Rosh Hashanah Sermon 5784

 Rosh Hashanah Sermon 5784

Rabbi Charles L. Arian

Kehilat Shalom

“I’m worried about your drinking, Charles”

“Lihyot Am Chofshi B’Artzenu -- To Be A Free People In Our Land”

What’s the Connection?

Autumn of 2021 was a very difficult period in my life, both professionally and personally..  After not having services in our sanctuary for over a year,we had to  make plans for conducting  hybrid High Holiday services.. As you may remember, our Hazzan was unable to participate in our services because of her health problems. A beloved member of our community died by suicide days  before Rosh Hashanah. Personally,  my father was slowly dying in New York, causing me to  choose between two bad alternatives. Either I could wear myself out by frequent travel back and forth, or I could not make the trip quite as often and feel guilty that I wasn’t seeing him as often as I should.

I was having trouble sleeping, and feeling anxious, so I started therapy and met with a psychiatrist . She prescribed  an antidepressant and other  medication for anxiety and to  help with my sleep. 

For many years I had been a casual drinker and was known as a bourbon hobbyist. I conducted bourbon tastings for various nonprofit organizations and had even been quoted in the New York Times in a story about Jews and the whiskey business. But in the fall of 2021 I began to drink both more frequently and more heavily. The night before my father’s funeral, alone and depressed,  I got extremely intoxicated and behaved in a stupid and harmful way,  having repercussions that I continue to deal with nearly two years later. Looking back,  it’s a miracle I was able to conduct my Dad’s funeral the next day considering the condition I was in.

Not long after that, my wife Keleigh said to me that she was worried about my drinking. I will always be grateful to her for phrasing it exactly that way. She didn’t yell at me, she didn’t say I was an alcoholic, she didn’t demand that I stop drinking. She just told me that she was worried, and by phrasing it that way I felt comfortable enough to be honest with both her and with myself and acknowledge that I was worried too.

After discussing my concerns with my psychiatrist, she gave me a prescription for a medicine called Naltrexone. Naltrexone is a medication that blocks the effects of alcohol in the brain. It works by binding to the same receptors that alcohol  would normally attach to, thereby reducing the pleasurable or reinforcing effects. This helps in reducing cravings and dependence.  I was fortunate to find that after a couple of months of Naltrexone treatment I had no desire for alcohol at all and have been alcohol free for over a year.

Why am I sharing this with you? Not primarily to share  my issues with alcohol. Rather, it is to share the blessing I received when Keleigh shared her concerns with me in a way that I was open to hearing.

“To Be A Free People In Our Land”

In Leviticus 19:17 we are taught “you shall surely rebuke your fellow and not bear sin because of him.” This verse is a little confusing; the two parts of the verse seem to have little to do with one another. Rashi explains that the verse means we must rebuke another person who is doing wrong gently and discreetly , in a way that does not embarrass him or her. Only in this way can rebuke be effective, whereas embarrassing another person in public is, itself, a sin.

Maimonides says that we should not say “I will not sin, and if someone else is sinning that is between them and God.” We have to do our best to prevent another person from doing wrong. Between Maimonides and Rashi, we find ourselves in a complicated situation where we have to make a judgment call. If we can stop someone from sinning and don’t even try to stop them, Maimonides says we too have sinned. But if we rebuke someone too harshly or too publicly, in a way that humiliates them, we have also sinned, at least according to Rashi. 

Late last month, three prominent Israeli writers with roots in North America -- Matti Friedman, Daniel Gordis, and Yossi Klein Halevi, the cousin of our own David Markowitz -- wrote an impassioned essay in the Times of Israel called “Diaspora Jews: Time to Take A Stand.” They write: “when someone you love is in danger, you draw closer.”  When Keleigh knew that my alcohol consumption was causing serious harm, she spoke up. It would have been irresponsible for her not to do so. But she had to do so in a way that made it likely that I would hear what she was saying, that I would understand she was speaking up because she loved me, and because of that do what I needed to do to fix the problem.

As you probably know, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government is a coalition between his own Likud party and far-right and ultra-Orthodox parties. Although they control a majority in the Knesset, they actually received only 48.4 percent of the popular vote in the last election. Although “judicial reform” was not part of their platform, since taking office they have proposed a series of laws that would undermine the independence of the Israeli Judiciary. They already passed a law that limits the Supreme Court’s ability to invalidate government actions. A 13 hour hearing was held at the Court earlier this week on whether this law itself will stand, but both the Prime Minister and the Speaker of the Knesset have publicly stated that they will not abide by a Supreme Court ruling striking down the law . They have also proposed a change in the way judges are appointed that will give the Knesset majority more control over that process. And perhaps most worryingly, they have proposed a law that any decision of the Supreme Court can be overridden by a bare majority of the Knesset. Can you imagine how different US history would have been if the Congress could override unpopular decisions of the Supreme Court? Would we still have racial segregation in schools and public accommodations? Would same sex marriage still be illegal? Possibly; both decisions were highly unpopular when they were issued.

Classic Western democracy does not mean simply “majority rule.” The majority cannot do whatever it wants -- and it certainly cannot change the fundamental rules of the game without a broad consensus.

If you are involved in the American Jewish community and particularly the pro-Israel community, the names of Gordis, Klein-Halevi and Friedman will be quite familiar to you. Gordis and Klein-Halevi until quite recently were both regulars on the AIPAC and Jewish Federation lecture circuit. Friedman is somewhat younger than the other two but he has written two outstanding books in recent years which I have read -- one on the Aleppo Codex and one on Leonard Cohen’s series of concerts in the Sinai Desert during the Yom Kippur War. For them to not only take a stand against the current Israeli government but to actually urge Diaspora Jews to participate in demonstrations, sign petitions, and write letters against that government’s policies would have been inconceivable a few months ago. 

Gordis, Klein-Halevi and Friedman write: “This political crisis is not just one more Israeli debate over policy, but a struggle over the fundamental identity of Israel as a Jewish and democratic state. . .  Vital institutions that require social solidarity, and most importantly the military, are splintering, as Israel’s most committed and productive citizens revolt against a leadership that is beyond the moral pale. The tech economy that buoyed the “start-up nation” is beginning to sink. State power is shifting from judges to extreme clerics. The voice of fundamentalist religion is emboldened. A year ago, Israel was a regional powerhouse. Within a year, we could be on the road to becoming another failed Middle Eastern state. This unprecedented threat requires unprecedented changes in the Diaspora’s relationship with Israel.

Diaspora support for Israel has traditionally taken the form of support for its government. But now the greatest threat facing Israel is its government. Jews in the Diaspora can no longer support Israel without asking which Israel they are supporting.

To treat Israel’s present leadership as a normative government is to be complicit in the self-destruction of the Jewish state. Diaspora organizations and leaders who continue to meet politely with government ministers and pose for photographs with the prime minister are failing the Israel that Diaspora communities helped create. At this fraught moment, Jewish organizations conducting business as usual are placing themselves on the wrong side of history.

We urge you to get involved in supporting the democracy movement. Attend the pro-Israel democracy demonstrations that happen weekly in Diaspora communities around the world. Invite representatives of the democracy movement to your community. Insist that your community’s missions to Israel include a meeting with movement leaders. Organize study groups to familiarize yourselves with the issues. Challenge your national Jewish organizations to respond to the state of emergency with the gravity it deserves.”

While I agree with Gordis, Friedman, and Klein-Halevi -- and have participated in three demonstrations for Israeli democracy in the last few months, the most recent this past Sunday -- I also think it is important to participate only in actions that are phrased as for Israeli democracy and not as against Israel. Every Saturday night for 36 weeks now, hundreds of thousands of Israelis have demonstrated to preserve their democracy under the slogan of “Lihyot Am Chofshi Be’Artzenu -- To Be A Free People In Our Land.”. By no means are all the demonstrators leftists or secular Jews -- surveys indicate that a good chunk of Likud supporters and Orthodox Jews oppose the government’s plans to curtail judicial independence. Both in Israel and throughout the world, demonstrators carry Israeli flags and end the demonstration by singing Hatikvah, Israel’s national anthem. Frankly, progressives in this country could learn a thing or two from the protesters in Israel. The democracy protesters in Israel are asking for our support, and those of us who agree with them should provide that support.

While I agree with Gordis, Klein-Halevi and Friedman, I don’t assume that everyone hearing me today does so. And that’s fine. If you know me, you know that I believe in reading and hearing a diversity of views and thinking for oneself. But if you think they are wrong, take the time to read up on what is going on in Israel today. Benjamin Netanyahu is Israel’s longest serving Prime Minister and has historically been very cautious. The Israeli “Start Up Nation” boom is to a large extent due to policies he put in place. But the Netanyahu of a few years ago is not the Netanyahu of today, (people can change for better OR worse)  if only because his coalition is much more Orthodox and right wing than previous coalitions. 

If you love Israel, if you are concerned about Israel, if you worry about Israel -- now is the time to find out what is going on, speak up, and take action. We cannot just sit and watch when a country we love is engaged in a situation which may, God forbid, lead to its destruction. But we have to speak up out of love, and try to do so in a way which will be heard and lead to positive change. Whether Netanyahu himself is willing to listen to the voice of the Diaspora is open to question -- but the Israeli public needs to know where we stand and the pro-democracy forces need our support. And we must never lose the hope -- HaTikvah -- that Israel can be the homeland that our grandparents dreamed of -- to be a free people in our land.

Shana Tova --may we all be blessed with a good year.