Sr. Rabbinic Fellow of the Jerusalem based Institute.  The Shalom Hartman Institute is a place of higher learning, teacher training; it is a Jewish think tank and research institute, a place of rabbinic leadership and Jewish communal lay leadership training. It is a place where academics from all nations gather to discuss Israel, Judaism and modernity, and religious ethics.  The Hartman Institute runs two Orthodox High School one for boys and one for girls, trains IDF, Israeli Defense Force officers in Jewish ethics and the ethics of warfare, and provides an opportunity for North American Rabbis of all denominations to gather to study in a free-wheeling Yeshiva setting, encountering the texts and philosophies of our Tradition and apply them to the contemporary world.
It is important that you know my three years there were sponsored by the Los Angeles Jewish Federation.  They underwrote my learning and travel to Israel for the last three and half years.  I would be remiss if I didn’t give a public thank you to the leaders of the Jewish Federation of Los Angeles, the Shalom Hartman Institute and all of you who continue to support the Jewish Federation Council.   I would also be remiss if I didn’t thank you, our congregation and our staff for supporting me in this opportunity to broaden my learning and vision and engagement with Israel and the texts of our tradition.

My encounters in Israel these last 3 ½ years have only made my love for our ancient land grow deeper. I have learned to see a different Israel; a more complex and mature Israel than the naïve Zionism of my childhood. And it has changed my heart. As the medieval poet Judah HaLevi wrote  “My heart is in the east, but I am on the edge of the west.”   This morning, as we commemorate 40 years since the Yom Kippur war, my heart is turned eastward to Eretz Yisrael and her neighbors.

I don’t know about you, but in 1973 I still remember as we exited the grand sanctuary of TempleIsrael in Memphis, TN. (after counting the pipes of the organ all morning) everyone was standing on the steps outside and the foyer worrying and talking.  The Rabbi had announced at the conclusion of the morning service that Israel had been attacked that day.  Everyone was so upset.  I remember the following days as the casualties grew and the fierceness of fighting continued as Egypt and Syria kept making incursions into Israeli held territory. It would be almost three whole days until Israel could muster enough of its forces to begin to hold off the combined Arab armies.

Somehow this war would be a different war than 1967’s six day rout by Israel.  Fierce fighting continued for three weeks.  Ending only by diplomatic cease-fire and when Israeli troops had made their way within 25 miles from Damascus in Syria and crossed the Suez Canal encircling the city of Suez and Egypt’s entire Third Army and the Israeli army was only 63 miles from Cairo.  Despite the UN Ceasefire there were skirmishes between the Egyptian army and Israel until January of 1974 and on the northern front with Syria until May 1974.

But the 1973 war was different.  Despite many warnings as early as Rosh Hashanah that both the Syrian army and Egyptian army were amassing troops and tanks, the high level military commanders in Israel did not believe that the Arab armies would strike out against Israel post 1967.  And in papers recently released then Prime Minister Golda Meir, admitted she knew war was imminent but could not call a preemptive strike. This left the Israeli army very unprepared for the attacks on Yom Kippur Day 1973.  They were taken by surprise.

That war also almost led to a real confrontation between the U.S. and the Soviets.  In those years Egypt and Syria were client states of the former Soviet Union. Both were armed by the Soviets and its officers trained by the Soviets.  Throughout the war as tension increased the US and the Soviets almost entered the war. In one naval battle, Israeli and Soviet gun ships exchanged fire off the coast of Syria.  Luckily Henry Kissinger’s brilliance saw this encounter as a way to woo Egypt from the Soviet sphere. And today Egypt still receives serious financial and military aid from the U.S.

Five years later-the Camp David Accord of 1978 would bring peace between Egypt and Israel and the price was the return of the Sinai Peninsula.  But the Yom Kippur war changed something in Israel and her soldiers and the country.  For the first time they were defending the territories captured in 1967.  And Israel came within hours of losing the entire country and using nuclear weapons.  The losses were great for Israel during that war 40 years ago today.  And for the first time Israelis began to question their own governmental and military tactics in a new way.

And that questioning that began there 40 years ago today-is never more apparent than in Israel than now.   What kind of state should Israel be?  As it in now 65 years old, what kind of Jewish Democratic Israel should unfold?

Israelis have had enough.  There is an important debate that is going on in Israel about the role of public and governmental Judaism.  As the Haredim, the ultra Orthodox communities continue to grow through tremendous birth rates, traditional and secular communities in Israel have become embittered at the public control of the Chief Rabbinate over daily life and the lack of involvement in the State by the Haredi communities by paying taxes, and being part of the workforce.  Hence the recent law that passed the Knesset requiring Haredi Ultra Orthodox men to serve in the Israel Defense Forces.  I have to admit when I spent a day at the officers training headquarters this summer I was stunned by the number of Hareidi Jews black hats, knee briches and arba kanfot flying as they walked briskly through the corridors on their way to army offices.  This is a definite change. While not all Hareidim are supporting this change and several Haredi soldiers have been beaten up as the came home on the weekend to their ultra-observant neighborhoods, increasingly this compulsory service will indeed change the Hareidim-it will help them adjust to modernity and force them to learn a trade and it will change the Army and all of Israel as secular Israelis and Hareidim meet and must work side by side.

This questioning and protests within in Israel has been a fascinating progression in the life of the Jewish state. Just a couple of months ago –there were elections for the New Chief, Ashekenazi and Sephardic rabbis of Israel.  For the first time ever, more moderate Religious Orthodox Jews ran against the Haredi rabbis.  While they didn’t win this time they came very close.  There have been many reports and questions even asking why there still is a chief rabbiniate in Israel controlling such areas of life, including marriage, birth and death and conversion and Kashrut.  These have been questions Reform and Masoriti communities have long asked and fought for, now it is being asked in many other corners of Israel and within the Israeli government itself!  In Jerusalem in Machne Yehuda, the large central market, a group of restaurateurs have gathered to create their own certificate of kashrut, rejecting the Jerusalem Chief rabbinates’ certification and the fees and often outrageous rules they must follow. This is but one example of the pendulum swinging and people asking for themselves: “What kind of Israel do we want?”

And many of you no doubt have followed the news stories about the Western Wall and the efforts of Women of the Wall to organize its monthly women’s prayer service there.  I have spoken about it before on the High Holy Days.  Again this summer I went in July for Rosh Chodesh Av to pray in the early morning service at the Kotel.  It was really different than previous summers, because this year group leader Anat Hoffman recently named Person of the Year by Haaretz Newspaper in Israel and the Women of the Wall group sought a new court ruling from Jerusalem District Court about the ability to pray at the Kotel.  It used to be that the police would arrest the Women of the Wall for praying there. Now the police have been charged with protecting the Women of the Wall in prayer.

We gathered at 6:30 am at Gan Hapamon, Near the Inbal hotel 350 women and 100 men boarded buses and were now escorted by police into the OldCity. Now the police was protecting us from the angry crowds of Haredim.  When we arrived we were ushered into the KotelPlaza without a hassle but we didn’t make it very far.  For the Heads of the Right Wing Yeshivas had called on the young women age 12-17 to arise even earlier and more than 5000 young girls blocked our way by filling the women’s side of the Kotel.  And stuck in the upper plaza we faced a line of young Charedi teenagers in their streimels and payot yelling obscenities at us while old women blew whistles.  The police would not let us try to push forward near the Kotel and so we led our joyous Rosh Chodesh service in the back of the plaza-with the Charedim, screaming at us, and throwing water bottles and eggs and the many us who had gathered. There were lots of N.American women rabbis in this gathering in July because all of us who were at the Hartman Institute this summer had joined together in solidarity for these Rosh Chodesh prayers. One young pregnant rabbi was hit by a water bottle.  Luckily she was okay. But it was disheartening. The man was arrested.  Here we had changed the way the police acted toward Women of the Wall but we were outnumbered and outgunned by the Yeshiva students.

Last November, the story and the momentum began to change-when the police arrested Anat for wearing a tallit during prayer at the wall.  They arrested her as they have before. But this time they stripped searched the former city council woman, and threw her in a cell with several prostitutes naked until the next morning.  Usually she would be charged and released in several hours.  After the outcry from within Israel and from liberal Judaism here in North America the Israeli government officials had to take note.  They were embarrassed but still the following months the police under orders of the Kotel rabbi arrested several prominent Reform women rabbis as well for carrying their talitot into the KotelPlaza.

Again the cry of Diaspora Jews was beginning to be heard.  I worked closely here in Los Angeles with our Counsel General here in Los Angeles to create a Rabbinic Task Force.   I knew that we had a unique opportunity to influence Israel and to convey the urgency to the Israeli government that squelching the prayers of women dedicated to prayer, and continuing to empower Rabbi Shmuel Rabinowitz the rabbi of the Kotel to have the police act like thugs would only aver to damage Israel further in the larger Jewish community outside of Israel.  On that task force are Rabbi Laura Geller and I,  Rabbi David Wolpe, Rabbi Eddie Feinstien,  Rabbi Yosef Kanefsky of B’nai David Judea,Rabbi Kalman Topp modern Orthodox rabbi of Beth Jacob, Rabbi Eleazar Muskin Modern Orthodox rabbi of Agudath Yisrael of Century City,  Rabbi Yitzhok Adlerstein of the Wiesenthal Center-who represented even more right wing Orthodox movements, Rabbi David Eliezeri of Chabad of Orange County, and Rabbi Judith HaLevy and Rabbi Steve Carr Reuben of the Reconstructionist movement.  It was a group that never had sat down before. We began to talk about the Kotel and what does it mean for the State of Israel to discriminate against some Jews.  It has been an interesting roundtable.  Not that we always agree. But unlike the Board of Rabbis where some of these further to the right rabbis won’t participate, they all do care about Israel, and what kind of Israel is going to exist!

Over the last year, we have met several times. Including a private meeting with Ambassador Michael Oren, scholar Michah Goodman, Rabbi Rick Jacobs,  the president of our Union for Reform Judaism and of course Natan Shransky who was charged with solving the situation at the Western Wall and the ability of WOW to be able to pray and the issue of egalitarian prayer.—Men and women together.

There have been ongoing negotiations at the highest level. In Jerusalem, in Washington, D.C. and New York, leaders of the Reform and Conservative movement and Modern Orthodox movements here in the Diaspora have been heard. And when recently the Minister of Religious Services and head of the Israel Beytanu Party, Naftali Bennett  tried to do an end run around the compromise that has been reached, again the voices of North American Jewry spoke out and were heard.

But the compromise that has been reached is as follows: Women of the Wall are allowed to pray with their tallitot, in the manner of their custom, with their prayerbook at the Kotel, but also eventually there will be adequate facilities in another area of the Kotel, near Robinson’s Arch that will be open 24/7, and that will be entitled for liberal prayer, including Reform and Conservative prayer of men and women together.  There are more than 100 torah scrolls owned by the State of Israel at the Kotel, but so far Rabbi Rabinowitz has refused WOW access.  The new compromise will allow access to the Torah scrolls and prayer books.  But this plan will take time to make happen.  And much remains to be seen as to how the interim is handled!  Women of the Wall had a beautiful and successful Selichot service at the Kotel including the sounding of the Shofar on Sept. 1.  So it remains to be seen how on Rosh Chodesh Cheshvan the story will unfold.

But a significant part of the compromise is that for the first time Reform and Conservative Rabbis will be recognized by the State and there will be a new configuration of the foundation that controls the Western Wall Heritage Site, including liberal Jews and women who will make up the group!

Israel is changing in many positive ways.

But Israel won’t change if we just walk away.  If we simply opt out and say we don’t care.  We American Jews, we have a stake in Israel. Even if we don’t make aliyah, move to Israel.  Israel is our homeland. It is the land of our heritage, our roots as a people.  Even if you as a Jew have yet to visit there, Israel belongs not just to Israeli citizens, but to the Jewish people. The land of Israel is a pillar of our faith, God Torah, and Israel.  The land and the people of Israel-the People of Israel is not a political message but a spiritual one and include each of us here.  We are Am Yisrael. I want to encourage each of you-to visit Israel. To understand the place you have there, can only be if you visit there. And revisit there.  Going to Israel is even if it is your vacation-is different than a trip to China, or Greece, France or a Caribbean Cruise. A trip to Israel is a spiritual pilgrimage because it is a visit to the land of your ancestors.

The conversation in our country these last few weeks of the horrors endured by the Syrian people, and the potential for strikes against Israel by chemical weapons of Syria or the nuclear weapons of Iran should give us all pause.  It is not if Iran might make a nuclear bomb it is only when.  And the brilliant tactics that they have used agreeing to engage in talks and disarmament only to ramp up their spinning centrifuges should make us wonder at this new offer by Russian and Syria to engage in disarmament of chemical weapons when we have been trying for years to have this happen, only to be blocked at the UN Security Council by Russian and China!

We Jews have strived to learn from our history.  We Jews have said “Never Again”. Never again will we let a Dictator round us up and gas our people.  What about our obligation to other people? Will we stand silently by? As our Torah portion this afternoon asks of us?   Will we stand silently as Israel faces a chemical and nuclear threat? Or a barrage of rockets from Hizbollah or Hamas?

Will we stand silent when we seek an Israel that is more just and more democratic, when it fails to be? Will we stand silent or will be as members of the Jewish world, be willing to raise our voices for Israel?  In good times and in bad? We can argue Israeli politics, just like we argue politics here in the states.  But Israel is more than its politics. It is a place of complexities, and irony. It is a place of contradictions, and history, the home of many peoples and our Jewish home as well.

My experiences at the Shalom Hartman Institute have taught me this: We Jews are all a part of Israel.  We have a stake not only in Eretz Yisrael, the Land of Israel but whether we live in the modern state of Israel or not, we Jews around the world have a stake in the success of the nation of Israel and we have a voice there as well.

In November I will return to Israel to celebrate the 25th anniversary of Women at the Wall along with a number of women rabbis. We will help usher in Rosh Chodesh Kislev. While we are there we hope to continue to uplift our voices that Israel matters not just to Israelis but to give evidence that Israel matters to all Jews everywhere and the right to pray and to practice Judaism in our custom is a powerful testament to our Jewish values and faith.  Israel is a precious place not just for Israelis but for you and me.  Use your voice as a voice for Israel, now and always. Use your miles to get there.  It is making a difference both here and there.

May Israel continue to flourish in this New Year.  And may we help to bring the bonds of friendship between America and Israel even closer in this year ahead.  Protect her and all its residents.  And let the gift of peace flow upon Israel as a nation as she seeks peace with the Palestinians and all of her neighbors.