Elliot Cosgrove, PhD May 28, 2010
Vay’hi binsoa ha-aron, va-yomer Moshe, When the Ark was carried forward, Moses would declare: “Kuma Adonai, v’yafutzu oyvekha, v’yanusu m’sanekha mi-panekha, Arise Lord, may your enemies be scattered, may your foes be put to flight.” These words, found in our parasha, Beha’alotkha, are sung at the beginning of every single Torah service. They are possibly the most recognizable part of our tefillah, connecting our own Torah procession, as it were, to the journeys of the ancient Israelites through the wilderness.
The question is, what do the words mean? “Rise up, let your enemies (oyvekha) be scattered, your foes (m’sanekha) be put to flight.” Why the repetition? Why both “enemies” (oyvekha) and “foes” (m’sanekha)? Why the two different words, what does one add to the other? Wouldn’t one be enough? After all, who needs two different kinds of enemies?
Rashi, the 11th-century commentator, notes the redundancy and unpacks it by way of a midrash in the Sifrei (Piska 84). On one level oyvekha and m’sanekha, “your enemies” and “your foes,” are synonymous. Rashi explains that they reflect two very different threats, different, but interconnected and interdependent. The first word, oyvekha, is the obvious enemy, what Rashi calls ham’khunasim. These are the ones who are literally assembled at your doorstep – an existential threat, a direct menace to your very being. When we think of an enemy, ancient or modern, personal or national, one that presents an immediate danger, this is what usually comes to mind. The second word, m’sanekha, is more subtle. Rashi explains that this is “harodfim.” These are the ones who are, as it were, snapping at your heels. They are a threat, but not in the same way, not with the same immediacy, as the first group. They assert themselves craftily and with stealth against the Israelites. The Psalmist (Ps. 83) explains that they have made an alliance, “unanimous in their counsel,” plotting that “Israel’s name be mentioned no more.” Their attacks are not so much aimed at Israel’s physical being, and their actions are not always explicit – Al am’kha yarimu sod, “Against your people they plot secrets.” Two different words representing two different groups, both in formation against Israel, connected in their hatred, who, by different methods, work in common cause against our people.
The month of June concludes my second year here at Park Avenue Synagogue. To the extent that anyone is keeping track, you know that when it comes to Israel, while I have spoken on the subject many times, and am very proud of our Israel Shabbaton, our planned congregational trips to Israel, our participation last week in the Salute to Israel parade, our communal and cultural celebrations; for the most part, when it comes to Israeli politics, I have held my tongue. I don’t speak on Israeli politics because I think that on a Shabbat morning, Jews should be inspired by Torah, and while I like to think that I am as well read as anyone, at the end of the day, I read the same op-eds that everyone else does. I don’t speak on Israeli politics because I think it is very tricky to speak about a secular political entity, the modern state of Israel, in a religious context. It can be done, but not in 12-15 minutes between the Torah service and Musaf. I don’t speak on Israel because in my time here, I have discovered that of the 1500 families in this community, there are a number to the political right and a number to the political left and the rule book for rabbis says: “In your first two years, try your best not to polarize the community with politics.” Finally, I don’t speak on Israeli politics because with very few exceptions none of us are Israeli. If you want to have a voice in the democratic state of Israel, then do what Jews have dreamt of doing for thousands of years but could only do in the last 62 years: move there. If you live here, if you have yet to make aliyah, then know that the Diaspora must tread very carefully before we start telling Israelis how to run their country.
With all of that said, all the disclaimers out of the way, today we are going to walk on new territory. Not because I am going to preach on Israeli politics, I won’t. Rather, because as a community we need to respond to Israel’s enemies. Not the first kind of enemies, the oyvekha, the m’khunasim, the ones who are gathering at Israel’s doorstep. We know these enemies. We’ve heard the calls from Iran to destroy the Zionist entity. We know that Hezbollah has three times as many missiles in southern Lebanon right now as it did before the Second Lebanon war – not only more, but bigger, longer, and more accurate than just a few years ago. We know the ongoing threat of suicide bombers, the continued and unconscionable captivity of Gilad Shalit, now held hostage into a fourth year. The enemies of Israel, oyvekha, are assembled. They are active and, sadly, we need not look far to see them.
This morning I want to talk about the second kind of enemy that Rashi spoke of: the rodfim. These are the enemies who are conducting a pernicious and stealthy conversation in guile around the world, in political, academic, economic, cultural, and other circles, who are trying to delegitimize, demonize, and isolate Israel in the world community. Under the banner of international law, pro-peace slogans, human rights, or other causes, there is a concerted and insidious effort to distort the history of Israel, to undercut her national aspirations, to exaggerate and misrepresent her misdeeds, and to slander her in what can on occasion devolve into retrograde anti-Semitic libel. On one level, there is nothing new about these efforts. This campaign has ebbed and flowed since long before the notorious 1975 “Zionism is Racism” Resolution at the U.N., through repeated equivalency of Zionism and Apartheid, and ongoing chants of “from the river to the seas Palestine will be Free.”
In recent years, these efforts have moved from the fringe to the mainstream. Beginning with the notorious Durban Conference of 2001, and then in a campaign initiated in 2005 by 171 Palestinian NGO’s, an international campaign known as BDS (Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions) has created a framework in which Israel has been the subject of relentless attacks, blamed for everything regardless of the truth. Most of us know full well of the notorious Goldstone report, a report that largely overlooked Israeli efforts to protect human life, whitewashing Hamas who routinely employed non-combatants as human shields. We have heard of the situation in England, how through a quirk in the judicial system, representatives from the Israeli military can be arrested for war crimes. How Tzipi Livni, the head of the Israeli opposition, cancelled a visit to the U.K. for fear of being arrested and the Israeli government has advised senior IDF officers not to visit certain countries where they risk being arrested on charges of alleged war crimes.
These efforts are not a problem only in the U.N. or “over there” in Europe. In the business community, there are concerted efforts for Caterpillar, Motorola, and others to divest from Israel. There is an initiative called “code pink,” urging women to boycott Ahava beauty products. Several mainline churches call, time and again, for institutions to divest from Israel. Anti-Israel sentiment is perhaps most ubiquitous on college campuses. UC-Berkeley, UC-Irvine, UC-San Diego – there have been “Israel Apartheid Weeks” on more campuses than we can count. On the athletic front, divestment action led to the Davis tennis matches being played behind closed doors with no fans. Just this past week, all of us have read how Elvis Costello cancelled his planned concert to Israel for fear that playing Israel would link him to Israeli oppression. A man who could have used his music, in the way Paul Simon did, to bring people together, has uncourageously fallen victim to the BDS movement. The list goes on and on.
The problem is not that people can’t and shouldn’t protest Israel. I shop where I want to shop and I make ideological choices all the time where I spend and don’t spend my money. I don’t begrudge the right of people, even those with whom I vehemently disagree, to make similar decisions. And the problem is not that Israel is perfect. She is not and if you have spent a few minutes with me, you know that my politics are such that I think an open airing of the issues is always a good thing.
The problem with BDS is that between their intimidation and distortions and our own temerity, we have woken up to a world where the people who tell the story of the Middle East most loudly, most forcefully, are not us but our enemies. Diaspora Jewry has lost its way; we have lost our voice when it comes to Israel. We are so shaped by our universalism, by our oozing empathy, that we have somehow come to believe that liberalism and Zionism are at odds with each other. We live in a world where the right of the Israeli Ambassador to speak at Brandeis University has become a question for discussion. In our hesitation, the playing field has been ceded either to the BDS movement, or to those who may not represent our voice. The liberal pro-Israel community has lost its political gumption. We have lost our ability to make positive statements about Israel, both convinced and convincing, respectful of the counterclaims of others, but unflinching in the strength of our own beliefs.
I don’t care if you are on the political right or left. You are all welcome here at Park Avenue Synagogue. People can debate whether American Jewry should or shouldn’t have a voice in the internal affairs of the State of Israel. What I care about, what I feel a responsibility for, is the tone and content of the Israel conversation here, in the Diaspora, where all of us live. I feel passionately that we educate our children and adults with a knowledge, love for, and contact with Israel so they can respond with their own voice to what is being said about the Jewish homeland. I would love nothing more than for our community to be a place of vibrant debate, where people speak from the left, from the right, even from the center. Would it be, when it comes to Israel, that everyone was a prophet, that we were all worthy of rising to the occasion, to speak about the modern miracle of Israel. I hope that in the next year and years to come, our adult learning, our schools, all reflect a commitment to developing the congregational toolbox to respond to Israel’s ideological enemies. What we cannot do is sit on the sidelines as Israel is being delegitimized in the world community. We need to regain our nerve, to have a bit of chutzpah when it comes to Israel.
In a few moments we will rise to say the prayer for the state of Israel, as we do every week. I began to think about Elvis Costello, whose music I love, and his decision not to go to Israel. It is his right, his decision, however misguided, if he doesn’t want his music associated with Israel. But I have rights too and I also have something else – a pulpit. Frankly, I think there is nothing funny about Boycotts, Divestments, and Sanctions. And I started to think…while I can’t change his decision, why grant him the last word? If he won’t go to Israel, then I will bring Israel to him. What if, on this quiet three-day weekend, we were to sing the prayer for the state of Israel to his music? What if we adapted the words of the prayer for Israel to his most identifiable song (“Allison”)? What if word got out and next weekend a few more congregations sang the prayer for the state of Israel to Elvis Costello’s music, and so on and so on? What if, soon enough, we were able to generate a generational Pavlovian response to Elvis Costello whereby singing his music became associated with support for Israel? Now wouldn’t that be a chutzpahdik way to respond to him? Wouldn’t that be a nice way to respect his right to do what he wants and to maintain our right to respond as we wish? Wouldn’t that be a nice way to end a sermon, wouldn’t that be a great way to begin a much larger movement.
Note: Cantor Elana Rozenfeld led the congregation in singing the prayer for the state of Israel to the tune of Elvis Costello’s “Allison.”