From the Rabbi's Desk

“Is it worth it?” These four words are often spoken when dealing with something that is challenging. “Is it worth it…” to keep on eating healthy when we don’t see the progress in our health? “Is it worth it…” to fight with those we love when we know we will make up later on? “Is it worth it…” to put forth all of this effort when nobody will even notice what I have done? All of these questions of the inherent value in something call out the imbalance between the work and the benefit. Over the years, the Jewish world has fallen victim to this concept in our conversation about Israel. “Is it worth it…” to live in Israel when there are suicide bombers? “Is it worth it…” to live in Israel when all of our children will be required to go to the army? “Is it worth it…” to live in Israel when you have to run to shelters on a repeated basis? “Is it worth it…” to live in Israel when the world sees us as a pariah and we need to constantly defend ourselves for merely defending ourselves? “Is it worth it…” to live in Israel when we are forced to fight against an enemy that forces us to kill innocent civilians in the crossfires?

It is easy to see this as a “this or that” conversation. It is easy to think that we can only have it one way or the other. Nobody ever stops to question that the claim of us having a choice is false. Nobody ever stops and recognizes that even if we accepted the premise that it is not worth it that the hardship would still remain. We must admit that the cost of us having our homeland and our own nation comes at a great cost. We mist accept that the cost is one that we continue to pay time and again as the years continue to go by. Sunday night we will mark יום הזכרון/Yom HaZikaron, Israeli Memorial Day. On יום הזכרון we not only memorialize and mourn the deaths of those who fell defending our country but we mourn and memorialize those who were viciously murdered by terror as well. Our loved ones who are killed by terror are victims of a war against us that knows no limits or boundaries. There are lists of all of the people who are remembered at the ceremonies each year. Those lists clearly grow year in and out and this year the list has grown unlike ever before. This year the lit will be increased by over 1500. The numbers are vast and hard to fully grasp but here is the Israeli Government website with their data and the names of the fallen: https://www.gov.il/en/pages/swords-of-iron-war-in-the-south-7-oct-2023 .

Monday will be יום הזכרון/Yom HaZikaron, Israeli Rememberance Day, and in the evening the sadness will give way to the celebration that is our homeland, Israel, with the celebration of יום העצמאות/Yom HaAtzmaut, Israeli Independence Day. This fragile balance is something that the Israeli people have known since their founding. They recognize that nothing can be taken for granted and that we need to know that there is a heavy price associated with the existence of the State of Israel.  This idea was the inspiration for Nathan Alterman’s poem: “The Silver Platter,” based on President Chaim Weizman’s quote “A state is not handed to a people on a silver platter.”

The Silver Platter by Nathan Alterman

The Earth grows still.
The lurid sky slowly pales
Over smoking borders.
Heartsick, but still living, a people stand by
To greet the uniqueness
of the miracle.

Readied, they wait beneath the moon,
Wrapped in awesome joy, before the light.
– Then, soon,
A girl and boy step forward,
And slowly walk before the waiting nation;

In work garb and heavy-shod
They climb
In stillness.
Wearing yet the dress of battle, the grime
Of aching day and fire-filled night

Unwashed, weary unto death, not knowing rest,
But wearing youth like dewdrops in their hair.
– Silently the two approach
And stand.
Are they of the quick or of the dead?

Through wondering tears, the people stare.
“Who are you, the silent two?”
And they reply: “We are the silver platter
Upon which the Jewish State was served to you.”

And speaking, fall in shadow at the nation’s feet.
Let the rest in Israel’s chronicles be told.

The sheer amount of terror and heartache that our people have endured over our history is hard to find in other populations of the world. The amount of adversity and pain that has afflicted the State of Israel is likewise nearly unparalleled. And yet despite all of this heart ache and pain the Jewish people and the Jewish State have both found a means and way to build and to go above and beyond in terms of contributing to all of humanity. There is a great cost associated with our precious homeland and that cost is that no matter how hard we try and fight to be accepted we remain outsiders. The cost is that the world cannot come to terms with our outsized influence and impact. The cost is that we have to fight to protect what is ours and this forces our military to do things that are hard and difficult to accept. None of this takes away the blessing that is Israel and the virtue that it is to have our own home land in the world.

The opening words of this weeks פרשה/Parsha are: קְדֹשִׁים תִּהְיוּ/You shall be holy. These words are then described by various מצות/Mitzvot that make us holy and that sustain our people. Things like honoring parents, keeping שבת and how we make sacrifices are a few of them in chapter 19. The תורה then states these central ethical rules in verses nine through 18:

When you reap the harvest of your land, you shall not reap all the way to the edges of your field, or gather the gleanings of your harvest.

You shall not pick your vineyard bare, or gather the fallen fruit of your vineyard; you shall leave them for the poor and the stranger: I, Hashem, am your God.

You shall not steal; you shall not deal deceitfully or falsely with one another.

You shall not swear falsely by My name, profaning the name of your God: I am Hashem.

You shall not defraud your fellow [Israelite]. You shall not commit robbery. The wages of a laborer shall not remain with you until morning.

You shall not insult the deaf, or place a stumbling block before the blind. You shall fear your God: I am Hashem.

You shall not render an unfair decision: do not favor the poor or show deference to the rich; judge your kin fairly.

Do not deal basely with members of your people. Do not profit by the blood of your fellow [Israelite]: I am Hashem.

You shall not hate your kinsfolk in your heart. Reprove your kin but incur no guilt on their account.

You shall not take vengeance or bear a grudge against members of your people. Love your fellow [Israelite] as yourself: I am Hashem.

These basic ethical rules are at the root of who we are as a people and are in large part what makes us “holy.” We built a country that we hoped and continue to hope will be rooted in these and other important ethical laws and values. At times it will fall short of being that nation and we will feel a sense of it not being worth it. But, more often than not, it rises to these values and reminds us that in the end it is, indeed, worth all that we have to do to keep it our special place in the world.