Should rabbis talk about Israel during the High Holy Days?

On the eve of the biggest sermon days of the year, a brouhaha has erupted in the Jewish world over whether rabbis should weigh in about Israel.

“Don’t talk about Israel,” my friend Peter Beinart wrote this week in Haaretz, addressing rabbis across America. Why? Because American Jews are already “inundated with commentary about Israel,” which means that rabbis have no “comparative advantage.” What could they add that we don’t already know?

“The greatest threat to Jewish life in the United States,” he writes, “is not the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. It’s religious illiteracy.”

Instead of asking Jews to look out at the world, Beinart says that American rabbis should ask them to “look down at the Mazhors sitting on their laps. They should try to convince those Jews who regard their High Holiday Prayer books as a compendium of the dull and the obscure that they hold in their hands an anthology of immense beauty and power.”

I agree, but only in part.

Yes, rabbis should elicit the Torah’s “immense beauty and power” during these sacred days. But if there’s an elephant in the sanctuary called Israel, if a summer of horrors is still agitating Jewish minds, is it smart to ignore that elephant?

The best guidance I ever heard on the subject of what rabbis should talk about during the High Holy Days came not from Rashi or Maimonides but from the movie the Big Night: “First you give them what they want, then you give them what you want.”

And right now, like it or not, most Jews are thinking about Israel. They’re not just thinking about Israel—they’re confused, afraid, disappointed, even bewildered. It’s been a crazy, chaotic, violent summer. What does the future hold?

More importantly, what can Torah and spirituality add to the conversation?

How can the lessons of the High Holy Days be applied to our complicated relationship with Israel, and to our relationships with fellow Jews with whom we might sharply disagree? How can the process of redemption and renewal—which we are preparing to engage in—help us navigate a subject that is so explosive and sensitive?

While Beinart writes that most rabbis may be “B-grade pundits” when it comes to politics, they’re certainly not B-grade  when it comes to spirituality.

Israel has become one of the most divisive issues in the Jewish world. Our divisions are often angry and rancorous. They can tear us apart. If Torah and spirituality can help rescue the conversation and inject what Chief Rabbi Lord Sacks calls the “dignity of difference,” can you think of a holier mission for our rabbis during these Holy Days?

The challenge for our rabbis is not to give us another point of view or opinion about Israel— or to give us yet another analysis of both sides of the conflict. As important and valuable as these might be, we get plenty of them throughout the year.

The real challenge for our rabbis will be to look inside the prayers and rituals of the High Holy Days and find the spiritual gems that will enlighten and deepen our community conversation about Israel.

That's not just what they want, it's also what we all want.