Erev Rosh Hashanah 5766
Rabbi Marcia A. Zimmerman

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What do we mean when we say that we are gathering together with Jews worldwide to usher in this new year of 5766? We all felt connected to the global Jewish community this summer watching the withdrawal from Gaza on television. When in Rome this summer, two events occurred that brought home the collision of history with today’s reality: visiting the arch of Titus that depicts the sacking of Jerusalem, and then watching on live television coverage of Jews evacuating Gaza. While there was a sense of pride, there was also a sense of horror. The pride that Titus had not ultimately won, and today we have an autonomous Jewish state; pride at the sacrifice of land for the hope of peace; pride that the world was watching as the army of the Jewish state carried out this mission unarmed with dignity and integrity, often with tears streaming down their faces.

And at the same time I was horrified, horrified that so long ago a people would celebrate the destruction of our people’s sacred site, and horrified seeing my children watching the settlers refusing to leave their homes, hurling epithets at the soldiers referencing the Holocaust, yelling "Jews do not displace fellow Jews," pouring acid from synagogue rooftops onto IDF soldiers. This globally projectd image of Jews still makes us all cringe.

A fellow reform rabbi who made aliyah and works at the Hartman Institute, a multi-movement think tank, told me that her colleagues and close friends--Orthodox rabbis, many of whom had family being evacuated--could not speak to her during this time. She was hurt and yet she understood, seeing families leave their homes, exhuming entire graveyards--the graves of their parents and victims of suicide bombing attacks--knowing that the graveyards would be desecrated is painful and traumatic. The reality on the streets of Israel reflects the moral ambiguity of the complicated clash of emotions that is a daily existence in the Jewish homeland. We too face the burden of our peoples' ambiguity in Minneapolis.

I went on a retreat with my downtown colleagues, the ministers and the imam whom I have grown to respect professionally and have deep friendships with personally. But the conflicts in Israel are a subject that have long created a silence among these same trusting colleagues. How do we communicate this complicated set of circumstances that we never witness in one dimension on the news? How do we explain our deep connection to this place half way around the world that they to glibly see as a political entity of oppressed Palestinians? Last Yom Kippur we sat with Reverend Tim Hart Anderson from Westminster Presbyterian Church hoping to convince him to stop the Presbyterian General Assembly from divesting from American companies that invest in Israel and whose products are used by Israel in the Palestinian conflict. But they are proceeding with that resolution, unfortunately inspiring other Christian denominations to follow in their footsteps.

Throughout Italy, I saw churches and taught my children the value of how Jews must appreciate the beauty of our Christian friends’ sanctuaries. Coming back, I faced our area’s leading Christian ministers with a commitment to cross a threshold the Jewish community has dared not tread: this year’s interfaith forum is centered on the holiness of land and pilgrimage. During the forums we will discuss Israel, a risky conversation. We, as American Reform Jews, have often decided to stay out of the conversation about Israel with our neighbors and our colleagues--it is just too complicated. In all honesty, we haven’t had a serious conversation about Israel among ourselves. ARZA, the Association of Reform Zionists of America, receives minimal support from our congregation and, since the second intifada, we have cancelled two congregational trips to Israel.

Tonight I begin what I want to become a congregational process, a process of study about Israel, open dialogue, and a reaffirmation of our commitment to the Jewish state. I believe that this conversation at Temple Israel is uniquely different than in other venues. I welcome those of you who have been in dialogue with other organizations, such as the JCRC, AIPAC, Federation, or The New Israel Fund, to send me your comments and remarks. But because we are a religious institution our conversation must strive toward a spiritual level. Where do we begin?

We must confess that, as Reform Jews, we have abdicated our role in creating the religious language of modern Zionism. We've abdicated that to the settlement movement, who we all refer to as Religious Zionists. We have more comfortably turned to the spirit of the pioneer movemen--the secular Zionists whose vision and dreams created the state of Israel, but whose paradigm falls short next to our religious mission. It is time to create a new understanding of our relationship, as American Reform Jews, to the modern state of Israel. We can take the best from both the Religious Zionist movement and the secular Zionist vision to create a model that is both progressive and religious.

There are those who believe we have no right as American Jews to impose our beliefs or standards upon Israel. That as American citizens we can only place pressure on the American Government. I do not hold to this position. I believe Jews internationally are affected by what happens within Israel. Theodore Herzl’s seminal work, Der Judenstaat, has often been mistranslated to mean the Jewish state. More aptly, it is understood to mean the state of the Jews. For Herzl, as for all of us today, the Jewish state is not only an Israel experiment, it is the ultimate Jewish experiment.

It was the prophetic vision of the secular Zionists like Herzl that energized young European men and women to climb out of their bedroom windows to journey to a dream call Zion. “If you will it, it is no dream.” The original Zionists who heard the call of Herzl left their religiously repressive countries for a future of freedom and to actualize a nation for their people. It is important to acknowledge that these young Zionists did not make the stark distinction between religion and nationality that we do today.

Fifty-seven years later we are confronted with a different reality. Security is the number one priority; total attention is cast to Israel’s borders because of terrorism, the Palestinian/ Israeli conflict and the tenuous relationship with Israel’s neighbors in the Arab world. Even as daily threats of death face citizens, the internal civil rights issues are an increasing concern for Israelis. The divide between the haves and the have nots grows wider and wider everyday--who would have ever guessed that Herzl’s dream included poverty? This was not the ideal of the early pioneers who were the creators of the Moshov and Kibbutz movements.

There continues to be a public scandal that the only place where Jews are not legally allowed to live with their own pluralism is the State of Israel. The government of Israel pays, through state taxes, the salaries of 3300 orthodox rabbis, while no public funds pay for progressive rabbis’ salaries or Reform congregations. Many American Jews are surprised when they learn that Reform and Conservative rabbis are not allowed to officiate at weddings, funerals or conversions within Israel. A Reform rabbi in the city of Haifa was not allowed to participate in a city-wide funeral for victims of a suicide bombing attack who were members of his congregation. A recent poll among Israelis shows that most young Sabras want to identify as Israeli rather than Jew, meaning that they are tired of the abuse of Judaism.

This reflects an obvious vacuum left by secular Zionists when they chose to ignore the controversial issue of religion in the Jewish state. As a result, the power was handed to the Orthodox movement to define religious life in Israel as well as defining religious Zionism. The settler movement has transformed its religious counterparts through one important strategy: they popularized the notion that they are able to accelerate the coming of the Messiah in order to bring about the true Israel. They have hijacked the religious Zionism of Rav Kook and the religious Jews who immigrated to Israel before and after the Shoah. Tirelessly, the settlers work at bringing about a greater Israel; they are relentless in their activities to define Israel according to the biblical borders. The movement’s motives are religious and its members’ experiences are expressed in religious terms. So the horror of the settlers chaining themselves inside the synagogue we witnessed at the Gaza pullout should not surprise us.

Why do we cringe when we have no language to discuss these scenes? We have to admit that we do not in fact share a common language to discuss our commitment to Israel. As Reform Jews, when do we talk about making Aliyah? Some of us question why we should feel anything towards Israel. Despite the settlers' heartbreaking tactics, we can learn a great deal from them. Their strategy can teach us how a single message can bring an unwavering commitment. Everyone is on point, every man, woman and child proclaim Zionism as Redemption, and they are clear and concise about their part in bringing about that redemption. A setback never defeats them. To the contrary, it fuels an even stronger commitment.

The Orthodox movement in general shows more commitment to Israel than any other movement. American Orthodox families send more of their children to Israel, travel to Israel multiple times in a year, fly only on El Al and the evidence is right there. They also give more money to religious Zionist organizations, very impressive for a movement that was anti-Zionist in 1948. The American Reform Movement cannot compare to this commitment even though we are the largest Jewish organization in the world, even larger than Chabad. It has been said that we have the wood but not the fire for Israel.

How are we to kindle the spark of our passion for the state of the Jewish people as American Reform Jews in order to reclaim the title of religious Zionists? As Jews committed to both the absolute value of the Jewish State and modernity, we will not claim the rigid, dangerous passion of Messianic orthodoxy or a socialist pioneer vision.

First, we need religious language and a religious mission stated clearly and concisely. At the same time, we must stay in reality, on the ground to both pray and roll up our sleeves to do the work that needs to be done. We want an Israel that lives out the pioneer ideals of taking care of its citizens, providing a safe haven for Jews everywhere. We believe in protecting Israeli citizens as a priority, but we must now share in the burden of the risks of Gaza. Shame on us if we just sit back to see them fail. Avraham Burg, a leading voice of conscience in Israel, recently spoke these words in public and local pan-Arab TV ads: “In the last four years, the winner in the Middle East has been despair…..I don’t want you to think Judaism is checkpoints and settlements or the wall and occupation, just as Islam is not terrorism. I respect the pain. I assume responsibility.” None of us who neither send our children to the army at 18 nor face the daily fear of terrorism can say anything less than that. We respect the pain, and we too must assume the responsibility of peace.

We should be proud of the progressive movement in Israel. The Israel Religious Action Center is the progressive movement's watchdog for equitable treatment and helps take care of Israeli citizens who live in poverty, whether they are Jews, Christians or Muslims. Our sister congregations in Israel look to us for support. It is amazing to hear in Mevoseret Tzion or in Modiin Debbie Friedman’s meshebarach. We are all part of the same movement.

A Zionism that is both progressive and religious should work toward an Israel that upholds a humanitarian ideal without endangering the twofold purpose for which it was created as a refuge for the Jews and as the stage were the Jewish religious culture and heritage is able to flourish in a way it cannot in the Diaspora; a place where Jewish pluralism thrives.

As it says in Perkei Avot, “The day is short and the task is long….” My commitment to you, as to myself, is not to force the serious value of religious language into a sermon on the eve of Rosh Hashanah, but to offer you the time to study and discuss with me the beauty of Judaism’s value of life and the vision of Zion.

Join me, Rabbi Glaser and my family this summer in June on a pilgrimage to Israel. There is nothing like walking the streets of Jerusalem, Haifa and Tel Aviv to rekindle your connection to Israel. We have an obligation to go. Come to the interfaith forums this year as we discuss Israel with our Christian and Muslim neighbors. We need the Jewish voice to be strong. Participate as member of ARZA in the World Zionist Congress elections, you will be receiving a direct mail piece from Temple--open it and vote.

Pray for the state of the Jewish people--I am asking that we include a prayer for Israel every time we gather for worship and so we can send our prayers forth. Tonight we turn to our machzor for that prayer, and in the days ahead I invite you to create your own prayers that we can say collectively, prayers that express our progressive and religious voices.