From the Rabbi's Desk

For the past few weeks we’ve been gathering on Wednesday nights at the synagogue to rehearse as a band for our upcoming performance at the Mitzvot Auction. We’re having lots of fun and I cannot wait for you to come and see us perform, hang out with friends, enjoy some good food, raise money for OVS and get the High Holiday season started. One artist we’re playing is Tom Petty. We’re going to be performing two of his songs. One we’re not playing is “The Wait”. I have been singing the chorus to myself just now, “the waiting is the hardest part”. This lyric makes me think about the painful experience so many of us go through when we have to wait for the inevitable to happen. Sign up to watch us play, enjoy the Keftes dinner, spend time with family & friends and bid on High Holiday honors at orveshalom.org/event/auction2024.  

This week begins the book of דברים/Devarim/Deuteronomy. It’s the last of the five books of the תורה/Torah and it’s the long goodbye of משה/Moses. In the opening chapter he declared he would not be permitted to enter the land of Israel and that the time was fast approaching. In other words, משה was telling us his end was near and that it was only a matter of time.

Many of us have experienced this hardship of watching a loved one die. Waiting for the inevitable is so awful and hard and often times the reality after the death is a different feeling entirely from what we had feared and expected. Every experience is different and so I cannot speak for everyone here. In משה’s waiting to die he imparted to us, the Jewish people, some final thoughts in the form of three speeches. The first of the three began with this week’s פרשה/parshah/portion: דברים. His waiting for the inevitable must have figured prominently into everything he cobbled together to say to the People of Israel. As Tom Petty told us “the waiting is the hardest part”.

We’re all familiar with the painfulness of waiting for something to happen. Often, we find ourselves saying things like “please just get it over with already”. Now we’re sitting glued to our TVs and devices to watch as we wait for the inevitable attack from Iran and its proxies against the State of Israel. This wait is torture and the enemy is well aware of what they’ve managed to do. Airlines worldwide have once again cancelled their flights to Israel. Israelis were stranded on the island nation of Cyprus when an airliner refused to land at Ben-Gurion airport. People are stocking their pantries and their bomb shelters. The entire country is on edge just waiting for something awful to happen. The twisted minds of the enemy are enjoying this and there is little to nothing we can do to put an end to their terror.

I mourn this reality. I mourn that we’re being terrorized and controlled by an enemy with no sense of morality. I mourn that we’re being controlled by an enemy that wants to avenge the assassination of a murderer who was responsible for the deaths of 12 children. I mourn that in spite of us living in a world that seems enlightened and seems to have a mastery over communication, we’re still demonized and isolated by so much of the world. I mourn that antisemitism is still a lesson we’re being forced to learn about day in and out. I mourn that life as a Jew today is not different enough from when our ancestors were kicked out of Spain, England and other countries. It’s not all that different from when our ancestors were forced to convert, murdered and brutalized by people we thought were our neighbors. Yes, we’ve come a long way, but not far enough. The wait for the world to change is simply too hard and too long. “The waiting is the hardest part.”

As a Jewish people, this year has been a very difficult one for us and we need to be together in our response. We need to see that grief is part of being Jewish and part of our response to their ugliness, terror and hate. This Monday night at 8:30 pm, we’ll gather to mourn a world that’s not as it should be. We’ll observe the Jewish day of mourning, תשעה באב/Tisha B’Av at the synagogue. It’s a full day fast, 25 hours long. We’ll also be gathering on Tuesday morning at 8:00 am for Minyan and the reading of the book of איכה/Eicha/Lamentations a second time. This year, it’s more important than previous years to be together and to grieve as Jews. I hope you’ll consider joining us and that you’ll find a way to incorporate the mourning into your day.