Captives of Hope

Rabbi Melanie Aron

Friday, August 4, 2006

There’s an old joke, about a Jew on a mountain climbing expedition. As he climbs up the steepest, most dangerous part of the mountain, he losses his footing and begins to slide towards the precipice. As he slips over the edge, he manages to grasp hold of a branch of a gnarled tree growing out of the side of the cliff. He holds on for dear life, seeing a drop of a hundred of feet below him. Knowing he would not be able to hold on forever and with no help in sight, he begins to pray: “O God, please save me, do not let me lose my grasp and be smashed on the rocks below.” Suddenly there comes a reply: “Don’t worry. Just let go of the branch and I will catch you and gently guide you to safe ground.” The desperate man, unwilling to let go, thinks for a minute and then asks:” Is there anyone else I can talk to?”

There’s a lot to be frightened and depressed about this week. The death toll in the Middle East continues to rise. Car bombings in Afghanistan, insurgency in Iraq, and in Israel, where are hearts are tied, the death toll from the shelling continues to rise, while the efforts to dismantle the Hezbollah bring more civilian deaths in Lebanon.

I went to my file on this week’s parshah, Ve-Etchanan, to find words of comfort, but what did I find? Insult added to injury. I found a collection of jubilant sermons from the year 2000 talking about what a great world this was for the Jews, when, before the outbreak of the intifada and on this very same week of the Jewish year, Connecticut Senator Joe Liebermann was chosen as the Democratic nominee for Vice President. Eich Naflu giborim- how have the mighty fallen!

Yet we are supposed to be a people of hope. Britain’s Chief Rabbi, writing on the one year anniversary of the Pesach suicide bombing in Netanya, pointed out that Hebrew has no word for the Greek concept of tragedy. We do not believe that “ the universe is blind to our dreams and deaf to our cry.” We will not accept that “our dreams are destined to end in disillusionment.”

Our Hebrew word, emunah, often translated Faith, has nothing to do with belief. Instead it comes from a root that means trust, something one can depend on. We do not stress belief in that which we cannot see or prove, but rather trust that comes from experience. We have seen the Babylonians appear invincible, and Moses and Herzl die without reaching their promised land. But time passes, the Babylonians are eclipsed, the Children of Israel succeed where Moses fails, and 50 years after Herzl described a vision of an Old New Land, the state of Israel was established.

The Biblical Scholar Walter Bruggeman, writing about the Jewish and Christian understandings of hope, observes that it is suffering that produced hope in both communities. In the Jewish community it was the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem which we marked this past week on Tisha B’Av, which forced the people to struggle for a response to despair. They refused to settle for their present circumstances, and I believe we too today “embrace the promise” of a better future.

After all, for all our complaining, we Jews did not settle down in the wilderness, but continued to wander, en route to something better. And that is where we still are today.

Traditionally all Jewish wedding invitations read, Mr and Mrs Groom and Mr and Mrs Bride invite you to the marriage of their children which will be held in Jerusalem on such and such a date- but if the Messiah hasn’t arrived, then the wedding will be held….. The hope for a better future is meant to be that tangible in our lives, just around the corner, and if not this corner then the next. That is how Tisha B’av ends- in the afternoon we get up from mourning, we put on our tallit, we recite prayers of comfort, knowing that it is exactly at this lowest point of the entire year, that our tradition tells us the Messiah will be born.

The prophet Zechariah (9:11-12) described the Jewish people as captives of hope, and so we remain, captivated by our hopes that that our people and all peoples will find rest, “each one under their vine and fig tree with none to make them afraid.”

I already gave a sermon- but before Kaddish I would like to take a moment to share some words from Rabbi Eric Yoffie, president of our movement, which he delivered at a rally in New Jersey on Tuesday.

He defended Israel yet spoke of the tragedy of the deaths of the innocent in Lebanon. He noted that the day after the shelling in Jana, “ Israel’s papers and air waves were filled with anguished debates about the moral implications of Israel’s actions. In Yediot Aharonot, Israel’s largest daily, (the popular paper, not the more intellectual HaAretz) the lead editorial proclaimed: “In a national sense, we are all guilty, because small nations are nations of collective responsibility.”

It’s not that the Israelis were convinced that the war is wrong, or that they lacked the right to defend themselves. But, Rabbi Yoffie notes, “ Israelis also want to know that everything that can be done to avoid civilian casualties is being done. And they were sending that message to their leaders, loud and clear.” Rabbi Yoffie ended asking: “Can we imagine a similar societal conversation taking place in the ranks of Hezbollah?” Would that we would live to see such a discussion taking place among Israel’s Arab neighbors!

Like our father Jacob on the eve of his confrontation with his brother Esau, we fear that we will be killed, and equally like Jacob we fear that we will kill our brother, for all humanity are children of the same God.

We pray that Israel will survive this latest threat, survive physically and survive as Israel itself wishes to be, fulfilling the vision of its declaration of independence:

“The State of Israel will be based on freedom, justice and peace as envisaged by the prophets of Israel; it will ensure complete equality of social and political rights to all its inhabitants irrespective of religion, race or sex; it will guarantee freedom of religion, conscience, language, education and culture; it will safeguard the Holy Places of all religions; and it will be faithful to the principles of the Charter of the United Nations.

WE EXTEND our hand to all neighbouring states and their peoples in an offer of peace and good neighbourliness, and appeal to them to establish bonds of cooperation and mutual help with the sovereign Jewish people settled in its own land. The State of Israel is prepared to do its share in a common effort for the advancement of the entire Middle East. “