Getting Back to the Table by Letting Out the Goat - Shabbat Thanksgiving 5773

On this "Shabbat Thanksgiving," there are many things for which we should be thankful.

First, that we survived the devastation of Hurricane Sandy. Many of us were inconvenienced by the storm, and some of us had major damage to our homes. But by and large this community was spared the devastation that parts of the South Shore of Long Island, Brooklyn, Staten Island, and New Jersey suffered. We should not forget, even as we celebrate two benei mitzvah today, that there are now many in our region who lost everything.

Second, many members of this community have been forthcoming in helping others in need in the wake of the storm. That is what makes us a qehillah qedoshah, a holy congregation, and I applaud those of us who have taken the initiative to contribute in every way possible to relief efforts.

Third, that the Iron Dome defense system in Israel was quite successful in shooting down rockets that were headed to residential areas. Some reports said that the success rate was near 90%.

Finally, that the cease-fire in Israel is (mostly) holding for the third day. This is very good news for the members of our partner Conservative congregation in Ashkelon, Kehillat Netzah Yisrael, where life had more or less come to a standstill for eight days. It is also personally good news for me, since my son lives in Nes Tziyyonah, out of range of the Qassam rockets which make up the bulk of those coming from Gaza, but within range of the larger rockets like the Fajr-5 rockets supplied by Iran. (During the eight days of rockets, there was only one air-raid siren in Nes Tziyyonah; my son and his neighbors gathered in the stairwell, the safest part of their apartment building, until it passed, thankfully uneventfully.)

It is worth noting, by the way, that this is, in fact, the second cease-fire in 2012 brokered by the Egyptians. Back in March, after four days of less-intense rocket attacks and Israeli airstrikes, a similar deal was struck. And here we are, eight months later, in the same place. And so, while we might be grateful for this lull, we should also fear the next shower of rockets and what will come from it. Because there will be more rockets, more sirens, more lives lost and disrupted; the only question is when.

Or maybe there is a way to break this pattern.

There is a well-known folktale from Jewish tradition that goes like this: A man goes to his rabbi. He says, “Rabbi, my house is too small! My wife and I and our four children are barely able to live, because we are constantly in each others’ way. What should I do?”

The rabbi thinks for a moment, then says, “Do you have a goat?”

“Yes,” says the man cautiously.

“Bring the goat inside the house,” suggests the rabbi.

“But...”

“Just do it,” says the rabbi.

So the man brings in the goat, which takes up more space and wreaks havoc within the tiny house. He goes back to the rabbi.

“Do you have a cow?” asks the rabbi.

“But rabbi, it’s already crowded and miserable! If I bring in the cow, it will just get worse!”

“Bring in the cow.”

The man reluctantly does so. The animals are now eating their food, sitting on their tiny couch, keeping them up at night. He goes back to the rabbi.

“Bring in your chickens,” says the rabbi.

“But rabbi...”

“Just do it.”

So he does. He’s now at his wits’ end, tearing his hair out from the stress of a small house filled to the brim with people and animals. He goes back to the rabbi.

“Now take all the animals out,” says the rabbi.

The man sprints home and gets rid of all the animals. A day later, he returns to the rabbi.

“Rabbi, I want to thank you so much! Our house is now so roomy!”

*****

Did the house change? No. But the man’s perspective changed.

In the summer of 2000, when I was working in Jerusalem as a music specialist for the Conservative movement’s Ramah day camp, talks between Israel and the Palestinian Authority broke down.  Fatah Chairman Yasir Arafat rejected PM Ehud Barak’s offer of a state that would include almost all of the West Bank and Gaza, plus control over Palestinian neighborhoods of Jerusalem. Immediately after, Arafat ordered the violent Intifada, and years of suicide bombings hardened Israeli resolve against peace talks. Israel decided that the PA was no partner for peace, and has not engaged seriously with them since.

In 2005, Israel pulled out of Gaza unilaterally.

In 2006, the Palestinian territories held free elections. Hamas won a majority of seats in Gaza, and soon after seized control over the Strip.

In 2008, after thousands of Qassam rockets had fallen on Sderot and other communities near Gaza, Israel launched a ground offensive, Operation Cast Lead, to demolish terrorist infrastructure in Gaza. There was a heavy toll of civilian and combatant lives.  Rockets have continued to fall sporadically in the south of Israel, but in the intervening years Hamas has grown more powerful and more deadly.  

And then came the events of the past week and a half. Meanwhile, PA President Mahmoud Abbas watches on the sidelines from the West Bank.

Over the past 12 years, our perspective has changed. Everybody has grown more and more pessimistic about the chances for peace. Current PM Netanyahu is far more interested in saber-rattling over Iran than talking with anybody on the other side of the Green Line.

Ladies and gentlemen, there is only one possible way out of this, and it’s not a sure thing, but it is better than the current situation.

The only possible solution is the two-state solution. Israel and the PA, supported by all the major international players, must swallow their pride and sit down at the table and talk. All other outcomes are unsustainable; let me explain:

1. Maintaining the status quo. Every few years, Israelis are shelled heavily, and then retaliate until the next cease-fire. Obviously, this cannot continue forever, because each time the rockets fly, they are more accurate, more intense, with bigger payloads and longer ranges.

2. The one-state solution. Israel annexes all the territories and grants citizenship to everybody in the territories. This is suicide - Israel will not be able to maintain itself as a democracy with a Jewish character when the largest political group is Palestinian.

3. Unilateral withdrawals from parts of the West Bank. As many have pointed out, Israel’s withdrawal from Gaza may have yielded an economic benefit for Israel by no longer requiring heavy military protection from the settlements in Gush Qatif, within the Gaza Strip. But whatever benefits reaped have been negated by the thousands of rockets that have been launched by Gaza-based terrorists.

But the reason that the Gaza withdrawal did not have a positive effect on the region is because of its unilateral nature. Israel did not consult with anybody; no peacekeeping forces were installed; no structure was in place to make a smooth transition; no other governmental powers were there to support either side. This vacuum led to the rise of Hamas, and we all know how that has turned out.

Ladies and gentlemen, I think about this a lot. And as far as I can tell, the only other possible path is the two-state solution. Those of us that balk at the idea of sitting down at the table with any Palestinian group should recall that we do not make peace with friends; we make peace with enemies. We don’t have to like each other, but we do need to talk.

If Israel sits with Mahmoud Abbas and hammers out a peace agreement such that a Palestinian state is established in the West Bank, soon enough the economy will improve, employment will improve, Palestinians will be able to have some kind of normal life, and they will (as they have done in the past) go about their business and focus less energy on hating the Jews.

And what about Gaza, you ask? This is the important part. Hamas not, at least right now, a partner for peace, because from where we sit right now it is unlikely that they will acknowledge Israel’s right to exist.  As Israel’s ambassador the US and military historian Michael Oren stated in an op-ed piece in the New York Times a few days ago:

“Negotiations leading to peace can be realistic with an adversary who shares that goal. But Hamas, whose covenant calls for the slaughter of Jews worldwide, is striving not to join peace talks, but to prevent them. It rejects Israel’s existence, refuses to eschew terror, and disavows all previous Israeli-Palestinian agreements.”

Ambassador Oren goes on to speak optimistically about the chances for peace with the PA:

“Egypt and Jordan tried more than once to defeat Israel militarily, only to recognize the permanence of the Jewish state and to sign peace accords with it. Similarly, the Palestine Liberation Organization, guided by nationalism rather than militant theology, realized it could gain more by talking with Israel than by battling us. The result was the 1993 Oslo Accords, the foundation for what we still hope will be a two-state solution. By establishing deterrence, Israel led these rational actors toward peace.”

What Oren fails to say is that while deterring Hamas, Israel can at the same time reach out to the PA and build that Palestinian state. Once that state is built in the West Bank, then the people of Gaza will see the benefits of peace that their cousins are reaping, and throw of the yoke of Hamas and the curse of eternal war.

We have to set aside the fear. We have to look above the comfort zone of “no” to get to “yes.” We need to take bold steps. Cooperation right now between Israel and America and the PA on economic and security matters is at an all-time high. Now is the time, during this cease-fire, for Israel to look east to the West Bank, rather than south to Gaza, and reach out. It is time to take out the goat and the cow and the chickens, and work from a new perspective.

Otherwise, it will all happen again, sooner and stronger and more deadly.

Oseh shalom bimromav, hu ya’aseh shalom aleinu ve’al kol Yisrael, ve-imru Amen.
May the One who makes peace on high bring piece upon us and upon all Israel, and let us say Amen.

Shabbat Shalom, a Shabbat of peace.

~

Rabbi Seth Adelson

(Originally delivered at Temple Israel of Great Neck, Shabbat morning, November 24, 2012.)

Shabbat Shuvah 5771 - Returning to the Table

(Originally delivered on September 11, 2001.)

Today is Shabbat Shuvah, the Shabbat of Return, a name that captures the spirit of the Ten Days of Repentance, in Hebrew, Aseret Yemei Teshuvah, which can also be translated more literally as the Ten Days of Return. The name Shabbat Shuvah refers more directly to the first word of today’s haftarah, from the prophet Hoshea:

Shuvah yisrael ad adonai elohekha ki khashalta ba-avonekha.

Return O Israel, to the Lord your God; for you have stumbled in your iniquity.

This is, of course, consistent with the overarching theme of the Yamim Nora-im, the High Holidays - that we have missed the mark, and we should return to God and right living.

Now, we could parse that latter phrase, “for you have stumbled in your iniquity,” because it is something of a challenge. Is it possible to be iniquitous and not stumble? Is it the iniquity or the stumbling that we must return for?

It is, in fact, a problem. But leaving that aside, the more interesting problem of the language occurs a few verses later, in verse 5 (which includes two more uses of the same root for return, shin-vav-bet, the leitwort or thematic word of this passage):

Erpah meshuvatam ohavem nedava; ki shav api mimenu.

I will heal their backsliding, I will love them freely; for My anger is turned away from him.

The first part of the verse refers to a plural group of backsliders (their backsliding; love them freely), but the latter half of the verse refers to the return of one person (My anger is turned away from him). If the backsliders that Hoshea is referring to are all of us, who is the “him” that gets credit for turning away God’s anger?

In the Talmud, Masekhet Yoma, which is the tractate dedicated to Yom Kippur, we read the following:

Rabbi Meir used to say: Great is teshuvah, repentance, since the whole world is pardoned on account of the individual who has repented, as it is stated: “I will heal their backsliding, I will love them freely, for My anger is turned away from him.” It is not stated, “from them,” but “from him.”

Rabbi Meir’s point is that we all get credit for the honest teshuvah of even one of us. That is how powerful teshuvah is. It is not so easy, of course. But it is powerful.

What we should be asking ourselves over the course of this week is this: how can I change my behavior so that I do not make the mistakes that I have made in the past? How can I make right what I have broken?

Now, of course I am preaching to the choir. Anybody who is here today, after two days of High Holiday introspection, is clearly up to speed on all of this. (It never hurts to flatter your audience!)

But I am going to take this discussion out of the realm of the personal and into the international. Let us consider the fresh round of Middle East peace talks. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and PA President Mahmoud Abbas have pledged to meet every two weeks, including the coming week.

I have stated this clearly before in this space, and I will say it again: the status quo in Israel and the territories is not sustainable, and everybody around the table knows it. The only real solution is the two-state solution, and we all know how painful this is going to be.

What will make or break these peace talks is, of course, teshuvah. That Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and President Mahmoud Abbas have agreed to return to the negotiating table is only the first stage of their return, their teshuvah. The next stage will be much more difficult.

Optimism is not available in abundance these days. Most of the pundits who have weighed in on this round have stated that it is unlikely that these talks will achieve anything new. Israel will not give up on building settlements, let alone consider withdrawing from them; the PA will not give up on the right of return of refugees to Israel. It’s dead in the water. As they say in Texas, that dog don’t hunt.

This is a hot topic on Ravnet. As you might expect, my colleagues in the Conservative rabbinate run the gamut of opinions about Israel. Some are bullish on the prospects of and peace, some think that the other side will never honor their agreements, so why should we bother negotiating?

And the professional pundits have gone the same way, although perhaps in a more subtle and reflective way.

There was one particularly optimistic column that I read in the Times, by Martin Indyk, the former American ambassador to Israel, who wrote about how now is the most optimistic time in recent history, and the basis for peace is stronger than it has ever been.

Indyk makes the following four points:

1. Violence is down considerably, with the PA police force newly trained with American help and demonstrating its capability of preventing terrorist activity in the West Bank, and Hamas preventing the rockets from Gaza, perhaps out of fear. While 452 Israelis were killed at the height of the intifada in 2002, there have been only 6 this year. (Of course, that’s 6 too many, but the difference is dramatic and undeniable.)

Israeli ambassador to the US Michael Oren has been saying for some time now that the situation on the West Bank is better than it has ever been. Law and order has brought peace and quiet: there was a 9% growth rate in the territories last year, with skyscrapers going up in Ramallah and new subdivisions in Jenin and Nablus. A properly-trained police force produces economic growth, and jobs and security will, we all hope, help the Palestinians to understand that peace, even with what they used to call “the Zionist entity,” is a good thing.

2. Settlement building has been minimal for 10 months. This is key in having returned the Palestinians to the negotiating table, according to Ambassador Oren. It seems unlikely that Netanyahu will extend the moratorium, but there are other compromise options that Indyk suggests.

3. A majority of people on both sides now support the two-state solution. The public is tired of war, says Indyk. This is not necessarily true of those who vote Likud, Netanyahu’s party. In fact, there is a cover story in the current issue of Time magazine that suggests that Israelis have become complacent in their flourishing success, in spite of the untenable status quo. I am not going to attempt to debunk the article. Yes, a majority of people want peace, but there is, understandably, a generous helping of skepticism about peace talks in the Israeli public. I hope that such thinking does not obscure the long-term visionary goal, which is that everybody would benefit even more from peace.

On this point, it is nonetheless important for us in the Diaspora to respect Israel’s democratic process. We should remember that it is not just the leaders at the table and the hopes of American Jewry and the Obama administration that are in play here. The more formidable problem is this: Netanyahu’s own party and some of his coalition partners are not on board with him. If he makes what Likud sees as a rash decision (like, for example, extending the settlement moratorium), he’ll be out of a job.

And the same applies to Abbas and Palestinian PM Salam Fayyad as well. Perhaps you saw the news blurb online (curiously, the New York Times missed this) that on Monday, a few days after leaving Washington, Mr. Abbas stated clearly, for the record, that the PA will never recognize Israel as a “Jewish state.” He knows that doing so is political suicide (or perhaps even actual suicide); for some of his constituents, even meeting Netanyahu raises the spectre of treason.

But let us hope that the majority opinion and cooler heads on both sides will prevail.

4. There are not many outstanding issues that require negotiation. Many of the details required by the Oslo accords of 17 years ago (can it really be that long?!) have already been worked out. All we are facing now is the set of tricky issues that I have already identified.

The moment is now, says Indyk; all that remains is the willpower and courage of Abbas and Netanyahu to make the politically complicated decisions.

I was listening to the NPR News Quiz Wait Wait... Don’t Tell Me last Sunday afternoon, and the host remarked sarcastically that the stakes for the first meeting in Washington were so low, that it was considered successful merely because the two sides agreed to meet again. This may be funny, or perhaps pathetic, but it is also true. They agreed to meet every two weeks until this thing is resolved.

Furthermore, in the wake of the first meeting, both Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Netanyahu expressed optimism that the entire negotiation can be resolved within a year. It makes me wonder, if all they can do is agree to further meetings, what will be accomplished within that year?

Still, the next meeting is this coming week, during, as luck would have it, Aseret Yemei Teshuvah, the aforementioned Ten Days of Return. And so, in what we hope is good faith, Abbas and particularly Netanyahu will return once again to the table. And let us hope that this time, they are willing to approach the task at hand with the same demeanor with which we approach God and each other during Aseret Yemei Teshuvah.

Let us hope that they hear the sound of the metaphorical shofar, calling them to return. Let us hope that they draw on the theme of purity that permeates these days, entering these negotiations with pure souls and honest intentions. Let us hope that they gesture to each other in the cantorial mode of selihah, the hopeful, prayerful, and yet slightly mournful chant that is omnipresent during this season, humble in spirit and forthright about the past, with the intention of doing better in 5771.

Rabbi Jonah ben Abraham Gerondi, from 13th century Spain, said the following about teshuvah. “The repentant sinner should strive to do good with the same faculties with which he sinned. If, for instance, his tongue gave offence to others, he should study the Torah aloud. With whatever part of the body he sinned he should now engage in good deeds. If the feet had run to sin, let them now run to the performance of good. The mouth that had spoken falsehood should now be opened in wisdom. Violent hands should now open in charity. The haughty eye should now gaze downwards. The plotting heart should now meditate on the teachings of Torah. The trouble-maker should now become a peace-maker.”

And finally, as we commemorate on this day the horrible tragedy of nine years ago, we should remember that there are people in this world who will want to prevent through violence any form of forward movement. It is up to us to make sure that we do not negotiate with terrorists or embolden them in any way. And the only way to do this is to engage with the moderates. Then we can hope that if Israel reaches a peace deal with the leaders of Fatah, the West Bank PA authorities, the people of Gaza will see and understand the peace dividend and throw off the yoke of Hamas.

Call me naive, if you will. Call me a peacenik, if you want. I prefer to think that I am something of an optimist. But this is the week of return; now is the time to return to the table in good faith. Let us hope that the players who have returned do what is right.