Shana Tova. In August last year, as part of my role at Rabbis for Ceasefire, I was invited to a summit of anti and non Zionist Jewish organizers from across the world with the Center for Jewish Nonviolence, to meet with Palestinian organizers in the West Bank.
During the summit, I had the privilege of having coffee with Maya Yavin, the executive director of Zochrot, a small nonprofit that was originally founded to educate Jewish-Israelis on the Nakba and to call for the right of return for Palestinian refugees.
Maya does a lot of protective presence in the West Bank. Protective presence is when volunteers, in partnership with local Palestinian farmers and leaders, stand alongside them in their villages and on their fields to try to help deter and de-escalate harassment and attacks from settlers and Israeli forces.
As Maya and I were having coffee, she shared with me a recent encounter from her protective presence work. A few weeks prior, as she was standing with a handful of Palestinian shepherds in their fields, she overheard singing. The sound was unmistakable – it was Jewish settlers from a nearby outpost loudly singing Hallel, and dancing. Hallel is the section of prayers of joyful praise and thanksgiving that’s added to Jewish morning liturgy on certain holidays and at the start of a new Jewish month. According to Maya, these settlers were singing Hallel on that land in order to specifically intimidate the Palestinians who live and graze their animals there. These settlers were demonstrating Jewish supremacy in action.
Maya finishes her story, pauses, and says to me, “Zionism has stolen Judaism from me.” She says that she can’t even bring herself to learn more about Jewish texts or prayer, because they’re being so violently weaponized by settlers and by the Israeli government. She feels viscerally upset when she engages with Jewish tradition.
On day two of Rosh Hashanah services here at V’ahavtah, we offered a group aliyah – we invited people up to the Torah – who have at some point felt alienated from Judaism because of Zionism. Almost everyone in the room came up. I think I need not over-explain to this crowd how our tradition has been hijacked.
But Rabbinic Judaism, the Judaism we are practicing here today, was originally a diasporist project.
Before the invention of Rabbinic Judaism, Jewish tradition was based around the Holy Temple in Jerusalem. But our Sages, the creators of Rabbinic Judaism, were innovators. They foresaw the need for our tradition to be portable. As Jewish thinker Eliana Fishman puts it, “Rabbinic Judaism took a practice which needed a particular physical, geographic space — the holy temple in Jerusalem — and transformed the practice of Judaism into something transportable, but not hegemonic. Instead of bringing a pascal sacrifice in Jerusalem, we gather around the table with symbolic foods and retell the story of our liberation. Instead of supporting a class of Levites and priests charged with bringing thrice daily sacrifices, each one of us is charged with praying to G!d three times a day. Instead of pushing a goat off a cliff to expiate all of our sins [like Vayikra, the book of Leviticus, says we should do for Yom Kippur], we attempt teshuva, tefillah and tzedakah in the hopes of fixing our mistakes. Each of these practices can take place anywhere in the world, so long as a Jew decides to practice Judaism there” [end quote]
Jewish tradition teaches that on Rosh Hashanah, our fate is written, and on Yom Kippur, our fate is sealed. But as Eliana referenced, our High Holy Days liturgy tells us in the Unetaneh Tokef prayer: “T’shuvah, Tefillah, and Tzedakah have the power to transform the harshness of our destiny.”
At our coffee, Maya said to me that Zionism has stolen Judaism from her. And then she said something that I have not stopped thinking about since. She said, “and that is why I am so so jealous of American Jews.” In the United States, right now, she says, there are some options for Judaism beyond Zionism.
And I think Maya is right. We have options. Not many, and not enough. But there are some. And I believe that means we have a responsibility. We cannot only mourn what has been taken from us. We have to build the Judaism we want future generations to inherit.
I believe that these three ancient tools of transformation laid out by our High Holiday liturgy – teshuvah, tefillah, and tzedakah – can be a roadmap to help us build a robust liberatory Judaism, rooted in equity, justice, and in recognizing the dignity of all people, especially Palestinians.
Teshuvah. The word means repentance or return. The actual root of the word, Shuv, means to turn around. By returning to Rabbinic Judaism’s diasporist roots, we are doing teshuva. By returning to what is good and right and true, and refusing to look away at the atrocities being committed in our name, we are doing teshuvah. And for many of us who have been pushed out of Jewish community because of Zionism, coming to this service, returning to Judaism itself can be a form of teshuvah.
Tefillah. Prayer. Exactly what we’re engaged in together here today. We are taking some time apart from the hustle and bustle of our everyday lives to think about what is bigger than ourselves, to connect to Jewish tradition, and to collectively yearn for a better world.
Tzedakah. Often translated as charity, but the three-letter Hebrew root of the word more so means righteousness. Many of you have given to V’ahavtah, the Gaza Soup Kitchen, local mutual aid efforts, or other causes that are important to you in the past few weeks. You have lived your values through these acts of solidarity – thank you.
Now you might say to me – Noa, from what you just said, it sounds like we’re already doing everything perfectly! I guess we can go home right now, and there’s no need to come to services or to fast tomorrow! To that, I want to say: we must each do more.
Rabbi Alana Alpert from T’chiyah synagogue in Detroit said in her Yom Kippur sermon last year: “It’s not enough to be a Jew against genocide! You must be part of a Jewish community against genocide and for human rights. It’s not enough to be a Jew against fascism! You must be part of a Jewish community against fascism and for collective liberation. And not just on paper, but in practice….
We are done having one foot in and one foot out. Come [to shul] when it’s convenient and come when it’s not. Come when you’re inspired and come when you’re exhausted. Come when the Torah speaks to you and come when it feels like ancient gibberish. Come when you like the person giving the sermon and come when you think I’m full of it. Come because your presence here is an act of resistance against the forces that want to isolate us, atomize us, make us forget that we belong to each other.”
If you want this community to exist, and communities like it, and for them to really continue to exist for our children and grandchildren, we each must commit to doing more.
In the Talmud on Shabbat 153a, the rabbis teach us a powerful lesson about how to live our lives. It says, “We learned there in a mishna that Rabbi Eliezer says: Repent one day before your death. Rabbi Eliezer’s students asked him: But does a person know the day on which they will die? He said to them: All the more so! This is a good piece of advice, and one should repent today lest they die tomorrow; and by following this advice one will spend their entire life in a state of repentance”
This text, and Yom Kippur itself, both remind us we are ultimately deeply fragile and mortal beings. Someday each of us will die, and we don’t know when. But the Universe gives each human being a gift – we are granted an abundance of small moments, opportunities where we can reassess, recommit, and return to the most ethical versions of ourselves.
If everyone took Rabbi Eliezer’s advice, I think we’d have a much different world right now. How do you plan to recommit to this movement in 5787? How are you going to live your values? The Unetaneh Tokef prayer gives us three powerful tools to help us change the course of our lives and the course of human history: repentance, prayer, and righteous giving.
In 5787, may we return to ourselves, the Divine, goodness and truth, and to a diasporist Judaism. In 5787, may we pray in values-aligned community more than we did last year. In 5787, may we invest in V’ahavtah, and in Palestinian liberation, with our dollars, our time, and our skills, even just 10% more than we have in the past. This year, let us each re-commit to V’ahavtah and liberatory Judaism as a whole. May we build something beautiful together. G’mar chatimah tovah.
– EDITOR’S NOTE: This sermon was delivered by guest speaker, rabbinical student, and Rabbis for Ceasefire organizer Noa Baron.
