I have mentioned throughout this series of sermon postings that there are certain favorite topics any rabbi is destined to return to on a regular basis. Israel is such a topic in general and for Rabbi Sidney Ballon in particular. He spoke passionately about the Jewish homeland before and after statehood, so in this 1967 Rosh Hashanah sermon, in the aftermath of the Six-Day War, he was no less passionate. He saw it not merely as a great military victory, and not even just the modern miracle that it was. For him it demonstrated that in this crisis both Israeli and American Jews were awakened to a hidden truth of how deeply they were committed to Jewish survival.
We cannot wait only for a moment of great crisis for our Jewish feelings to be shaken up. Jewish life is always in crisis. It is only that sometimes the crisis is more dramatic than at other times.
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As we gather now on this day of Rosh Hashanah, there is one subject above any other that clamors for attention. To borrow a phrase from Rashi[i], which some of you may remember from our adult education course, “Ain zeh omair ela darshayni--this matter bags for comment.” It is impossible not to make mention on this day, as we look back upon the past year, of one of the most significant happenings in centuries of Jewish history, the crushing defeat by Israel of the Arab nations who were posed to destroy it.
Don't you still recall with amazement the events of that week in June![ii] Here was a tiny nation of approximately two million, confronted by hostile Arabs totaling over two hundred million! These Arabs were inflamed by venomous words poured into the airwaves by the president of Egypt. These Arabs had been furnished with two billion dollars’ worth of military supplies and equipment by Soviet Russia, who was very outspoken in her pro-Arab sympathies. Israel presumably also had friends, but they were hesitant and embarrassed. They did not want too strongly to offend the Arabs nor to provoke the Russians. The picture was dark, indeed, as Nasser blustered, U Thant[iii] capitulated, and Israel's a big power allies vacillated or deserted her.
But when the showdown came, it was all over in less than a week. Some call it a six-day war, some a four-day war and some even just a two-day war. But whatever was, it was already obvious within only a few hours what the result would be. The Arab defeat was total and disastrous. Their armies were put into reverse. The desert was strewn with their equipment. Their territory was overrun. Their fortifications destroyed. The Straits of Tiran[iv] were opened. Jerusalem was reunited.
The Israelis had had a great deal of confidence in their own ability to defend themselves, but even they were surprised, and the world referred to their achievements not as military victories, but as the enactment of a miracle.
There are those who will argue that to speak of miracles in connection with this brief war against the Arabs is to belittle the courage and ingenuity of the Israel Defense Forces, and to imply that the Israelis merely sat back and let Heaven do the rest. But the Israeli army itself speaks in terms of miracles. Elie Weisel[v] reports that the Chief of Staff, Gen. Yitzhak Rabin[vi] admitted without embarrassment that he no longer understands what he and his men had accomplished. From Rabin down through the lowest grade soldier in the ranks we are told that they feel alive today because of a miracle.
But what is a miracle? Martin Buber[vii] once described a miracle is something which left us with abiding astonishment. The natural and rational explanation of what happens is not the issue. It is not that something seems to have been due to supernatural cause that makes a miracle. It is rather that the event is experienced as a miracle, as an act of God, by those involved. Thus, he says, the crossing of the Red Sea may have its scientific explanation, but what is important and what makes it a miracle is that the very natural process involved was so unexpected and surprising and was understood by the Israelites only as an act of God. It was experienced as a miracle and filled them with an abiding astonishment.
Israel's victory over the Arabs this past year has left the modern Hebrews also with an abiding astonishment. Even the religiously indifferent among them now wonder whether they have not beheld an act of God. A professor at Bar Ilan University[viii] writes that “the attitude of miracle is uppermost. The vivid experience of God's unbelievable power prevails in the minds of religious and nonreligious alike." Elie Weisel, to quote him once again, says that even the freethinkers interpret the recent experience as organically a religious one—it has compelled each Jew to confront his people, his past and his God. Thus the war has had an interesting and profound effect upon the Jews of Israel. Stories have been told of how some Israeli soldiers in the excitement of the war turned to their religious comrades and begged to be taught how to pray and how to put on the Tephillin because they had never done either before. Other nations would have rejoiced on such an occasion with great victory parades which boasted of military prowess. Israel's military heroes gathered at the Western Wall and wept as they responded to the mystique of Jewish history. There was a religious emotion that swept the land that many people had long thought they were incapable of feeling.
One hopes that these emotions which have been aroused will not be transient. One hopes that there will be some lasting effect. The Jews of Israel had experienced the revelation that some religious feeling lies dormant, after all, in all of us. This revelation is both a challenge and an opportunity. One hopes that they will be moved to accept this as a challenge to re-explore the Jewish faith, and as an opportunity to find their way back not to religious uniformity, but rather to the common recognition that the religious aspect of Jewish peoplehood is essential, that in the religious dimension we find our common bond as people.
The element of the miraculous was not confined to Israel alone. What happened amongst ourselves in this country was almost as great a miracle as what happened to the Jews of Israel. What happened here was also a cause of abiding astonishment. The deep anxiety which took hold of the Jewish community, the cries of protest, the outpouring of funds for the UJA[ix] and Israel bonds were unbelievable. Young people clamored at the doors of the Israeli Consulate to be permitted to go to Israel and help. Children went around ringing doorbells and making a collection. The normally faithful, of course, extended themselves far more than ever in the light of the emergency, but now many a Jew who had been aloof and indifferent to Jewish life suddenly experience a deep concern and was drawn into the orbit once more. Jews whose sense of identification with the Jewish community had heretofore been most tenuous now were aroused by emotions they never knew they could feel. It was an amazing performance as money poured in from rallies and mass meetings held everywhere. New York City had its million dollars-a-minute meetings. Numerous individuals emptied their savings accounts. Congregations gave away funds accumulated for the building of new synagogues. It is, of course, always easier to raise money in a time of emergency, but never in their wildest dreams had any fund raisers expected the kind of response that took place, even under the most provocative of circumstances. Our own congregation contributed more than six times its normal amount to the United Jewish appeal and that you know has to be put into the category of a miracle. Like the Jews of Israel, we Jews in America surprised even ourselves by the spontaneity and the extent of our concern.
It is not too difficult to analyze why such an overwhelming response to place. Back in our minds there was first of all the memory of the six million. It seemed to every one of us that in a somewhat different manner a similar catastrophe might be in the making. It was not too far-fetched to think that if the Arabs were to continue successfully on their way, mass destruction of our people in Israel would be the consequence. Genocide was again the objective. The Arab masses were being incited not merely to wage war against a government, but to annihilate a people. This was the tone of Arab propaganda before the war, and this is what even had been spelled out in detail in actual written battle orders which were captured by the Israelis during the war and are now available for all the world to see.
Secondly there was a sudden realization that the continued existence of the State of Israel was of no little significance to every Jew, and the thought of Israel disappearing from the world proved to be all too terrifying. We experienced a feeling of personal involvement as never before. It became not merely an Israeli war, but a Jewish war. How could you think of the blood, sweat and tears of the past 19 years going down the drain, of the idealism and self-sacrifice of pioneers for decades before that going for naught. What would happen to Jewish morale everywhere? What would happen to the Jewish image everywhere, which in recent times had acquired so much more respect and self-respect? When and how would we again be enabled to emerge from a new lamentation over the destruction of our people. Consciously or unconsciously these were the questions that troubled us.
And again there was the realization that if Jews the world over did not stand by Israel, who would? We were stirred by a deep sense of brotherhood and commitment to our people all the more because of the very fact that to the rest of the world the emergency was just another political problem to be carefully weighed from many angles. It was only the Jews that were passionately concerned with the fate of their people. The rest of the world temporized and debated, and worried only about oil and Cold War politics. And it was not only the political leadership that disappointed us, but the religious leadership as well. Official Christian circles were comparatively silent in the face of the threat to Israel. There were some individuals who rose to our defense, but official Christian leadership held back. Some of them now plead with Israel to be generous in dealing with the Arabs, but we did not hear any outcry when the Arabs seem to have the upper hand and threatened annihilation of Jews. Christian concerns have been more with Holy Places than with Jews, more with currying the favor of Arab Christians than with the preservation of Jewish lives. Whatever excuse the Christian world may now offer or whatever the explanation may be, in the moments of emergency there was a great reluctance to speak forth. Its reaction was painfully slow. It was almost as if they might have been happy to see the whole political and theological problem of Palestine solved by Jewish defeat.
These are the elements, I believe, that contributed to the miraculous response of American Jewry. And even though we know this and understand this, I think like the Israelis we nevertheless surprised ourselves. For us, too, there was a revelation in the midst of the miracle—the revelation that for so many of us our Jewish ties were stronger than we thought, that beneath the mask of indifference to Jewish life that so many of us wear, there was a residue of feeling which could on occasion churn its way to the surface. There was the revelation that our Jewishness may after all may be number one loyalty in our life, that we are more deeply involved in it emotionally that we might have imagined.
And again, as with respect to the Israelis, one hopes the emotions stirred by this emergency will not be transient among us either. The shock of circumstances aroused our innermost feelings and revealed to ourselves our true identity. We also are faced with a challenge to act accordingly, to seize the opportunity to strengthen our Jewishness and make the most of it at all times instead of stifling it between emergencies. An individual is at his best when he is himself. When he tries to be something other than his true self he fails as a person and lives a lie. The Israel crisis has revealed to us who we really are. Let us fulfill ourselves meaningfully.
According to a meal Emil Fackenheim[x], a well-known theologian, the one significant principle by which an authentic Jew must live today is that he is forbidden to do anything that shall hand Hitler yet another posthumous victory. He must not contribute in any way to the dissolution of the Jewish people but must rather so act always as to build it and preserve it. This means we must all continue to be interested in Israel. We must all be concerned with the vitality of our synagogues and with the Jewish education of our children. We must all be generous in our material support of whatever is meaningful to Jewish survival and fulfills Jewish ideals. We cannot wait only for a moment of great crisis for our Jewish feelings to be shaken up. Jewish life is always in crisis. It is only that sometimes the crisis is more dramatic than at other times. The dangers of acculturation and assimilation are always with us and we must be permanently on guard against them. It is senseless to act only when there is a knife at our back. We must be Jewishly aware in Jewishly alert even in time of comparative calm.
On this occasion of the New Year let us give thanks to the Almighty for the great deliverance we have experienced. Let us also pray for our understanding to appreciate the revelation of our inner selves that it has brought us. May we always remember who we are and what our responsibilities must be, and may we respond authentically to the appeal of Jewish emotions which stir us. And let us remind ourselves and all the world that we justify our existence as a people and our faith as Jews by holding constantly before us a vision not only of Jerusalem restored and Zion at ease, but also of an entire world at peace, when all nations shall dwell unafraid together, Jews and Arabs and all the rest.
In the words of the prophets:
The Lord has comforted His people
He has redeemed Jerusalem
The Lord has made bare His holy arm in the eyes of all the nations
Amen
[i] Shlomo Yitzhaki, today generally known by the acronym Rashi (RAbbi SHlomo Itzhaki; (1040–1105), was a medieval French rabbi and long highly esteemed as a major contribution Ashkenazi Jewry gave to Torah study. He is famed as the author of a comprehensive commentary on the Talmud, as well as a comprehensive commentary on the Tanakh (Hebrew Bible). He is considered the "father" of all commentaries that followed on the Talmud and the Tanakh.
[ii] “The Six-Day War” was fought between June 5 and 10, 1967 by Israel and the neighboring states of Egypt (known at the time as the United Arab Republic), Jordan, and Syria. After a period of high tension between Israel and its neighbors, the war began on June 5 with Israel launching surprise bombing raids against Egyptian air-fields. Within six days, Israel had won a decisive land war. Israeli forces had taken control of the Gaza Strip and the Sinai Peninsula from Egypt, the West Bank and East Jerusalem from Jordan, and the Golan Heights from Syria.
[iii] U Thant (1909-1974), Burmese diplomat who served as the third Secretary-General of the United Nations, from 1961 to 1971. He was widely criticized in the US and Israel for agreeing to pull UN troops out of the Sinai in 1967 in response to a request from Egyptian president Nasser. Thant tried to persuade Nasser not to go to war with Israel by flying to Cairo in a last-minute peace effort.
[iv] The Straits of Tiran are the narrow sea passages between the Sinai and Arabian peninsulas which separate the Gulf of Aqaba from the Red Sea. Access to Jordan's only seaport of Aqaba and to Israel's only Indian Ocean seaport of Eilat is contingent upon passage through the Gulf of Aqaba, giving the Straits of Tiran strategic importance. Egypt's blockade of the Straits to Israeli ships and ships bound for Israel in 1956 and again in 1967 was a catalyst to the Suez Crisis in 1956 and the Six-Day War in 1967.
[v] Eliezer "Elie" Wiesel (born 1928) is a Romanian-born Jewish-American writer, professor, political activist, Nobel Laureate, and Holocaust survivor. He is the author of 57 books, including Night, a work based on his experiences as a prisoner in the Auschwitz, Buna, and Buchenwald concentration camps.
[vi] Yitzhak (1922-1995) was an Israeli politician, statesman and general. He was the fifth Prime Minister of Israel, serving two terms in office, 1974–77 and 1992 until his assassination in 1995.
[vii] Martin Buber (1878–1965) was an Austrian-born Israeli philosopher best known for his philosophy of dialogue, a form of existentialism centered on the distinction between the I-Thou relationship and the I-It relationship.
[viii] Bar-Ilan University, established in 1955, and Israel's second-largest academic institution, is in Ramat Gan, located east of Tel Aviv.
[ix] The United Jewish Appeal (UJA) was a Jewish philanthropic umbrella organization that existed from its creation in 1939 until it was folded into the United Jewish Communities, which was formed from the 1999 merger of United Jewish Appeal (UJA), Council of Jewish Federations and United Israel Appeal, Inc.
[x] Emil Ludwig Fackenheim, Ph.D. (1916-2003) was a noted Jewish philosopher and Reform rabbi, born in Halle, Germany, arrested by Nazis on the night of November 9, 1938, known as Kristallnach, researched the relationship of the Jews with God, noted for his belief that the Holocaust must be understood as an imperative requiring Jews to carry on Jewish existence and the survival of the State of Israel, and that continuing Jewish life and denying Hitler a posthumous victory was the 614th law," referring to the 613 mitzvot given to the Jews in the Torah.
[xi] Isaiah 52:9-10
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