Panu-darekh! Harimu mikh’shol miderekh ami! Make clear the way! Remove the stumbling blocks from the path of my people! This is how Isaiah begins today’s Haftarah portion. Throughout these Days of Awe, our Rabbi has been bold enough to make our path for the year 5787 perfectly clear: We are building a new form of Judaism, a Liberatory Judaism grounded in love, justice, and solidarity, in opposition to the Oppressive Judaism that has arisen out of zionism.
This is what we have written, and what we seal today: a proudly antizionist Judaism that reclaims our religion from the genocidaires that have perverted it, Jewishness as an ethical practice, rooted in wisdom from deep in our tradition and our history. I’m a history teacher by trade, so you’ll forgive me if I return to that same well, so to speak.
We must talk about when Jewish institutional life was captured by the militaristic drives of Western imperialism; when the complicity of the decision-making bodies of Jewish communities alienated more and more of the masses of Jewish people; when the corruption of both the formal structures and the individual leaders – who claim to speak for all of Judaism – caused permanent ruptures in what had once been assumed to be a single coherent community. That’s right, I’m speaking of the Second Temple Era in the first century CE.
It’s important to understand how that era ended to make sense of the Yom Kippur Torah Service. After all, for the past 2000 years, we have not been a religion based around priestly aristocracy and animal sacrifice – so, thankfully, today’s parsha from Leviticus has no everyday relevance for us. More importantly, we must understand the Second Temple Era to understand our current historical moment.
2000 years ago, a group of sages and scribes separated themselves from the Zadokite line of the Kohanim, the priesthood that was the ruling class of the Roman province of Judea. They were the fringe radicals of their time, denounced as traitors by those in authority, but they were strong in their convictions. They could no longer tolerate the corruption of an institution that not only controlled official religious life, but politically was the servant of and agent of the oppressive Roman Empire.
They were called perushim, separatists, known better to history as the Pharisees, and they were the wellspring of what became Rabbinic Judaism, the Judaism we practice today. Among other innovations we don’t have time to discuss, they elevated prayer to the same religious legitimacy as sacrifice, citing Psalms, Daniel, and even Deuteronomy: “Love HaShem with all your heart” they read, and surmised: “What service is performed with the heart? This is prayer.”
It took great courage to center prayer as Jewish practice, to oppose the Temple’s monopoly on Jewish life. The Perushim and the early Rabbis that arose from their ranks remind us that it’s the fringes that make the tallis holy. Without them being bold enough to break with the established practice of Temple Judaism, Judaism as a whole would not have outlasted the fall of the Temple. It would be remembered today as another local Iron Age religion swept aside by the march of history.
Instead, they planted an opposite pole to the corruption of the Sadducees, unafraid of being ostracized, trusting in the correctness of their path – and before the Temple fell, they gained the popularity of the people. Many Kohanim even defected to their formerly fringe sect. When the Temple fell, their unwavering commitment to a different way to live their Jewishness formed the foundation for the next 2 millennia.
Today we find ourselves in a historical echo of that moment. The institutional Judaism we were raised in has been irredeemably corrupted by zionism. They offer prayers for peace with one breath, and prayers for the settler soldiers of the IOF with the next. At worst they auction off stolen Palestinian land from inside their synagogues, at best they wring their hands about Netanyahu but cling to a liberal zionism that can only exist on a mountain of Palestinian martyrs.
How will we respond to such hegemonic zionism in our institutions? Will we choose the neutralist path, and avoid the topic, or hide behind the false equivalence of both-sidesism? Will we surrender to zionism as a foregone conclusion, and try to coexist with it, or condemn its flagrant crimes while making excuses for its genocidal character? Or will we be as strong in our convictions as the Perushim and the Rabbis, strong enough to separate ourselves, firmly and finally, from their Oppressive Judaism, which may as well be termed Israelism. “I call heaven and earth to witness you this day: I have put before you life and death, blessing and curse. Choose life.” Let us understand the Yom Kippur liturgy in the context of this moment.
We have not only the opportunity but the duty to intervene in the polarization of our Jewish communities and define the choice being made. Right now, aside from some ultraorthodox groups, Judaism as a religion is polarized between zionism on the one hand, and abandonment on the other. Throughout the High Holy Days we have spoken of the religious exile we have all endured because we hold to our ethical principles. If that dynamic continues, zionism will lead to the negation of Judaism, as the Israeli regime grows more and more isolated and ultimately, b’ezras HaShem, collapses.
We are all here today because we refuse to submit to this eventuality. We are building, with sibling communities around the world, a Jewish Diaspora Movement that is the positive expression of antizionism. We are building Liberatory Judaism on a foundation of solidarity, with oppressed people in general and with Palestinian people in particular.
In short, we choose life for all people, because all humanity is made b’tzelem Elohim, in the Divine image. The zionists choose death, and justify murder with their supremacist ideology. Which of us is more true to the Jewish ethical tradition?
Let’s return to Isaiah, and make the path clear: “Is this the fast I desire?” HaShem calls through the prophet, “A day for people to starve their bodies? Is it bowing the head like a bulrush and lying in sackcloth and ashes? Do you call that a fast, a day acceptable to HaShem? No, this is the fast I desire: to unlock the shackles of wickedness, and untie the bonds of the yoke, to liberate the oppressed, to break every yoke.”
Liberate the oppressed! Isaiah is as clear as Hillel standing on one foot. This is the heart of Jewish Ethics from the depths of our tradition. We read it every year on Yom Kippur for a reason! And it’s not some vague platitude. It’s a direct call to action: “Share your bread with the hungry, and take the wretched poor into your home; When you see the naked, clothe them, and do not ignore your own flesh”
This is why the word for righteousness and the word for justice are the same word, why the word for piety and the word for lovingkindness are the same word. When we sing aseh imanu tzedakah va’khesed, we can as easily translate it as, “make with us justice and lovingkindness.” Indeed, the Midrash Bereshis Rabbah explains the inclusion of tz’dakah alongside t’shuvah, repentance, and t’filah, prayer, by citing Psalm 17: “Aniy b’tzedek ekhezeh faneykha, I shall encounter your presence b’tzedek, with justice.”
These concepts are indivisible. One cannot be righteous if they are unjust. One cannot be pious if they do not act in lovingkindness. Where one deviates from this unity of spirituality and liberatory ethics is precisely where one transgresses, where one misses the mark. Abraham and Sarah transgressed by treating Hagar, Ishmael, and Isaac unjustly. The Divine showed us the path of t’shuvah by giving water to the thirsty and freeing the bound.
The distinction between Divine Ethics and human behavior is reflected, again, in our liturgy, quoting Mishnah Yoma from the Talmud: “For transgressions between a person and the Divine, Yom Kippur atones; For transgressions between a person and their fellow, Yom Kippur does not atone until they satisfy their fellow.”
We have a sacred duty to make things right. Prayer is not enough. Just as the Perushim and the Rabbis drew on the tradition of prayer as the center of their practice, we must draw on the tradition of ethics as the center of ours. With such an ethical commitment, zionism becomes an impossibility.
This is what we seal for the year to come: a binding declaration of Liberatory Judaism. We will heed Isaiah’s call. We will not lie in the sackcloth and ashes of guilt or shame, bowing our heads like reeds to avert our eyes. We will face judgment without fear, because our actions will be just and driven by lovingkindness.
We will act to liberate the oppressed, and build a world where every yoke of subjugation, war, hunger, illness, and poverty are broken, where all people live free, starting with the Palestinian people. G’mar khasima tovah, a good final sealing to you all.
– EDITOR’S NOTE: This sermon was delivered by Yaakov Rav, a member of the V’ahavtah Steering Committee.
