Hey!!! Look Up!!!
...and don't get squashed
This is a short note, just before Shavuot. It’s meant mostly for my students, but really for anyone who has eyes in their head and ears fastened on along side.
On Shabbat, mid-day, the Israeli army carried out a stunning operation to rescue four people who had been kidnapped 8 months ago from the Nova music festival. They were enjoying life and music and had come for a night long celebration that was intended to carry a message of peace and coexistence.
Over three hundred people at that festival were murdered by Hamas terrorists, some after being brutally raped, disfigured, hunted down, burnt alive - anything you could ever see in a nightmare happened there.
Others were captured and taken to Gaza, where they have been held in terror by terrorists for the past 8 months, in the heart of a Palestinian civilian population who cdrtainly knew of their presence. These captives were freed in a meticulously planned and executed operation. As three of the hostages were being extracted, Hamas caught on to what was happening and attacked the Israeli forces, this in a crowded civilian area.
Israel responded with the force necessary to ensure the safety of its soldiers and the rescued captives. The captive were reunited with their families that very day
.
All Israel celebrated their return, because all Israel is caught up in the tragedy of the hostages, no matter where they see themselves on the political or religious spectrum. One of the freed hostages, Noa Argamani, was captured together with her boyfriend, who is still in captivity. His mother, who is a neighbor of mine, is among the small number of hostage families who believe that winning the war takes precedence over freeing the hostages. Her pain and the suffering of her son, she believes, must be weighed against the needs of the nation. She is a noble figure.
A few hours later in America, 30,000 kaffiya-clad terrorist wannabes surrounded the White House and chanted for the death of Jews. The American president offered a lukewarm condemnation and his spokesperson defended their right of free speech, which was in no way threatened.
What is threatened is the fate of Jewish students returning to campus in the fall. We saw how security guards at universities (not all) enabled these terrorist sympathizers to ban Jews from classes and the campuses, harassed them and at times physically attacked them.
With the US President signaling his disinterest in the surge in antisemitism, a hands-off attitude to those who are promoting the killing of Jews, the script for the rest of this summer and the fall is already written.
What has this to do with Shavuot?
The text in the book of Shmot (Exodus) is clear - the Jews accepted the Torah of their own free will. This must be the case, otherwise the covenant cannot be a covenant.
Yet there is a tradition that Hashem held Mt. Sinai over the heads of Israel as a threat until they agreed to accept the Torah. Although not written in the text of Torah and certainly problematic from the need of free choice in accepting the Torah, there is also a hint of compulsion here. Compulsion, one might say, for their own good, but compulsion nonetheless.
My friends and students in America, look up! Can’t you see that threat hanging over your heads? This is the opportunity that these times are giving you - you still have time, you can leave of your own accord, you can find a home in the one place where Jews are welcomed and cherished, where on the first day you have acquired a family of some 10 million. The 600,000 Jews at Sinai - they had a choice. So do you! You do not need to have this mountain of hatred fall upon your heads. It’s your choice. Choose life.
(n.b. - for the sake of clarity, there is nothing in this essay which should be taken as a blanket condemnation of President Biden nor an endorsement of former president Donald Trump, nor or RFK Jr or any other candidate. As American Jews, we should feel empowered to stand up for our rights and to call out any president or politician who welshes on his responsibility to our community, or who violates any trust between us and America. At this time, it is difficult to see how so many American feel the freedom to endorse what is essentially a Nazi ideology towards Jews, and more difficult to see how politicians are willing to prostitute themselves for short-term political gains. Or perhaps, some are glad that they can express their true beliefs in this dark period of Jew-hatred.)