“Paradoxically, Israel, which unites Jews from the four corners of the world, is the most vivid demonstration of how divided and estranged from one another we are. We prayed to be reunited with our scattered brethren – without realizing how different we had become from one another. Our sense of unity currently results more from the enemies who seek to destroy us than from an internal consensus as to how we believe the Jewish people should live in the modern world.”
This quote is from A Living Covenant, a book written by David Hartman in 1985, but it could have been written yesterday. I share it now on the 718th day since October 7th. Almost two years since that terrible day. And here we stand again, taking stock and looking out on an unrecognizable reality in our time and yet all too familiar in the span of our history. It’s foolish to ask how we got here. We know how we got here. Hamas is how we got here, and the terror of October 7th that took 1200 lives and over 250 into captivity. What is there to say that hasn’t been said about his war, which began as a war of defense, which began as battle for the very soul of Israel and a protection of its citizens, which began in the hopes of returning hundreds of people captured by terrorists, which has now seemingly turned into a war without end. How did we get here, and how do we get out of here? It’s like a funhouse maze where we keep seeing repeated distorted versions of the same image over and over again with no clear way out in sight.
For one day we were unified, we held our heads and hands together in mourning, Jews around the world united due to the enemies who seek to destroy us, and then we were torn apart before we even had a chance to bury our dead. As the war carried on and it became increasingly clear that the return of the hostages was not the primary concern of the prime minister, the families of the hostages, those still in captivity and those who have returned or whose bodies have been returned, led the voices of hundreds of thousands of Israelis in demanding an end and a return of the remaining hostages.
As I spoke about yesterday, every moment offers us the chance to turn or return in a new direction. In his First Address to the Zionist Congress in Basel in 1897, Theodore Herzl said,
“Let everyone find out what Zionism really is, Zionism, which was rumored to be a sort of millennia marvel – that it is a moral, lawful, humanitarian movement, directed toward the
long-yearned-for goal of our people.” Zionism today must exist and be informed by its moral foundation – it is its essential core.
In that same chapter from 1985, David Hartman wrote, “The Jewish society that we build in Israel has to validate the claim made in the Jewish tradition regarding how a Torah way of life creates a holy community, “A kingdom of priests and a holy nation (Ex. 19:6).” If the Torah is truly capable of giving new moral and spiritual dimensions to politics, if “its ways are ways of pleasantness and all its paths are peace (Prov. 3:17)… this must be seen and confirmed through the way we live our daily lives and not only proclaimed in our prayers.”
How do we create and embody a holy community? How do we hold the Torah and our tradition up as an example of the pathway towards moral and spiritual dimensions in politics? These are questions that we must confront today. I was really struck almost two weeks ago by all of the vast and varied
responses to the assassination of Charlie Kirk. In all of the vitriol and words and back and forth and angry arguments taking place among my Facebook friends, one comment caught my eye. “Compassion doesn’t mean agreement; it means recognizing the shared humanity in each other, even when we see things differently. Passion is powerful, but when it blinds us to others’ perspectives, it becomes division.”
I sat in my chair turning those words over and over in my mind. Passion and Compassion. Both passion and compassion come from the same Latin root, passio, which originally meant to suffer. Passion isn’t just about enthusiasm or excitement; it’s about what we are willing to endure and even suffer for the sake of something we love. To have passion for justice, for learning, for music, or for God means to have a fire that drives us, a flame we are willing to sacrifice for.
But then there is compassion. Add the small Latin prefix com-, meaning with, and the word changes completely. Compassion is to suffer with. It’s the ability to enter someone else’s experience, to hold their pain and their joy as if it were our own. Compassion doesn’t burn outward; it bends inward, making space for another. Compassion requires empathy.
And here lies the lesson: passion without compassion is dangerous. We know from history and from our literal day to day what it looks like when zeal and intensity are cut off from empathy. “If your enemy falls, do not exult,” we learn in the book of Proverbs. “If he trips, let your heart not rejoice (Prov. 24:17).” Great movements for change, when stripped of compassion, can turn to fanaticism and violence, on both sides, on every side.
Even in our personal lives, passion without compassion can become destructive — ambition that tramples others, conviction that closes its ears, love that becomes possessive.
But passion joined with compassion is a different story. The challenge for us is to hold both: to find what sets our own hearts aflame, and then to ensure that the flame illuminates others rather than consuming them. Passion with compassion — that is the path to holiness, the path to empathy, and the path to peace.
In her book, Morning Has Broken, Faith after Oct. 7th, Dr. Erica Brown quotes the Israeli novelist David Grossman’s warning about fatigue during another war. He wrote, “I feel the heavy price that I and the people around me pay for this prolonged state of war. Part of this price is a shrinking of our soul’s surface area – those parts of us that touch the violent, ugly world outside
– and a diminished ability and willingness to empathize at all with other people in pain.”
This is an age-old problem, and one that is highlighted in our Rosh Hashanah Torah reading selections. Yesterday we read the story of a woman overcome by pain and sorrow. Hagar is sent away from Abraham’s home with just some bread and a waterskin, and when the water runs out, she leaves her child under a bush and sits down, turning away, as she bursts into tears,
אַ“ל־ֶאְרֶ֖אה ְבּ֣מוֹת ַהָ֑יֶּלד ַוֵ֣תֶּשׁב ִמֶ֔נֶּגד ַוִתָּ֥שּׂא ֶאת־ֹקָ֖להּ ַוֵֽתְּבְךּ׃
“‘Let me not look on as the child dies.’ And sitting from afar, she burst into tears (Breishit 21:16).”
An angel hears the cry of the boy and comes to his aid. But what would it have been like instead if our foremother Sarah had seen Hagar in all of her pain? Had witnessed her and been present with her in it. How might that have changed the outcome of the story? Who knows where that path may have led?
The rabbis take up this issue time and time again in the Talmud. In Masechet Brachot we read the following story:
Rabbi Yoḥanan’s student, Rabbi Ḥiyya bar Abba, fell ill. Rabbi Yoḥanan entered to visit him, and said to him: Is your suffering dear to you? Chavivin alecha yisurin? Rabbi Ḥiyya said to him: lo hen v’lo s’charan. I welcome neither this suffering nor its reward. Rabbi Yochanan said to him: Give me your hand. Rabbi Ḥiyya gave him his hand, and R. Yoḥanan stood him up and restored him to health.
Later, Rabbi Yochanan himself fell ill and Rabbi Chanina went in to visit him. He said to him: Are your sufferings dear to you?
Chavivin alecha yisurin? Rabbi Yochanan replied: Neither they nor their reward. Lo hen v’lo s’charan. Rabbi Chanina said to him: Give me your hand. He gave him his hand and he raised him.
And so the rabbis ask the question: Why couldn’t Rabbi Yochanan raise himself? He raised up his student Rabbi Hiyya? Now that he is in the same situation, can’t he just get out of it? — They replied: “The prisoner cannot free himself from jail.”
We are not okay, and we can’t get out of this alone. We can’t do this alone.
I, as some of you may know, am a cryer. I cry often, especially when I am moved by basically any emotion.
ְואַף ַעל ִפּי ֶשַׁשֲּׁעֵרי ְתִפיָלּה ִנְנֲעל,וּ ַשֲׁעֵרי ִדְמָעה ל א ִנְנֲעלוּ
“And even though the gates of prayer may be locked, the gates of tears are never locked.” In the Talmud in Masechet Berachot we read: Rabbi Elazar said: Since the day the Temple was destroyed the gates of prayer were locked and prayer is not accepted as it once was. The proof text comes from the book of Lamentations that we read on Tisha B’av after both Temples’ destructions:
״ַגּם ִכּי ֶאְזַעק ַוֲאַשֵׁוַּע ָשַׂתם ְתִּפָלִּתי״.
“Though I plead and call out, God shuts out my prayer” (Lamentations 3:8). Yet, despite the fact that the gates of prayer were locked with the destruction of the Temple, the gates of tears are never locked, as it says in the Psalms: “Hear my prayer, God, and give ear to my pleading, Do not keep silent at my tears”
Tears. 114 times an iteration of the word livkot, to cry, appears in the Bible. The first example is that of Hagar bursting into tears.
Then the first example of communal prayer in the Bible is attributed to the Israelites when they are enslaved in Egypt. They groan under their bondage and cry out, and their cry rises up to God and God remembers God’s promise to their ancestors. The catalyst for the entire Exodus story is a collective wail.
These past two years we have cried too many tears. Tears for those who were murdered on October 7th. Tears for the hostages, those who returned and those who are still in captivity. Tears for soldiers and first responders killed. Tears for innocent life extinguished. Tears for those who are starving. Tears for the loss of innocence of our children. Tears for the loss of innocence of all children. Tears, Tears well up even now, and we have already cried wells and wells and wells of tears.
ֲאִני הוֵֹלְך ִלְבוֹכּת ְלָך ִתְּהֶיה ָחָזק ְלַמְעָלה
ְיָלהלַּבַּ תוֹחתְּפָנִּשֶׁ תוָֹלתדְּ וֹמכְּ ַעיוּגְּעגַּ
I am going to cry for you, be strong up there My longings are like doors opened at night
The singer Aviv Geffen wrote this song for his friend Nir Shpiener who was killed in a car crash in 1992. He then sang this song at
Yitzchak Rabin’s funeral after he was assassinated and it is now forever associated with the former prime minister.
ְכֶּשֲׁעצוִּבים הוְֹלִכים ַלָיּם ָלֵכן ַהָיּם ָמלוַּח ְוֶזה ָעצוּב ֶשְׁלַּהֲחִזיר ִצוּיּד ֶאְפָשׁר ל א ַגֲּעגוַּע
When we are sad we go to the sea, that’s why the sea is salty And it is sad that you can return equipment
But you cannot return the longings
ָלֶנַצח אִָחי ֶאְזכֹּר אוְֹתָך ָתִּמיד ְוִנָפֵּגשׁ ַוֹסּבּף, ַאָתּה יוֵֹדַע
Forever, my brother, I will always remember you And at the end we will meet again, you…
What can we do with all of our tears? Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks wrote, “Prayer gives sacred space to the tears that otherwise would have nowhere to go.” – Rabbi Jonathan Sacks (Brown, 15)
The Haftorah that we read this morning is taken from the book of Jeremiah. It is a speech given to a broken people in exile, affirming that the world will not always look like this, and that redemption is on the horizon. One of the most famous verses sums up the theme:
֣קוֹל ְבָּרָ֤מה ִנְשָׁמ֙ע ְנִהי֙ ְבִּ֣כי ַתְמרוִּ֔רים ָרֵ֖חל ְמַבָ֣כּה ַעל־ָבֶּ֑ניָה ֵמֲאָנ֛ה ְלִהָנֵּ֥חם ַעל־ָבֶּ֖ניָה ִ֥כּי ֵאיֶֽנוּנּ׃
Thus said GOD: A cry is heard in Ramah— Wailing, bitter weeping— Rachel weeping for her children.
She refuses to be comforted over her children, who are gone.
ִמְנִ֤עי קוֵֹלְך֙ ִמֶ֔בִּכי ְוֵעיַ֖נִיְך ִמִדְּמָ֑עה ִכּי֩ ֵ֨ישׁ ָשָׂ֤כר ִלְפֻעָלֵּתְך֙ ְוָ֖שׁבוּ ֵמֶ֥אֶרץ אוֵֹֽיב׃
Thus said GOD: Restrain your voice from weeping, Your eyes from shedding tears; For there is a reward for your labor —declares GOD: They shall return from the enemy’s land.
The cry is one of despair, but it is not only that. It can’t only be that. The cry itself shakes us, awakens us, heals us, even just a bit, slowly. For this entire season, daily since the first day of Elul and two hundred blasts on these two days alone, we hear the call of the shofar, awakening us. Each one of these blasts is supposed to awaken or recall something different within us. The shevarim and the teruah blasts evoke different types of crying. The teruah is like a wail of someone bursting into tears “wahahahahahahah.” The shevarim is three long painful sobs. The reason that we do both the shevarim and the teruah blasts is to make sure that we hear
each type of crying. We all cry differently. Some cry silently. Some cry in deep or shrill wails. Some cry in dry heaves and some with tears streaming down their face. Some cry in public. Some cry in the bathroom.
It is our tears that connect us. It is our tears that bring out our empathy. It is our tears that let us see the humanity in one another. And it is our tears that give me hope for tomorrow. We cry when we realize something is wrong. And the fact that we are able to look and see and that it brings this reaction – our humanity is in there. I have to believe that.
ְוֵישׁ־ִתְָּק֥וה ְלאֲַחִריֵ֖תְך ְנֻאם ה’ ְוָ֥שׁבוּ ָבִ֖נים ִלְגבוָּֽלם׃
“And there is hope for your future —declares GOD to Rachel in the haftorah: Your children shall return to their country.”
“Faith is the belief that a new morning will eclipse the night. The belief that morning will follow night is an act of emotional resilience,” says Dr. Erica Brown (Morning has Broken, 14)
The last chapter in her book is called Praying in a ruin. “Since October 7th, I’ve been praying in a ruin.” She says. “The ruin is not always a building. The ruin is broken faith after that horrible day. It’s the twisted faith in our security. It’s our shattered faith in the unity of our people when we all came together then fell apart. It’s our complicated faith in the relationship between Israeli and Diaspora Jewry. It’s our challenged faith in Israel’s allies. It’s our questioning faith in democracy and in the allegiance of the rest of the world to a Jewish state. It’s our tortured faith in politicians when another hostage is confirmed dead, and another poster is taken down (204).”
“Like a ruin, there are layers upon layers to excavate. A ruin is the disintegration of something but not its total collapse. The partial existence of a ruin signals its outline and invites us to fill in the mystery of the missing space. This requires vision and patience. It is tough to have patience in wartime.”
“My faith has never been stronger. My faith has never been weaker.”
We are about to enter the shofar service and hear these first 30 blasts today. I will invite each of us to take a moment immediately before to set an intention. What will resonate within us today? The call to action of the tekia? The wails of the teruah? The sobs of the shevarim? Open yourself up, in this container of a sanctuary, to feel what you are truly feeling.
And when the moment arrives, when we hear the sound of the tekia gedolah and all is unified for one moment, breathe in deeply.
ְוֵישׁ־ִתְָּק֥וה ְלאֲַחִריֵ֖תְך
There is hope for what comes after this Kein yehi ratzon, so may it be.
