Kol Nidre 5785 - Where are we? Are we One Head or Two?

Rabbi Daniel Gropper, DD, Community Synagogue of Rye

Oct 11, 2024

A Story, because Judaism is all about stories: The Lithuanian Jews found Rebbe Shneur Zalman’s style of Hasidic Judaism threatening. So the authorities threw Rebbe Zalman in jail.

His jailor was a devout Chrisitan. He knew his bible.

One day as Zalman sat in his cell the jailer spoke to him. “Rabbi,” he said, “there is something that has always confounded me. In the opening verses of Genesis, after Adam hid from God, God asks, ‘Where are you?’ But if God is omniscient, why would God have to ask such a question?”

“Ahh,” the Rebbe responded. “Well, it was the beginning of the world. Everything was new, including emotions. God had to be gentle. God’s question of, ‘Ayekah, where are you?’ was merely a ‘conversation opener.’ God knew that Adam felt ashamed for having eaten the forbidden fruit, why else would he hide? God didn’t want to unnerve Adam by confronting him with his wrongdoing.” 

But, the Rebbe continued, “that answer only explains the choice of word in the text. The true answer to your question is much deeper. It’s a question not of the head but of the heart. God’s question to Adam is an existential one. It is God’s perpetual call to every person. Where are you in the world? What have you accomplished? You have lived so many years and so many days. Where are you? What have you achieved?” It’s a question of purpose that God asks each of us at every hour of every day.

The fate of our souls hangs in the balance this evening. Ayekah is a perfect question. Where are you? It is also a question we should be asking in the wake of October 7th. Ayekah - where are we? On Rosh HaShanah I spoke of how, with the uptick in antisemitism and anti Zionism, we might feel vulnerable and how we might handle it. Tonight, I want to explore another dimension of where we are; in this case, the question of whether or not we are one people. Tomorrow we will explore how we might speak with our children who may have different views of Zionism from our own. 

To explore this question of Ayekah, of where we are as a people, let us turn to a text from Tractate Menuchot of the Babylonian Talmud. There, amidst debates over the preparation and presentation of various Temple offerings, the tractate takes a detour - as Talmud often does - to discuss tefillin, the square black boxes containing verses of Torah that Jews wear in prayer. One box goes on the arm wrapped with black leather straps while the other goes on the head, right above the eyes; a third eye if you will. The rabbis discuss the particular placement of the tefillin shel rosh, the head piece. And then, from what feels like left field, a student, who is really a nudnik, asks: "If a person has two heads, on which should he place his tefillin?" If you’ve ever taught a class, you know this student. You also know what sort of response this type of question might trigger in you. In this case the teacher does not hold back.  "Either get up and go to exile or accept upon yourself excommunication."   In other words, this is such an outrageous question. I. Just. Can’t… 

In the meantime a man runs into the beit midrash and says: "A child was born to me with two heads. How much do I have to pay for the redemption of the firstborn?" This is no longer theoretical for it raises a critical question: does this newborn count as one person or two? 

The rabbis debate the issue and devise a test. One head is to be doused with boiling water. If both scream, it is one body and the payment is 5 shekels. If only one screams, then they are separate beings and the payment doubles. The outcome? Both scream. The lesson is clear: As Jews we may have multiple identities, perspectives, and experiences, but we share one destiny. If one part of the body suffers, the entire body feels the pain. 

This form of thinking was instilled in me as a child. We may live here but so much of our Jewish lives are tied to Israel, to our indigenous homeland. It is built into our synagogues. We face Jerusalem in prayer. Our prayers contain countless words referencing Zion, Israel or Jerusalem. Even our life cycle ceremonies include these references. When the wedding ceremony ends, the groom steps on a glass. Why? To recall the destruction of the Temple… in Jerusalem. Now, I’ve been officiating at weddings for 30 years. I can guarantee you that no couple is thinking about the destruction of Jerusalem on their wedding night. But there it is. It is there because while we, the Jewish people, may have two heads, we have one body. We are one. This head should cry and scream when we hurt and laugh and rejoice when we succeed. 

Today, however, a growing number of young Jews say the two heads are two separate beings. They contend this conjoined being should get two sets of tefillin shel rosh, that the father should pay a double redemption price. They even have a term for who they are: “Diasporists.” The basic premise is this, "make where you are better and safer as opposed to going to a homeland where you'd feel safer." They are so frustrated with Israel and her politics that they want to create a Judaism separate from Israel, a Judaism that focuses on prayer, on ritual, on holidays, on mitzvot, on community but not on Israel. Ayekah? This is where we are. 

Last Yom HaShoah, I suggested that maybe there is now a fifth child at the Seder.  I said, “Raised on values of repairing the world and universal equality; of caring for the powerless and liberating the oppressed, the fifth child in this family knows they are Jewish - may have even become a bar or bat mitzvah - but has traded any notion of particularism for universalism. To them Israel is an oppressor. The Palestinians are the oppressed. And that fifth child stands up for the oppressed instead of being there for their own people. Not quite self-hating and not quite ambivalent but disengaged from their own people’s struggles in favor of universal causes." 

One young man who grew up in a neighboring synagogue as part of a strongly identified Jewish family took issue. We found a time to talk. He told me that he and his wife are part of a deeply connected and committed Jewish community who get together to pray, to learn, to celebrate holidays but, like the Diasporists, they keep Israel out of the conversation. Zionism is the Z word. I listened. I empathized. Remember, we can disagree but Jews don’t cancel Jews. And while I listened I thought, “What a position of privilege it is to have such a view. His grandfather, who survived the Holocaust, would have given his eye teeth to think and behave this way. So I looked at him with all the love and compassion I could muster and said,  “Everything you are saying is completely illogical. Israel is part of the equation of what it means to be Jewish. You simply cannot have one without the other. You want to be critical of the Israeli government? Fine. You want to protest Bibi? Go for it. But Judaism disconnected from Israel? Impossible.” Just look at what these Days of Awe are all about at their core - they connect us to the microclimate of Israel, a country that unlike her neighbors has no major river and relies solely on rain to irrigate its crops. That is why we are freaking out in all these prayers, because the rainy season is coming and if we don’t get the right amount we are all doomed. 

Somehow we failed to educate ourselves and our children about this. We focused on Shabbat and Bible stories and various holidays and living ethically - which is what every Abrahamic religion promotes - but we somehow forgot to tell our distinctive story: we are Jews because we originated in Judea. We are rooted to that land. Ever since the Romans exiled us from there 2000 years ago, we longed to return. In medieval times we prayed to God to return us. In modern times we took matters into our own hands. We called it the World Zionist Organization. It was and is the national liberation movement of the Jewish people. Somehow we forgot to teach our children the story of the birds and the bees of our people. Somehow we forgot to teach them that we may have two heads but we are one body.

Israeli Journalist Haviv Rettig Gur recently gave a talk at Harvard. After finishing, one student approached him and said,   

I can’t cross the quad without them screaming, Zionism is colonialism, and it feels like a personal attack.” 

Haviv said to him, “I’m sorry to hear that. That’s really sad. That sounds frustrating.”

And he says, “No, it really hurts.” 

And Haviv said, “What do you mean it hurts? Israeli kids your age are at war. I mean, buck up, right?”

And then the student says, “No, what hurts is that I don’t have an answer. I don’t know what to say back.” 

Haviv answered, “Do you really not know the answer to the Zionism is colonialism question? Are you serious? Ninety-five percent of Israeli Jews came as refugees with nowhere else to go. You know another such colonialism? We come from 60 countries. There’s no mother country we are coming from. You know a colony with no mother country? There’s no colonialism on the planet with any of the features of Zionism.”

“So this kid looks at me and says, ‘Oh my God, I’m invincible.’  “I was shocked,’ Haviv says, ‘because the things I said to him were the most basic, foundational, simple facts of our history. He didn’t know them. And when he did know them, everything was solved in 45 seconds.”

I shared this anecdote in a letter to our college students. I apologized for falling down on our job as Jewish educators by not making sure they understood these simple foundational facts. Maybe we failed to do so because we were worried they’d see it as boring. Instead, we focused on making Judaism fun. We focused on the “sexy stuff;:” things like holidays, rituals, food. All this in the hopes that, in their assimilation into American life, they’d still identify as Jewish. For some, it worked, but for most it did not. For too many young Jews, their b’mitzvah is one of their last Jewish experiences. Ironically, that rite of passage has become so central to what we do. We bet a lifetime of identity on a few hundred hours of schooling and a singular event. It’s a crazy business model. I think we can do better. Especially now. We need to do better.

My friends, we need to do a better job of learning our story and telling it to our children. They tried to kill us, they didn’t, let’s eat is catchy but it is not compelling. You want compelling? Try this: There was a people, exiled from their homeland who maintained a sense of cohesion and tradition for over 2000 years as they tried to find their way home. The Dalai Lama found it compelling. In 1989 he came to the United States to meet with Jewish leaders. He wanted to know how we did it. 

Here’s another one. There once was a people who spoke, wrote, prayed and sang in one of the first languages ever invented. Then they were exiled to far flung places. They adapted. The language ceased to be spoken, only written in sacred texts by a few religious leaders and scholars. For centuries the language lay dormant. In the late 19th and early 20th century, one man - one man - resurrected it to become the international language of that people. The Ojibew nation found this story compelling. It’s why they traveled from the Great Lakes region to Seattle, WA to attend a conference of Hebrew language academics. They want to resurrect their ancient language and they want to know how we did it. 

Here’s a third. There once was a group of people who started one of the first anti-colonial national liberation movements. Against all odds, they returned to revive their indigenous land. In a little over a century, it became a global economic and military powerhouse. That’s a compelling story. We just have to do a better job telling it. And here’s the irony. We should be good at this. We were the world’s first storytellers. Here’s our (hold up Torah) record. 

This need to learn and tell our story is why I have completely upended our 10th grade confirmation curriculum to focus on being able to learn it and tell it. I want our students to feel as invincible as that young man when they get to college.  I just need you to get them here. They can skip one soccer or football practice a week. Trust me. Coaches don’t want to mess with God (at least not if you want to win).

This concept of learning and being able to communicate our story is not just for kids. It is for all of us. It is why I am so happy that this year, our Board of Trustees is working with Project Shema to learn the historical context of antisemitism and antizionism as the systemic bigotry that it is and how it works. We are doing this, not just for their own edification but so that our trustees will be able to teach it to all of you. 

It is why I am so pleased that our student in Israel fund doubled from $40,000 to $80,000 with a gift from my Israeli cousin so that we can provide scholarships. It is why I am thrilled that we are partnering with Project 24 to host 14 civilian Israeli emergency teams and their families from Kibbutz Gevim for the week of November 10th. Meeting these families will allow us to learn our Jewish story first hand. And we need your help - to drive, to chaperone, to organize activities. We also need your financial support. We are looking to raise $100,000 from four area congregations. We already have a $10,000 matching pledge. I know there are angels among us who, in addition to giving to our annual appeal, would want to see their Israeli cousins enjoy a week of reprieve from what has been the hardest year of their lives.

All this is short term. I have a longer term vision. My bold, transformative, daring aspiration is that someone here will step up to give a gift large enough for us to take every 11th or 12th grader to Israel for 10 days, as long as they continue learning with us after their b’mitzvah. It would be a game changer. And I know there are angels here who could help make this vision a reality. As Herzl said, “Im Tirzu, Ein Zo Agadah - If you will it, it is not a dream.”

In modern Hebrew there is a phrase that anyone who has served in the army knows,“Kulam mitachat ha alunka.”  It means, “Everyone under the stretcher.”

At the end of a soldier's basic training, the platoon goes on a very long march called a masa. It might be upwards of 50 km in full battle gear. At some point the commanders tap one of the soldiers - usually the heaviest guy - who must now act as if he is injured. He climbs onto the alunka, onto the stretcher as his comrades carry him. All the soldiers of the platoon rotate in carrying out this task so no one has to carry the stretcher for more than 30 seconds. And they are running. 

At some point they crest the final hill. They see the base in front of them. They go through the gate with a feeling of euphoria. And then, the commander decides to give a speech. There’s this heavy guy on the alunka and there are no more rotations happening. Those holding the poles are growing weak and tired. Then someone yells, “Kulam mitachat ha alunka -  Everyone under the stretcher,” and the whole platoon gets under the stretcher to hold up their comrade. 

I believe this is the feeling many of us felt on Oct. 7. Many of us mobilized to get under the stretcher. It is what we needed. It gave and continues to give us strength. And we know not everyone is there… not yet. Friends, let us remember that we may have two heads but we are one body. When times are good, we can disagree. When times are good, we might even be able to take Israel, to take Judaism, to take community, to even take synagogue for granted. I don’t recommend it, but when times are bad, and right now, they are very very bad, we all need to get under the same stretcher. And if some out there disagree with us, if some are acting - in our opinion - as the proverbial wicked child of the Haggadah, if some turn us off and rub us the wrong way and even smell a little, we invite them under the stretcher too. We teach them, with every ounce and fiber of our being, why they need to stand under the stretcher, for as Judaism teaches, we are one; and, as the Israeli army teaches, we all complete the march or nobody completes the march. Ayekah? Hineini, here we are. 

Kulam mitachat ha alunka - Everyone, get under the stretcher. We will make room for you. You will be safe here, with us, together. Just get under the stretcher.  G’mar Hatimah Tovah.