Love, Loss, and Collective Liberation

At our April 28th, 2023 Friday Night Shabbat service, Rabbi Lizzi connected the ancient nation-building project of Moshe in the Torah to the 20th century foundation of the State of Israel, and examined the losses suffered by both Israeli and Palestinian families to create it. Seventy-five years after the day which Israelis mark as a joyous Independence Day and Palestinians mark as a mournful catastrophe, can we now work together to build a world safe for everyone?

****

For upcoming Shabbat services and programs, check our event calendar, and see our Accessibility & Inclusion page for information about our venues. Follow us on Instagram and like us on Facebook for more updates.

Produced by Mishkan Chicago. Music composed, produced, and performed by Kalman Strauss.

Transcript

Transcript

I want to take a moment to revisit an awful moment in the Torah, which took place a few weeks ago. In Pashat Shemini, we read the story of how, eight days after the most important and celebrated communal building project of the ancient Israelite people was inaugurated, tragedy befalls the community. 

The building of the Mishkan– this incredible portable worship space that God’s very presence dwells in (our name’s sake), the building of the Mishkan takes up more verses more space in the book of Exodus than anything else, than the chapters about our enslavement, our liberation, the giving of the Torah, all the social and political and economic and legal laws contained in the Torah thus far– the Mishkan becomes a focal point of the narrative. Focal point of the narrative because it became the focal point of the story. Amazing how a communal building project, a SPACE to call our own, becomes a national obsession– the text describes how the people literally fall on their faces when they see Aaron and Moses emerge from the Mishkan, Aaron raising up his hands to bless the people. Of COURSE this was a national obsession: for this newly liberated slave people, discovering their freedom and their agency over their lives for the first time in their lives, the creation– and their participation in the creation of the Mishkan– was nothing short of miraculous.  

And in the flurry of the activity and celebration on the eighth day after the inauguration, something totally unexpected, and devastating happens. Aaron's sons, Nadav and Avihu, seemingly full of passion and spontaneous fervor – it’s not clear– but they come before God and offer a strange fire, a fire that God had not requested. And they die immediately. 

And Aaron the High Priest, their father– the one who taught them everything they knew, the one they and the community looked up to… was silent. 

And because there is generally so little dialogue in the Torah, it is strange for the Torah to go out of its way to highlight Aaron’s silence. So of course the rabbis, our sages, want to know why is Aaron silent? Why doesn’t he cry out in protest? Why doesn’t he cry?

Some say his silence is faithfulness, accepting this awful reality as God’s will. Perhaps his silence was shock– he simply couldn’t believe this was happening. Happening on his watch, in his holy space, in the collectively holy space of the Jewish people, that he helped build– he is shocked that something could have gone so horribly wrong. This holy space is for communing with God, not burying our children. Or perhaps his silence was protest. Perhaps he is giving his commander the literal silent treatment. Maybe it was guilt– why 5 minutes earlier had his sacrifices been accepted and his sons, so horribly rejected, with such dire and devastating consequences. Perhaps his silence was fear. Fear that if he raised his voice, if he protested, his God and his people would turn on him, call him a traitor, tell him he wasn’t sufficiently loyal to the cause, and deserved what happened to him. We’ll never really know. 

Our torah portion this week– Aharei Mot Kedoshim– is chapters later in the story, weeks later on the calendar, yet begins with this episode. The first sentence of this week’s Torah portion– which concerns itself primarily with the Yom Kippur atonement ritual, with sexual purity, and with holiness– begins with calling to mind the death of Aaron’s two sons. I’ve been trying to make sense of it. Why begin the section with some of the most iconic, timeless and universally beloved lines of Torah– including, btw, v’ahavta l’reyekha kamokha, You will love your neighbor as yourself!”… Why begin with the line “And God spoke to Moses after the death of Aaron’s two sons…”

Let’s go on a different journey for a moment, about a similar building project. 

4,000 years after the original national Jewish building project, the Mishkan, and 2,000 years after the most recent attempt at Jewish sovereignty in the land of Israel (see the holidays of Hanukkah and Tisha B’Av to understand what happened there ;), the Jewish people again have a communal building project, a focal point of national pride, and even, for many, obsession, the State of Israel. And for good reason– through the eyes of Jewish history,  the creation of the State of Israel 75 years ago– is nothing short of a miracle. 

Not three years after the devastation and loss of 2/3rd of European Jewry in the Holocaust– the State of Israel represented a rebirth, very much like the Mishkan for the Israelites who left Egypt.  Like those Israelites who fell on their faces at the sight of Aaron and Moses in front of the Mishkan, thousands of Jews have fallen to their knees and kissed the earth as their plane or boat or camel or their feet, took them to the land of Israel, and they realized through tears that after generations of wandering, of shame and being the butt of antisemitic jokes and violence the world over, of not having control of their destiny and security, that here in this place, they would. They would recreate themselves and would not apologize for surviving, for thriving. That is what we celebrate every year on Yom HaAtzmaut. Od Avinu Chai– against all odds, we are still here. And that is something to celebrate. Every time I get off the plane at Ben Gurion and there is a mezuzah the size of my arm on the wall as I walk down the ramp toward customs, I feel a little bit of that amazement and gratitude. 

And yet, like the ancient Mishkan, death and loss has accompanied the story from the very beginning. The day before Yom HaAtzma’ut is Yom haZikaron, Israel’s memorial day, commemorating every year, the loss of life that Israeli soldiers and victims of terror have incurred in the service of, or simply have a cup of coffee or attending a seder in, the State of Israel. That number totals close to 29,000 people since the birth of the State: mostly soldiers, about 4,000 civilians. May their memories be blessings. Every year on Yom HaZikaron Israel sounds a siren and traffic on the highway stops, people get out of their cars, stand up at outdoor cafes, put down their shopping bags and pay tribute– creating a collective moment of silence and memory. It’s much more of a serious, somber and memorial day than America’s barbecues and day off. It’s a moment of contending with the profound and personal sacrifice that having a state necessitates. 

Indeed, it seems that sacrifice is inevitable, and if we love something, we must be prepared to lose for it. And then we demonstrate how much we love what we love, by commemorating every year what we’ve lost. 

Now in the spirit of V’ahavta l’reyekha, you will love your neighbor as yourself, it’s important we understand where our neighbor’s hearts are at this moment. If we as Jews, want our losses seen and affirmed, we must do the same for our neighbors, and in particular our neighbors whose history is inextricably interwoven into the Jewish story. Palestinians have a parallel memorial day– Nakba Day. Nabka means Catastrophe. On this day Palestinians remember the day when the miracle for the Jewish people, became their nightmare, and over 700,000 Palestinians were forced to leave their homes in what is now the State of Israel– to become refugees in every neighboring country, and in the West Bank and Gaza strip.  Seventy five years is not that long ago– as we have our Holocaust survivors who share their personal memories of a collective Jewish trauma, there are Palestinians able to remember leaving their homes and villages with the hopes of returning, never to have returned. Just as Jews looked toward the land of Israel to return for 2,000 years, these families have the same dream.

In Israel and Palestine there are many peoples and many narratives of how we got to where we are today, but the dominant narratives– the dominant Israeli and Palestinian national narratives feature our separate losses, and those losses as the reasons to keep fighting to protect ourselves and never let our guard down, or let someone else tell us how to maintain our national identity. No– because we have lost so much, we must keep fighting.

But there are Israelis and Palestinians who have made that sacrifice, who have lost sons and daughters, brothers and sisters, mothers and fathers, husbands, wives, friends, to the reality that is life in Israel, or in Palestine as most Palestinians refer to it– who do not believe that war and violence and death and loss are inevitable. Who do not believe that it is Us versus Them, but rather that it is we who are willing to seek and work toward and make sacrifices for peace, versus those who want to make sacrifices to maintain the status quo. And this Yom HaZikaron and Yom HaAtzma’ut I want to lift up the voices of those brave and visionary people– who could never be accused of being insufficiently loyal, or of speaking from a place of nativity or privilege– because they are speaking from a place of profound personal loss. And they are the ones who would be within their rights to turn that pain into anger, into revenge, but instead, in the words of the Parents’ Circle Family Forum, that group of over 600 Israeli and Palestinian families who have lost someone to the conflict, “the best revenge we could have for those who killed our children, is to make peace.”

“The best revenge we could have for those who killed our children, is to make peace.”

So this past week Mishkan was proud to co-sponsor, along with 80 other organizations nationally and in Israel, the 18th annual Joint Memorial Day Commemoration– a ceremony designed by the Parents Circle and Combatants for Peace an organization of former militants, both Jewish and Palestinian, who have come together to to humanize the pain and shared experience of having lost loved ones, so that they can build bridges of compassion and end the narrative of us versus them, to envision and create a shared future in which there is room for all who call the land of Israel home.

Anat Marnin, who is a Jewish Israeli, sister of Yair and Pinke who died in the Yom Kippur War in 1973, spoke at the Memorial earlier this week and said, “My brothers will forever be 19 and 23, and I, fifty years later, am still their little sister. As a child, they always helped me feel safe and protected. I was 16,” she said, “When my world fell apart. I was speechless, struck dumb, and disappeared into myself. My mother somehow went on- supported me lovingly, and taught and spoke publicly and relentlessly about the terrible price we paid, and implored her audiences to find a way to end the bloodshed. And now I do the same– I share the memory of my brothers, for the sake of my living children, as well as future generations. When I met with Palestinian mothers,” she said, “I immediately felt a kinship with them, with their pain and grief. We share a terrible loss and a hope to end this conflict. From the depth of our sorrow we find the strength to work together even when the cannons roar to show there is another way, and in order to bring our message to both societies. See us, we say, see us who have paid the ultimate price for this conflict. If we can come together and say “enough,” then all of you can and may you join our call.”

Fifteen thousand people showed up in person for the Joint Memorial Day ceremony in Tel Aviv and another 20,000 viewed online. To listen to these brave souls share their stories, and witness the pain of the other. To stand in solidarity with one another and see that not as a threat to their national identity, but as a more expansive identity that transcends boundaries and includes the presence and the thriving of the other in their vision of the future. And this vision of shared grief translating into the desire for a different future, a safer future, a shared future for all, is gaining attention and support. 

And for good reason, I think. Having a State, or having a Mishkan for that matter, is a tactic toward achieving a goal, but not the goal itself.  The goal of a State isn’t the State itself, it's the dignity and safety and determination of one’s destiny as a People that a State makes possible– that’s the acutal. Wouldn’t it be incredible for a new generation of Israelis and Palestinans to envision a future in which their dignity, safety and self-determination enhances, rather than detracts, from their others’s? In which the dignity, safety, and self-determination of the other’s is their concern. Because there won’t be dignify, safety or self-determination for anyone, unless it is there for everyone. This is what the Parents’ Circle, Combatants for Peace, Standing Together and so many more people-to-people peace building organizations are trying to make happen, one hopeful day at a time.

Our parasha begins four chapter of focusing on how to be a good person, against the backdrop of the death of Aaron’s children. I wonder if perhaps Aaron’s silence was a question. 

How might I be part of creating a world where no one’s children must be sacrificed for what they love?

I want to bless us tonight to have the courage to listen to stories that aren’t the story you thought you knew. I want to bless us tonight to know that you are not a traitor if you lead with love.  I want to bless us tonight to know that in order to create peace, you have to invest in peace. In order to create peace, you have to do what Aaron did, and listen. I want to bless us tonight to know that maintaining our own dignity and safety means investing in the dignity and safety of our neighbors. For our sake, for their’s, and for God’s.