Shoulder to Shoulder

The story of our people’s redemption from Egypt is as messy as it is miraculous.

“Let my people go!” demands Moses.

 “No, no, no, I will not let them go!” Pharaoh’s replies. In the Hebrew school version, the Disney version, and in the version we often tell at our Seder table, we leave out the messy parts, the moral ambiguities, the bits that might make us uncomfortable. It is easier to keep it clean. This is a story of leadership, of liberation from Pharoah’s oppression, of God’s redemptive miracles. This Shabbat is called Shabbat Shirah, the Sabbath of Song, when we – like the children of Israel long ago – sing our song of liberation.

Joyous as that story – and song – may be, a more textured read reveals a narrative inhabited by not an insignificant number of moral gray areas. To begin with the most obvious: Why did Moses, and by extension God, need to bring ten plagues down on Egypt? Why ten if it could be done in five? Why five when it could be done in three? Three and not one? God is God. Surely Israel’s redemption could have happened without inflicting repeated suffering upon the Egyptians? No question their leaders were oppressors – they, their accomplices and cronies who enabled Israel’s oppression. But not every Egyptian was wholly evil. Perhaps there were independent contractors brought in to help out with the pyramids, folk just trying to scrape out a living. What did they do wrong? Why did they have to die? Why the collateral damage and collective punishment?

Why did God harden Pharaoh’s heart? Why remove Pharaoh’s free will in a way that ensured that he would not release the Israelites until after maximum devastation had befallen the Egyptians? Couldn’t a deal have been struck earlier? Why the death of the Egyptian first-born? What did they do? Why, this week, did the waters have to drown the pursuing Egyptians? There is a counterfactual to our story. It could have been scripted otherwise. Would the Song at the Sea be any less a song were it to lack reference to drowning Egyptians?

These messy questions, among others, are codified into the tradition. At our seder tables, we remove drops of wine from our cups in remembrance of Egyptian suffering. In the synagogue during Passover, we shorten our Hallel, our psalms of praise, aware that our redemption came by way of Egyptian loss of life. You may be familiar with the rabbinic midrash of the heavenly angels who burst into song as the Israelites crossed to freedom only for God to silence them: “Ma'asei yadai tove’in ba-yam, v'atem omrim shirah? My creations [the Egyptians] are drowning in the sea, and you are singing a song?” God does not rejoice in the suffering of the wicked, and neither by extension should we.

The adult version of the story differs from the Disney version. Miraculous, yes. But messy as well. A song of joy but also of sorrow. A story unapologetic about the moral imperative of securing our people’s safety and release. A story that acknowledges that our liberation does not come without ethical ambiguities, without the weight of difficult choices, and without the recognition that justice and empathy are values that must be held in constant tension.

This week I returned from Israel, my second visit in the last month. With the inking of the hostage deal and its stutter-start implementation, Israel’s conflict with Hamas has entered a new chapter; a new chapter which, as I will get to soon enough, may have been replaced this week with an even newer chapter regarding the day after plan for Gaza. I wish I could offer a soothing report that the tide has turned, that we are approaching the light at the end of the tunnel, but the mood in Israel is anything but settled.

Whatever the battlefield victories of the IDF against Hamas, Hezbollah, Iran and its proxies; whatever relief the fall of the Assad regime may bring; there is no talk of peace – short-, medium- or long-term. Whatever joys are being voiced over the long-awaited release of the hostages, they are mitigated and muted by an awareness that this deal could fall apart in an instant, that more hostages remain in captivity, that the condition of those remaining hostages, living or dead, is unknown, and most of all, that this hostage deal is coming at the cost of the release of convicted terrorists with Israeli blood on their hands.

With regard to the Palestinians and their aspirations for self-determination, the gun-toting Hamas thugs at every hostage release are proof positive of their unrepentant posture. As for our Israeli brothers and sisters, they remain so traumatized by October 7th, so overwrought by this now 491-day war that has impacted every Israeli family, and so distraught by the continued plight of the hostages, that they lack the requisite empathy to think about, never mind operationalize, a day-after vision of co-existence and shared society. With the first hostages returning to their families, there are quiet miracles to be savored; but there are no victory songs being sung. Champion the soldiers and their fight, mourn their sacrifices, welcome the freed hostages, and work for the release of more. Israel is holding so much as it seeks to hold itself together. It is hard, it is a lot, and it is very, very messy.

And while I wish it were otherwise, as I returned from Israel, I think there is wisdom to be found in that messiness, wisdom that we as American Jews can learn from. Because not unlike ancient Israel’s story, the story of present-day Israel doesn’t fall into neat and tidy categories. I believe we do both the conflict and ourselves a disservice and harm when we seek to distill it into binaries of good and evil, victim and oppressor. There is a comfort in saying Israel is right no matter what, that every decision of its government is justified. There is an allure to claiming that Israel is wrong at every turn. It is tempting to use charged terms like genocide, apartheid, and colonialism as moral markers, litmus tests to divide the world into us and them – “with us” or “against us.” It is sanctimoniously self-validating to forward this or that article, post, podcast, or polemic to someone and declare a moral victory for yourself. As a rabbi, it is self-soothing to reduce your congregation into competing factions – those for and against the defense of Israel, those with eyes open or closed to the catastrophic condition of Gaza, those aware or unaware of the reality of antisemitism in America.

I get it. It is tempting to see things in black and white, right and wrong, good and evil – to reject the messiness. And I hear the voices, believe me I do – within the community, and frankly, within myself – saying to pick a side, stop straddling and name our moment for what it is. But I also know that this story, like the story of ancient Israel, is a messy one, a story that does not fall neatly into moral baskets. All of which means that the leadership calling of this moment – for me, for you, for all of us, is to avoid the trap of moral certainty in a time that is anything but morally certain. We need to find a way to hold multiple and sometimes competing truths in our hearts, minds, and community. To be unrepentant in our defense of Israel against her enemies from without, and to know that some of the greatest threats Israel faces are in fact coming from within. To be unwavering in our advocacy for the release of the hostages, and to be unyielding in securing humanitarian relief for the catastrophe that is Gaza. To prosecute peace with the same ferocity as we prosecute war because, as Napolean reportedly commented “One can do everything with bayonets except sit on them.”

None of this is easy. It is not easy to denounce the proposal of population transfer as the echo of an ideology that history has rightfully condemned, and to allow that such a proposal serves to confront the world – Arab and otherwise – on its hollow moralizing while turning its back on Gaza’s future. It is not easy to challenge the present assault on progressive values that lie at the heart of the Jewish soul, while also affirming – without apology – that antisemites have no place in campus discourse or in American discourse at all. It is not easy, with identity politics as they are, to prioritize our own self-interest and well-being over other values, even if sometimes it is not only acceptable, but essential that we do so.

None of this is easy. And if it feels messy, it is because it is messy. And because it is messy, we need to acknowledge it as such and recognize that we are all just doing our best to keep up as we drink from the firehose of our present existence. We need to allow for the possibility that where we are today may not be where we are tomorrow. That politics and self-preservation make for strange bedfellows, and that the backdrop of war only deepens the complexities. We need to breathe a little deeper, judge a little more generously, and avoid, at all costs, ad hominem attacks on people’s character and intent. In this time, and in all times, we must resist the urge to retreat into absolutism, to assume the worst of those who see the world differently, and to mistake moral certainty for moral clarity. If we can do this, then perhaps, despite the messiness, we can not only stand together but begin to forge a path forward.

Of all the things I saw and did this past week, one – you will be happy to know – was that I prayed – a lot. I prayed at the Western Wall as an ally with the Women of the Wall. I attended my favorite daily minyan that Rabbi Zuckerman introduced me to some years ago. I attended my favorite Kabbalat Shabbat, filled with dear friends and with melodies new and old. I joined a prayer circle which was really a support circle of Israelis holding each other close during these trying times. But the service that left the biggest impression on me happened at precisely this time last week, when I attended a Shabbat service that I had never attended before, lovely for its warmth, melodies, and kiddush club. They gave me an aliyah to the Torah and as I returned to my seat, a congregant reached out – as I would hope we would all do – to wish me, a visitor, shabbat shalom. I knew the man’s face from the news. He was the father of a hostage who had been slain in captivity. Surreal as it was to be in his presence, as I approached my seat, another man, about the same age, also reached out to wish me shabbat shalom. His face I had also seen in the news. Last month this man had lost his son, an IDF soldier felled in Gaza.

Moving as that was, it was what happened at the end of the service that I will never forget. In this traditional community, there was no assumption of cell phones, and a man stood up to announce the news that one hostage, Keith Siegel, had just crossed safely into Israel. A breath of relief rippled through the room as the community turned to chant aleinu and recite the mourner’s Kaddish. At that moment, without fanfare, without a word being spoken, the father of the murdered hostage and the father of the fallen soldier moved from their seats to stand together in a third spot, just a few seats away from where I was sitting, and the two men – two fathers grieving over their respective sons – stood shoulder to shoulder and recited kaddish together.

In all my life, saying amen to kaddish has never meant as much to me as it did that day. To grieve the loss of a hostage killed in captivity. To grieve the loss and honor the sacrifice of the brave soldiers serving in defense of our people. To experience the communal joy at a hostage released, even as we prayed desperately for the hostages still in captivity. Most of all, to know that whatever one’s politics, we stand, as did those two fathers, shoulder to shoulder, and we, as a community, respond amen to their prayer.

Wherever and whenever Jews come together – it will be messy. How could it be otherwise? This is a messy time, and we are – after all – Jews. For lack of easy answers, let’s at least agree to offer each other a little generosity of spirit as we try to figure it out. A prayer, a plea to which I hope we can all stand – shoulder to shoulder – and say, amen.