by Rabbi Peter S. Knobel 
Rosh Hashanah 5764 - September 26, 2003

In 1945, when the Allies liberated the concentration camps, they found huge piles of emaciated corpses. Those images remain a vivid picture in my memory. A few moments ago, accompanied by flute and horn, we read Ezekiel's "Dry Bones". The prophet tells us that bones are the whole household of Israel and promises that one day God will open our graves and restore us to the land of Israel. It is a vision of hope, born of despair. As I read these words:

Thus said the Lord God: I am going to open your graves and lift you out of the graves, O My people, and bring you to the land of Israel. You shall know, O My people, that I am God, when I have opened your graves and lifted you out of your graves. I will put My breath into you and you shall live again, and I will set you upon your own soil.
(Ezekiel 37:11-14),

with the melody of Hatikva, the Israeli national anthem in the background, my heart skips a beat. The Biblical myth of death and resurrection has become a reality in my lifetime.

The Yom Kippur afternoon service consists of a long section that traces our history from creation to redemption. (Many congregants consider this the most boring part of the day, but I find it energizing and uplifting.) It contains a vivid and poetic description of the horrors of the Shoah followed by a description of our return to Israel as a people reborn.

Drawn by its brightness, her children flock to Israel from distant lands of despair and found hope. Though bent in mourning, they plowed the earth deep, so the grain would grow tall. And as they restored the land to its fruitfulness they began themselves to be restored. Israel lives: the people at home, rooted in its soil, its way of life, its ancient faith.
(Gates of Repentance, p.442).

But for us the rebirth of Israel alone is not redemption. Our mission requires that the whole world be transformed. So we pray:

Use us, God, to speed the day of reconciliation when poverty, racial prejudice, and religious hatred no longer threaten to destroy us; when violence, angry conflict, and mistrust are forgotten evils; when our wealth is used to feed the hungry and heal the sick; when we cherish the world and hold it in trust for our children's children; when the weak grow strong, and the strong compassionate; let justice roll down like waters and righteousness like a mighty stream.
(p. 446)

We believe that Jews living in Israel and Jews living in the Diaspora must together till the field of justice, righteousness and compassion. My identity as a Jew is bound up in my connection to Israel and my commitment to the redemption of all of humanity. Put another way, I cannot separate my Judaism from my Zionism nor my Zionism from my Judaism. The universal message that every human being is created in the image of God is more urgent than ever, but I respond to the world's injustice not as a human being in general, but as a Jew.

Each Israeli death tears at the flesh of my heart. Each Palestinian death sears the fabric of my soul. The tattered fragments of the Oslo Accords scratch the cornea of my hope. The torn road map frays the optimism of my belief in international interventionism. My thoughts turn often to Jerusalem, a city whose streets I know so well. It's revival as a modern and accessible place is a dream fulfilled. Its exploded cafes and burned buses are a constant waking nightmare. Every Israeli death is a personal tragedy. The tears of Palestinian women, whose homes have been destroyed, disturb my sleep. The violent deaths of bystanders to Israeli retaliation fill me with grief.

Our dispersion was both a tragedy and a great gift. The loss of sovereignty made us citizens of the world with a powerful message about justice. Through our suffering, we dreamt of piercing the fortress of prejudice; we hoped to shatter the iron wall of narrow nationalism; and we prayed to smash the crushing rock of racism. We have paid a high price for powerlessness. Death and persecution were often our lot but our spirit remained rooted in the vision of a better world.

When we were without land and were ruled by others, we dwelt in the realm of sacred time and merely fanaticized about sacred space. We stood outside history and so we allowed ourselves the luxury of proclaiming our moral superiority over the nations of the world. Now, however, the fantasy of land and self-governance has become reality and the need to speak truth to power has become an internal Jewish affair. While powerlessness meant death and injustice was inflicted upon us, power means that not only do we have the means to defend ourselves but also we have the means to inflict death and injustice upon others.

As a Jew I love Israel. My love is rooted in my familial connection to all Jews and to a belief that the revival of Jewish sovereignty is both an opportunity and a challenge. For some Jews the only way to be a friend of Israel is to be uncritical. Nothing Israel does in the name of self-defense deserves reproach. To enter into criticism is to betray our people and give comfort and aid to our enemies. "We must kill the enemy before the enemy kills us." "All the land is ours." I cannot accept this approach. Violence begets violence. Constant armed conflict makes death and human suffering an unending circle of despair. I believe: Israel's right to defend herself is beyond dispute. I believe Israel's right to exist must be unequivocally supported.

However, at this juncture in Jewish history, many Jews are withdrawing from engagement with Israel. There are a number of explanations.

1. The day to day news of exploding human beings is too gruesome to contemplate and the carnage against women and children makes us recoil. The situation seems hopeless.
2. We have enough of our own tzurus to contemplate in the wake of September 11th and the Iraq war. We feel insecure, our own troops are dying, and many people are without jobs.
3. The actions of the Israeli government fill us with ambivalence. We see no way out of the quagmire of competing claims and deep seated enmity. Terror has terrorized us.

In Europe especially, but also among the Christian left, we must be wary of a new anti-Semitism which loves Jews only if they are powerless. It is anti-Semitism of the Left which admires us and loves us only if we are victims. For these people to be a supporter of Israel is to be a fascist. We must be wary of the friends of Israel on the Christian Right who see us as the hope for their messianic vision of the Second Coming. Their love of us is expressed as a right wing chauvinistic nationalism which demonizes Islam and the Arabs and supports the worst elements of our own tradition. Their own hope for redemption depends on our ultimate conversion to Christianity or our death at the final judgment. As Pat Robertson reminds us: the only true reconciliation between Jew and Palestinian comes through their mutual acceptance of Jewish Christ. In spite of our love for Israel we must be wary of being blind to Israel's faults. In spite of our love for humanity we must be wary of being blind to the fact that Israel has real enemies.

The connection between Jews and Arabs, between Jews and Muslims, is rooted in the Biblical stories about Abraham and his sons Isaac and Ishmael. First and foremost, Arabs and Jews are cousins. First and foremost, we are rivals. In an Orthodox or Conservative synagogue, the Torah portion for the first day of Rosh Hashanah is the story of the birth of Ishmael. It is a poignant tale which describes Sarah's desperate desire to conceive a child. She decides to use her handmaiden Hagar as a surrogate mother. Hagar becomes pregnant with Ishmael and a terrible conflict ensues between the two women. Finally, Sarah has a son of her own, Isaac. But this does not end the conflict. On the day that Isaac is weaned, Sarah sees Ishmael and Isaac playing together. In a fit of anger Sarah tells Abraham to cast out Hagar and Ishmael so it will be clear that Isaac will be Abraham's heir. Abraham sends them into the desert with just a little food and just a little water. As the story continues we experience Hagar's anguish as she watches from a distance while Ishmael almost dies of thirst in the desert.

It is only on the second day of Rosh Hashanah we would read the awful story of the binding of Isaac. In my mind's eye, I see Abraham's hand holding a knife to Isaac's throat. In both stories Abraham, the founder of the Jewish covenant and the first Muslim, is the instrument of near death for both of his sons. It is only God's intervention that saves them. Ishmael is the progenitor of the Arabs. Isaac is one of founders of the Jewish people. Isaac and Ishmael, the sons of Abraham born from conflict and deprived of each others company, become bitter rivals. The enmity which exists today is rooted in these mythic tales. It is interesting to note that in the Bible God blesses both Ishmael and Isaac. God makes each of them a great people. And they join together to bury their father Abraham in the cave of Machpeila. This story, whether told in its biblical version or in its Quranic version, dominates the underlying relationship between Jews and Arabs, between Jews and Muslims. Family is an ambiguous relationship.

The later struggle between Jacob and Esau is interpreted by Jewish sources as the battle between Judaism and Christianity, between the Synagogue and the Church. Each of the three Abrahamic religions, Judaism, Christianity and Islam, sees itself as the exclusive agent of God. They see themselves as rivals contending for the exclusive love of the Divine Father. Our challenge is to find a way to re-conceptualize the relationship. We are after all each the beloved child of the Divine parent who loves us uniquely but equally.

We should not underestimate the power of myth. Our lives are dominated by mythic conceptions of self. We are here today because we identify ourselves as the descendents of Abraham and Sarah. We may not believe the story literally but it links us to the total history of the Jewish people. It is an identity that has been both imposed on us and one that we accept voluntarily. It colors our conception of the world. We identify with our people and its rights, its hopes, and its aspirations. We proclaim the essential justice of our claim to the land of Israel for reasons that transcend any historic possession of the land or any biblical map. Our self conception includes our enslavement in Egypt and the Exodus from Egypt which demands that we accept the stranger; treat the stranger with respect and dignity and make room for the stranger within our sacred space, and even more importantly to recognize that our sacred space is sacred to others. We walk the tight rope of exclusivity and inclusively; sibling love and sibling rivalry characterize our relationship with Arabs and with Muslims. Isaac's sons Jacob and Esau, their love and their conflicts, also mythically create a relationship between the synagogue and the Church, Jews and Christians. The closeness of the familial relationship has been a source of deep enmity, and at the same time has the potential to be the basis of mutual love and respect.

Recently Avraham Burg, a Member of the Knesset from the Labor party and its former speaker from 1999 to 2003 as well as a former chairman of the Jewish Agency for Israel, wrote a very painful article in Israeli newspaper Yediot Achranot which was republished in English in the Forward. It is part of the debate going on in Israel about its future. It was addressed to Israeli and Diaspora Jews.

     The Zionist revolution has always rested on two pillars: a just path and an ethical leadership. Neither of these is operative any longer.
     What is needed is a new vision of a just society and the political will to implement it. Nor is this merely an internal Israeli affair. Diaspora Jews for whom Israel is a central pillar of their identity must pay heed and speak out. If the pillar collapses, the upper floors will come crashing down…. A state lacking justice cannot survive....We have grown accustomed to ignoring the suffering of the women at the roadblocks. No wonder we don't hear the cries of the abused woman living next door or the single mother struggling to support her children in dignity. We don't even bother to count the women murdered by their husbands. Israel, having ceased to care about the children of the Palestinians, should not be surprised when they come washed in hatred and blow themselves up in the centers of Israeli escapism. They consign themselves to Allah in our places of recreation, because their own lives are torture. They spill their own blood in our restaurants in order to ruin our appetites, because they have children and parents at home who are hungry and humiliated.
     We could kill a thousand ringleaders and engineers a day and nothing will be solved, because the leaders come up from below from the wells of hatred and anger, from the "infrastructures" of injustice and moral corruption.
     If all this were inevitable, divinely ordained and immutable, I would be silent. But things could be different, and so crying out is a moral imperative. Israel's friends abroad-Jewish and non-Jewish alike, presidents and prime ministers, rabbis and lay people-should choose as well. They must reach out and help Israel to navigate the road map toward our national destiny as a light unto the nations and a society of peace, justice and equality.

I know that some will be offended by Avraham Burg's cri de Coeur. Some will think it is too harsh. In no way does this justify terrorism, but his central point is that there must be another way. Zeh lo ha derech There is no hope for peace unless Israel embraces the vision of justice which includes the Palestinians. There is no hope for peace or for the future of the Zionist enterprise as some of us imagined it until and unless the legitimate aspirations of the Palestinians for a state of their own are met and that we recognize their fundamental humanity. It is a vision that I embrace But peace making cannot be one sided. Palestinians must accept Israel's right to exist in secure boundaries. There is no justification for terrorism.

A significant portion of my rabbinate is devoted to overcoming old enmities and working for peace, trying to bring Isaac and Ishmael, Jacob and Esau Sarah and Hagar together in love and respect. Recently I have joined a group called A Different Future. It is made up of Jewish, Christian and Muslim religious leaders. We support peace groups among the Israelis and Palestinians and are currently working to set up a meeting with President Bush to promote the Road Map. Eventually we hope to bring a large, truly interfaith group of religious leaders to Washington to promote peace. At the moment, this is our best hope. Please contact the President at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue and urge him to vigorously pursue a just peace. In Israel I continue to support Rabbis for Human Rights and Peace Now, and Interns for Peace. My hope, with your help, is to strengthen all such efforts.

We live at a moment when the term Zionism has been largely emptied of meaning. What does it mean to be a Zionist at a time when Israel exists as a sovereign state and one lives in the United States? It seems to me that the real question is what does it mean to be a Jew in an age where we have a choice to live in the Diaspora or to live in Israel?

I hope to be in Israel in November to attend the meetings of the Zionist General Council and Assembly for Jewish Agency for Israel. While some believe Zionism is dead, I do not. I think it needs rethinking and re-energizing. It is to accept the concept that to be a Jew is to be a member of a people who have a vision of the world which includes universal justice and will be lived out in two places in a Jewish State and in the rest of the world. To accomplish this I have five proposals:

1. We need to inspire young Jews with the love of the Jewish people and land of Israel and with visions of a better world built by Jews living in the State of Israel and Jews living around the world. I call upon our school, our education committee, and youth groups to develop programs to promote the connections of our youth to Israel and the Jewish people.
2. We need to further Progressive Judaism in the State of Israel and in the FSU and in Eastern and Western Europe and in the United States. Therefore, I encourage you to join ARZA-WUNA the Association of Reform Zionists of America and World Union for Progressive Judaism North American Board and to become involved in its activities. Further during the coming year we should work with our own Israel-Arza Committee to strength our relationship to our sister congregation Tzur Hadassah on the outskirts of Jerusalem. We should also work with the Simferopol committee to strengthen our relationship to congregation Ner Tamid in the Ukraine and to link these two efforts together.
3. I invite you to join Elaine and me for a week of study in Jerusalem March 13-21 2004 on our biennial Beth Emet Kallah. It is a unique trip. Look for your invitation in the mail in the next few weeks. There is no greater act of solidarity with Israel than being physically present.
4. I ask you to continue to support the Jewish United Fund of Metropolitan Chicago and the New Israel Fund.
5. Most of all I call upon Beth Emet to devote a good portion of this year to the serious study of and debate about Israel, about Zionism and about membership in the Jewish people. Let us reach out to voices from the Left and the Right. Let non-Zionists debate Zionists. Let us become angry at injustice and indifference. Let us work to declare homicide/suicide bombings a war crime. Let us ask, "What will make Israel secure. What will make us secure?" Let us be instruments for peace. Let us be in the vanguard of an emerging peace movement. Let us be lovers and supporters of Israel. Let us to reach out and join in conversation with Palestinians, and Muslims and Christians. Let us push our government to seek peace and pursue it. Let us lobby for peace and march for peace. Let us help Isaac and Ishmael, Hagar and Sarah, Jacob and Esau to become a loving family in pursuit of a better world. Im Tirzu ain zo Aggadah. If you will it is no dream.