August 9, 2018

This is the first of six weekly columns by Rabbi Zimmerman leading up to Yom Kippur.

In these waning days of summer, when we want to hang on to every last moment of the dwindling daylight hours, wafts of the High Holy Days begin to enter our consciousness. In the middle of planning one last summer excursion, we may realize we have to make plans. 

Every year, the High Holy Days arrive without fail, whether we are ready or not, and remind us: No matter what’s going on in the world, returning “home” is possible. 

Even though Rosh Hashanah is not until Sept. 10, it’s important to start warming up, so that when we arrive at the new year, we are ready and open. 

The rabbis declared that the entire month preceding Rosh Hashanah is meant for soul preparation and spiritual accounting. This 30-day period in the month of Elul is designed for taking stock of where we are, who we are and who we are meant to be.

Elul is about getting back into right relationship—with other people in our lives, with ourselves, with God and with community. This season is about moving from brokenness to wholeness. In truth, this season began with Tisha b’Av (the 9th of Av), when everything fell apart. We spend Elul working to repair and reconnect in the reality of the present.

This year, the first day of Elul begins Saturday night, Aug. 11.

On this first day, the shofar begins to blow, and it blows each day for the entire month. Rabbi Moses ben Maimon (Maimonides) says the shofar calls us to wake up from our sleep. He writes in his Mishnah Torah, “Search your ways and return in teshuvah … examine your souls” (Repentance 3:4).

On the first day of Elul, Moses ascends Mount Sinai after the incident with the golden calf, which nearly broke our relationship with the Eternal. Moses stayed there for 40 days, pleading for forgiveness for the people. On Yom Kippur, God gives Moses the second set of tablets, indicating a reconciliation. This journey mirrors the process we are supposed to go through in this season: We assess our lives and recommit to our core values and best selves.

Elul is about getting back into right relationship — with other people in our lives, with ourselves, with God and with community.

In this six-week series, I will offer suggestions and resources for your personal Elul reflection and accounting. I’ll also write about the major themes and metaphors that weave through the Elul and the High Holy Days. 

As my mentor Rabbi Laura Geller teaches, the High Holy Days only “work” when you do your own “work.” Too many of us come with expectations that something will happen to make this season meaningful. I promise you this: The degree to which this year’s High Holy Days are meaningful for you will be in direct proportion to the amount of time you set aside to do personal reflection and accounting.

Let’s begin. 

1. Find a notebook that can be your Elul 2018 journal. You can write your responses to the questions I am posing, and your thoughts.
2.  Take out your calendar and make a list of all the significant events of the year. What did you learn? What had meaning for you?
3. It’s traditional to recite Psalm 27 every day this month. It’s a wonderful psalm to journal about and/or discuss with a friend.
In verse 4, the psalmist writes: “One thing have I asked of God, that will I seek after: That I may dwell in the house of God all the days of my life.”
 4. What is “A house of God” for you? When and where have you felt connected to the Divine?

The promise of this season, claims Rabbi Alan Lew, is nothing less than transformation. 

Next week, we’ll take the next step in that journey.

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Rabbi Jill Berkson Zimmerman is a rabbi-at-large. She can be found online at ravjill.com

Israel’s new “Nation-State” Basic Law is neither overtly racist nor suggestive of apartheid. Yet, it is a bad and unnecessary law and ought to be repealed. Israel already has its Declaration of Independence that sets the principles of the State of Israel as the Jewish and democratic nation-state of the Jewish people. 

There is much in the new law that is redundant: The principal language of Israel is Hebrew; the Israeli flag and national anthem are national symbols; Independence Day, Memorial Day and Holocaust Remembrance Day are holidays; Jerusalem is the eternal capital of the Jewish people.

The law is worrisome for several reasons. It formally demotes the Arabic language from an official language to one with “special status,” a slap in the face to the 20 percent minority of Arab-Israeli citizens and Israel’s Druze community. The message of the law to Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza is that the State of Israel is the exclusive homeland of the Jewish people despite Palestinian claims for a nation-state of their own alongside Israel. The message to Palestinian Israeli citizens is that they are second-class citizens.

In 1992, a Basic Law was passed that emphasized human rights and equality under the law for all Israeli citizens. The nation-state law fails to mention equality, thus posing a veiled assault on Israel’s democratic tradition and the 1992 law. Future courts and legislatures can use this new law to de-emphasize Israeli democratic traditions.

One wonders why this law was enacted now. Is it a political attempt by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who advocated strongly for its adoption, to shore up his right-wing political base before the next election? 

Another bill currently making its way through the Knesset would raise the number of Orthodox yeshiva students required to serve in the army, a move bitterly opposed by the ultra-Orthodox parties, which have threatened to quit the coalition and force new elections should it become law. Netanyahu needs them in his coalition. Polls show his Likud party would gain no more seats were an election held today. 

The most pressing question for Israelis besides security is the relationship between democracy and Judaism.

The nation-state law has driven a deeper wedge between Israel and Diaspora Jewry. Tensions exist between the prime minister and the Reform and Conservative movements in North America due to his reneging on his own Kotel Agreement, his allowing ultra-Orthodox coalition partners to introduce a conversion bill that would exclude non-Orthodox conversions, and his alliances with President Donald Trump and American Christian evangelical extremists. 

Many in Netanyahu’s party oppose the law, such as President Reuven Rivlin, Benny Begin, Moshe Arens and Dan Meridor.

The vast majority of Israelis don’t want a medieval model imposed on their modern country. Israelis’ most pressing concern besides security is the relationship between democracy and Judaism. As long as Jews remain a significant majority (70 to 80 percent), the conflict between democracy and Judaism appears manageable. 

Section No. 7 of the law enshrines the settlements as an important goal of the country, an issue at the top of the right-wing agenda for decades. To most objective observers, Israel’s identity as a Jewish and democratic state will be assured only by containing settlements to the large blocks that will remain in Israel in an eventual peace agreement and stopping the spread of settlements beyond the security fence that would make partition impossible. Only a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict can preserve a strong Jewish majority, thereby preserving democracy and the Jewish character of the state. 

The nation-state law serves a worldview that’s damaging to Israel, a move toward ethnic religious nationalism dominating Israeli political affairs and the separation of Israel from millions of its supporters in the Diaspora. That is not what the nation’s founders envisioned for Israel.

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Rabbi John Rosove is Senior Rabbi of Temple Israel of Hollywood and the National Chair of the Association of Reform Zionists of America.

It’s hard to keep up. The Iranian professor who blamed Israel for “every dirty, treacherous, ugly and pernicious act happening in the world” — is he at Columbia or Rutgers? The SJP student who physically threatened “Zionist students” — is he at Stanford or San Francisco State? And what about the “Zionists not welcome” graffiti and the university president who refused to denounce it? 

There’s no question that the environment for Jewish students gets worse every year. There’s also no question that the entire campus culture has changed dramatically in the past two decades. Coincidence? Perhaps. But what is the subject that professors lie about most? What subject most often riles up protesters to disrupt classes and shut down speakers? Israel and the Jewish people, of course.

Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) and other anti-Israel groups are well-funded, blatant about their hatred of Jews and their desire to see Israel destroyed, and brilliant at anti-Jewish propaganda. But the problem also seems to be with leaders of Jewish centers on campus who say: We don’t want to “fuel the fire” of anti-Jewish activity on campus. Don’t fight back.

When Hen Mazzig, an Israeli writer and speaker who has been involved with campus advocacy for nearly a decade, was told by the staff at San Francisco State’s Jewish center that he shouldn’t speak on campus because “it might create a provocation,” he finally had had enough. “As I heard the Jewish professionals speak, all I could think about was, how did we get here? This is my own community, and I couldn’t be more disgusted and ashamed.”

Mazzig, 28, had suffered one of the worst incidences of campus fascism in 2016: 300 students at University College London violently disrupted his ability to give a talk. Mazzig and the Jewish students had to barricade themselves in a room and then be evacuated by police. 

What subject most often riles up protesters? Israel and the Jewish people, of course.

But Mazzig is also a former Israel Defense Forces commander. He knows a war when he sees it, and he knows that appeasement never works.

“We can no longer stay quiet to ‘keep the peace,’” Mazzig said. “We must remember that the Holocaust didn’t start with violence; it started with intolerance and hate speech.”

Teaming up with Mark Bloome, an entrepreneur and philanthropist, Mazzig created Zig Zag, a proactive, strategic organization that aims to empower students to address Jew hatred head-on. 

“This is a war against the Jewish people,” Bloome said. “It didn’t begin with the founding of Israel and it won’t end there. On campuses, it comes down to one question: Why aren’t Jewish students getting the same protection as other minorities?”

Why indeed? “It’s time to transcend the shtetl mentality that permeates much of the Jewish community,” Bloome said. “You can’t be nice in the face of evil.”

The first thing they did was replace the word anti-Semitism with ethnic racism or Jew hatred. “Why use a term that was coined by a Jew hater to sanitize his Jew hatred?” Bloome asked. 

Second, Mazzig selected 14 students from across the U.S., Canada, and the U.K. to become Zig Zag fellows and embark on a yearlong journey “to become elite fighters in the battle for Israel on campus.” Next, they held a conference in NYC. They had speakers from various groups provide detailed information on laws and strategy, but what struck me was how bright and articulate the students were — they are already leaders. And Israel is already giving back: Whatever they do in life, these students will use the skills they’re developing through Zig Zag.

Mazzig himself is a Jew hater’s worst nightmare—kind, soulful, dignified and openly gay. Mazzig, like Gal Gadot, represents the real Israel — the Israel that is constantly being lied about.

“If we can’t respect ourselves, how can any community respect us?” Mazzig said. “Zig Zag is about regaining this respect; it is about standing strong and not bowing down to hate, strategically. Our initiatives are going to reverberate across the country, across the world.” 

Mazzig borrows a line from Proverbs: “For by wise guidance, you will wage war.” 

Yalla.

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Karen Lehrman Bloch is an author and cultural critic living in New York.