Rabbi Adam Rosenwasser

May 14, 2010

Binding Ourselves to Israel

I want to tell you about a woman I admire.  Her name is Noa.  I met Noa for the first time last fall, at a local gathering to garner support and raise awareness of IGY, an acronym for Israeli Gay Youth, an organization which was founded eight years ago in Tel Aviv to address the needs of Israel ’s gay and lesbian teenagers.  Noa has served the organization in many capacities.  She is a leader, an advocate, and a trusted advisor for Israeli teens struggling with their identity.  And  Noa was also the first person to arrive at Tel Aviv’s gay and lesbian center on the evening of August 1^st, 2009, just a few minutes after a masked gunman had walked into an IGY meeting and shot and killed three young people.  This horrific tragedy is what prompted Noa and her coworkers to travel to the United States, meeting with local LGBT and Jewish leaders.  While I spent time with Noa, I was struck by her bravery, her tenacity, and her belief that Israeli society though fractured, could rise above its current conflicts to find peace both beyond its borders and within. 

So you can imagine my shock and horror when I read that Noa had been brutally attacked this past Tuesday morning at the central bus station in Beer Sheva as she was waiting to board a bus to take her to Tel Aviv.  Noa’s crime?  She had been laying tefilin earlier that morning, privately.  If you have put on tefilin before, you know that they can leave marks as you wrap the leather straps tightly around arm and head.  According to the Jewish telegraphic agency, Noa was approached by an ultra-Orthodox man, who asked her twice if the imprints on her arm were from tefilin.  When she told him they were, he began to kick and strangle her while screaming, “Women are an abomination.”  Miraculously, Noa was able to break free from the man and boarded the bus.

Every time I read something like this, it makes me angry.  My blood pressure goes up, my muscles tighten, and I feel like one of those cartoon characters where steam begins pouring out of the ears.  As I read about Noa,  I put myself in her place, waiting at a busstop in an Israeli desert town, getting ready to make the couple hours trip back to my home in Tel Avi.  I witnessed my own share of  what our sages refer to as sinat chinam, hatred withouth reason, while I lived in Israel during my first year of Rabbinical school.    Shushan, Jerusalem’s one gay bar, was firebombed a few nights after my last visit.  Swastikas were painted on the walls of Hebrew Union College.  A young man, also named Adam, was stabbed during the Jerusalem Pride Parade.  A female classmate was told by a cab driver in  to stop studying torah and go back to the kitchen.  Thankfully I was not kicked or physically harmed, but I know too well the level of hurt, frustration, and anger that Noa and many of us surely feels.  My relationship with Israel sometimes feels painful.  I love her, I support her with my dollars, my enthusiasm, and my frequent flyer miles, and I sometimes this is returned with anger and hurt. The great medieval poet Yehuda HeLevy wrote  libi b’mizrach,, my heart is in the east, but when the rest of my self is there, I often find my heart feeling open, unprotected, and vulnerable.

So on Tuesday I was angry, very angry.  I asked myself questions I have been asking for a long time.  Why, in a place I like to think of as my home, is there so much hatred often perpetuated by right-wing religious zealots?  Why do they seem to wield so much power, both religious and political?  After a while, the anger subsides, and I am able to think more clearly about the best course of action to take.  I realize that as much as I would sometimes like to abandon Israel, I cannot, for just as the tefilin binds itself to our flesh, I am bound to her and her destiny, for better or for worse.  So, I resolve instead to strengthen my relationship to progressive minded people who are trying to inculcate values of diversity, acceptance, and respect.  The leaders of the progressive Jewish movements in Israel are seeking to show Israeli society that yesh yoteir miderekh echad l’hiyot yehudi, there is more than one way to be a Jew.   I make a donation to the Israel Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism. I pledge my support to Israeli Gay Youth.  I donate money to Women of the Wall, an organization led by Anat Hofman, which gathers together every Rosh Chodesh, just this morning in fact, at the Western Wall, allowing women the opportunity to pray at our holiest site, an act of defiance against all those who would send me, my classmates, and in fact all of your Beth Am clergy back to the kitchen, into the shadows.

In our Haftarah reading this Shabbat, we read the passage one is supposed to say as one puts on tefilin.  It goes as follows:  v’erastich li lay’olam…. I will betroth you to me forever.  I will betroth you to me in righteousness and justice, in steadfast love and compassion.  I will betroth you to me in faithfulness, and you shall know the Eternal.”  These are the very words Noa recited as she wrapped herself in the tefillin she wraps every morning.  They speak of the bond we would like to feel with one another, with God, and with our Jewish state. 

When you go home tonight, try a little web surfing…actually wait on that until Saturday night.  Enjoy Shabbat and THEN surf the web.  Find the Noa’s and the IGY’s, the Women of the Wall and the Israeli Religious Action Center.  Shatil, the New Israeli Fund, and Rabbis for Human Rights.  Ask them how you can get involved.  Offer your assistance.  Even better, go to Israel!  We have two exciting opportunities for you next summer.  Rabbi Jennifer Clayman and her husband Rabbi John Fishman will be leading a family trip, and the Rabbis Marder will be leading what I’m told is an absolutely phenomenal adult trip along with our very own Orna Morad.  Now is the time to go to Israel , to bind yourself to it, to stand with Noa, and Anat, and all those who are trying to build a society based on righteousness and justice, on steadfast love and compassion. 

I stand here this evening struggling, feeling frustrated, scared that the violence seems to be on the rise, but also hopeful.  For struggling is not necessarily a bad thing.  Struggle has always defined who we are as Jews.  It is through struggle that we are strengthened.  Struggle is how we learn, and how we grow.  Tomorrow evening, our confirmation class of 5770 is going to demonstrate how they have struggled and wrestled with Judaism throughout their lives.  They are offering a wonderfully rich and creative program of song, dance, music, and spoken word that will demonstrate their love and connection to Judaism.  Just as Noa took the traditionally male ritual of wrapping teflin and made it her own, our confirmands are learning the beauty and power of taking our ancient practices and traditions, and finding their unique place in our never-ending story.  I invite all of you to join us tomorrow at seven pm in the sanctuary for this unique program. 

At the end of tomorrow’s program, we will sing a song called The Hope.  It speaks of our collective wishes and dreams for our homeland.  As I stand with our young people, swaying with them to the music, I know that in spite of the anger and frustration, the violence and nasty words, od lo avda tikvateynu, we have not lost our hope.  Each of us, by binding ourselves to Israel, has the opportunity to build and shape a better state. 

As we approach Shavuot, the holiday where we commemorate the giving of the Torah at Sinai, we dedicate ourselves anew to the struggle.  May all of us have the courage of Noa, proudly wearing our hearts on our sleeves, standing up for our beliefs, helping to build an Israel of respect, of acceptance, of love.