“Shared Language, Different Lenses,” Rabbi Slipakoff’s Sermon from His Recent Trip to Israel — Friday, March 24, 2023

So, I will actually begin with last week, when President Isaac Herzog took to the airwaves to introduce his proposed compromise in response to the current government’s plans to overhaul the judicial system. A plan which would remove legislative checks and balances which many consider critical to the preservation of democracy and to the rights of millions in the LGBTQ community, women, Palestinian citizens, and Reform and Conservative Jews. A plan which has catapulted Israeli citizens into the streets, with hundreds of thousands protesting against the proposed changes, and thousands who are equally passionate in showing their support.

Herzog spent weeks on this proposal, in conversation with politicians, legal experts, friends, and enemies before sharing what he called Mitveh Ha’am, the People’s Framework. Herzog’s spoke of a Shvil Zahav, a golden path, a term lifted from Maimonides’ philosophy of a desirable middle between the extremes. He stated, “If only one side wins — the State of Israel will lose. In this outline there is no winning side and no losing side. It is an outline that is all about the victory of the citizens of Israel.” 17 minutes after Herzog left the stage, his plan was rejected by the Netanyahu government, a collection of ultranationalist and ultra-Orthodox parties, who knew what was coming, and wanted nothing to do with it. Afterall, they have the votes, and the supposed mandate.

I’m not here to pick apart Herzog’s compromise, plenty of people have offered their opinions across the spectrum from too liberal, to too conservative, to too middling, but few if any have called it Just Right.

Herzog also shared this dramatic warning:

“Those who think that a real civil war, with lives lost, is a line we will not cross, have no idea. Precisely now, 75 years into Israel’s existence, the abyss is at our fingertips.” Part of me feels this statement is excessive, and the other part feels like it would be dangerously foolish to dismiss it.

Jumping back to last month. What I saw in Israel was people taking to the streets in the name of democracy. As I first entered Jerusalem, the roads were choked with the thousands of people carrying Israeli flags shouting degel shelanu, this is our flag! As they left the demonstration outside of the knesset. The chorus of honking car horns were most certainly divided between “I’m with you,” “you’re wrong,” and “get out of my way; I just want to get home.”

That Monday night, the overhaul legislation first arrived on the Knesset floor, despite requests from Herzog to pause the process. The next morning we met with MKs from the Labor Party MK/Reform Rabbi Gliad Kariv, and party chair Merav Michaeli.

Michaeli had no interest in negotiating. She rhetorically asked,

“How many more reminders do we need that Netanyahu uses negotiations to get what he wants and drag his opponents through the mud? Negotiating gives legitimization for something that is horrible and dangerous. We cannot take one thing and say that it is right and okay.”

Kariv, speaking through his Reform rabbi lens, said this was not only about democracy, but about Judaism. In a Jewish state, the two are forever entwined — and there is an ongoing effort from the growing Reform Movement in Israel to declare their path as an alternative and righteous path opposing the perceived “religious agenda.”

“B’shem ha’yahadoot nigayn al ha’demokratia” —
In the name of Judaism, we will defend our democracy.

This was emblazoned on the banner I helped carry through Tel Aviv later that week with a crowd estimated beyond 100,000. These were the words Rabbi Rick Jacobs, the president of the Union of Reform Judaism, proclaimed as he took to the podium and addressed the crowd on behalf of the largest denomination in North America. The interpretation and application of Judaism is not monolithic, and the responsibility to speak and defend our Jewish values is incumbent on us especially as progressive Jews in Israel, where the religious right wields great and dangerous power.

Case in point:

Early Wednesday morning, I boarded a bus with my colleagues to join Women of the Wall at the Kotel. For over 30 years, the Women of the Wall have been gathering each Rosh Chodesh and fighting the good fight to advance the rights of women and people of all genders to pray openly and freely at the Kotel. They are routinely met with violence and verbal abuse from Orthodox demonstrators who believe the actions of these women to be a blasphemous assault on their Judaism.

Though the High Court has ruled that the Women of the Wall are permitted to hold prayer services, the chief rabbi of the Western Wall, has prevented them from reading from Torah scrolls by establishing a rule that no outside scrolls can be used, and then refusing to provide them with one from the Western Wall’s collection. This results in some of the most scrutinous and invasive security checks that you will see in the Land of Israel. As Kotel Security pat women down, search their bags, and lift their clothes, searching not for explosive devices, but something far more incendiary — Torah scrolls. Our Torah was a security threat.

To get around this law, Gilad Kariv used his parliamentary immunity to bring an outside Torah scroll into the main plaza and then tried to hand it over to women to read. In the tumultuous sea of people I was nearby Kariv, who was encircled first by security forces, and then by us Reform Rabbis, building our own fence around the Torah, as those who opposed us sought to rip it from his arms. We never did get the Torah to the Women’s section, but they prayed with sincerity from a smuggled piece of parchment.

As we were leaving through the gates, I walked alongside one of our Torah scrolls. A young woman, I can’t imagine she was more than 14, saw us coming, reared back, and spat at our party. She missed the Reform Rabbis, and she spat on the Torah.

We all froze. Time froze. I don’t remember what was said.
But together we stared into the abyss.

It would have been the most sickening experience of my time there, had my last night not included the horrific scenes from the village of Huwara, where a vengeful mob of Jewish settlers took a pause from burning the village in order to pray their maariv service. Busha, shame on the assailants, and shame on the government which refuses to hold them accountable.

That morning at the wall in the midst of the shouting and whistles, and pushing, and kicking, and plastic toy bomb bags being tossed near us, we sang. We sang the songs we sing every Friday night, and they have never felt more alive to me.

Ozi V’zimrat Ya — God is my Strength
Or Zarua La Tzadik — Light is sown for the righteous
Oseh Shalom — May the one who brings peace in the heavens bring peace to us here. especially right here in this sacred place. It was beautiful and uplifting… and, the other side could have sang the very same psalms to make their point.

Each of us could sing and firmly believe — Light is sown for the righteous. WE are the righteous, and THEY are not. Shared language through vastly different lenses. Degel Shelanu, the same thing. OUR flag, not YOURS. I don’t know if that young woman felt shame or pride in the aftermath. But in that moment, I think we all felt outraged. I think each one of us felt, “A Torah has been desecrated, and it’s all your fault.” Herzog’s warning is unsettlingly present: “Those who think that a real civil war, with lives lost, is a line we will not cross, have no idea.” Is he right?

On Tuesday morning, Meirav Michaeli quoted Golda Meir to us, saying “Jews do not have the privilege of being a pessimist.” So with a deep breath, I offer some hope. There is a lot of work to be done in Israel, and a lot of wonderful people who are doing it. Like Gilad Kariv, and the Women of the Wall, like countless other organizations, and my fellow rabbis who are sharing their experiences with congregations across our country.

And like our old friend Rabbi Naama Daphne Kellen and her colleague Rabbi Gabby Dagan.The two of them took us to a yeshiva from the Religious Zionist movement, and invited us to a civilized dialogue with individuals whom we may never have sought out. It would have been easy to approach in anger, and some of us did. But Naama cautioned us at the start saying, “when you walk through someone’s heart, take gentle steps.”

In that spirit, a few words from the haunting and beautiful song:

Ein Li Eretz Acheret, “I Have No Other Country” — a song originated by Ehud Manor and Korin Alal during the First Lebanon War. A song which has throughout its existence been an anthem for Israelis across all social and political spectrums. Shared language, different lenses.

I have no other country
even if my land is aflame
Just a word in Hebrew
pierces my veins and my soul —
With a painful body, with a hungry heart,
Here is my home.

I won’t be silent because my country
has changed her face.
I will not give up reminding her
And sing in her ears
until she will open her eyes.