Arrested for Blowing Shofar? The Real Reason is Worse
It sounds very dramatic to say that a rabbi was arrested for blowing shofar. And all the more dramatic when you add that this happened not in Paris or London or Chicago, but in Jerusalem, only a few days before Rosh Hashana. That rabbi was me, and it is true that upon blowing the Shofar one morning on Azza Street in Jerusalem, two police officers came over to me, wrestled the shofar from my hands, arrested me and put my hands and feet in cuffs. But the truth is, the real reason I was arrested was not for blowing the shofar. The real reason was far worse, more disturbing, but at the same time also deeply emblematic of what is going on.
Some context is in order. In utter desperation at the renewal of Israel’s military operation in Gaza, an operation that the chief of staff made very clear would endanger the lives of the hostages, some family members of hostages camped outside the Prime Minister’s residence on Azza Street, and asked everyone who supports them to come and join them. I searched and searched for a way I could justify ignoring their call and going on with my life, but I just couldn’t find one that would satisfy my heart. So one night, I went to sleep on the street together with a small group that had also heeded the call. Before going to sleep, I walked over from the fenced-in area the police had designated for “non-family”, across the “sterile” area, to the fenced-in area that the police had designated for “hostage families”. It was late at night, around 2 am, so the police officers and soldiers who generally prevented anyone from crossing over had let their guard down. Some of the family members were trying to sleep in tents, although it was difficult because behind another fence, covered by a cloth, there were workers, presumably from the Prime Minister’s office, inexplicably dragging heavy barriers, drilling into the ground, and generally making a racket. At 2 am! Others had given up on sleep, because of the noise, and also because they just haven’t really slept properly or normally for over 700 days while their sons are being held captive by Hamas. I sat for a while, listened to the pain and despair, and wondered at their ability despite it all to continue to fight and not to give up. I understood that there was a plan to protest and cry out at 6:29 am, the time of the attack on October 7th. Elul, Jerusalem, early morning, crying out- the situation screamed selichot. I resolved to return in a number of hours with tallit and shofar, to amplify the family’s cries with the shofar’s timeless, wordless cry.
And so I did, but when I walked over to the family area this time, a police officer started to ask questions.
“Who are you?”
“I’m Avidan…”
“What’s your connection?”
“My connection? I’m a brother…”
“Brother? Whose?”
“Whose? All of them. We’re Am Yisrael. They’re all my brothers…”
“No, that doesn’t work. Go over there.” And with that, the police officer gruffly escorted me back away from the families, across the sterile area, to the “non-family” area. I’m normally a very, very normative, law-abiding citizen. But something deep inside me rebelled against this denial of my basic understanding of what it means to be Am Yisrael, what it really means to say that we are all areivim, that we are all responsible for one another. No one was going to tell me that I’m not- that we’re all not- family.
So I found myself another way to approach the families that the police were not yet guarding, because it was still early. I heard Einav Zangauker, Matan’s mother, shouting and crying out, and I responded with the cry of the shofar. Immediately, the police officer who had expelled me before approached, grabbed my arm, and told me to leave. I told him: but I am Matan’s brother! Another officer started trying to wrestle the shofar from my hands. I am Matan’s brother, I insisted! She succeeded, and the officers dragged me away from the families, and cuffed me, hands and feet. I was brought to the precinct, and after a few hours of waiting, my encounter with the interrogator crystallized what the arrest was really about, but more than that, what the struggle to bring home the hostages and end the war really boils down to.
I had thought that my crime was disturbing the peace by blowing shofar early in the morning. But that wasn’t the charge, and the interrogator made no mention at any point of the time that the shofar blowing was done. In fact, the shofar only came up at the very end of the interrogation, in a bizarre, pro forma way that seemed designed to meet some protocol I was unaware of (“What is that?” “A Shofar.” “Is that the shofar you used?” “Yes.” And that was it…)
What I was charged with was “activity that is liable to disturb the peace,” and “not obeying the directions of a police officer.” And what the interrogation mostly focused on was the fact that the police had decided to designate the area I was in as “families-only”, and I had infiltrated into it and refused to leave when told. When I explained to my interrogator, who was herself an Orthodox woman, that my belief, based on the Torah, is that every member of Am Yisrael is my brother and sister, and I quoted the verse (from my bar mitzvah parsha!) to that effect, she tried to explain to me that that is only a belief, and a value, and not reality. This, then, is the far more disturbing truth. I wasn’t arrested in Jerusalem on the days leading up to Rosh Hashana for blowing the shofar. I was arrested for insisting on the reality of the value of Jewish solidarity and responsibility.
And here I do have to admit that the police have a point. Their fear was that if everyone would see themselves as family, this would disturb the public order. And they’re absolutely right, if the public order this government aims to maintain involves turning us into Sparta. If the public order depends on our willingness to let these families fight for their loved ones all by themselves, if it is threatened by empathy, then what I did was most certainly an activity liable to disturb that.
I wasn’t arrested for blowing the shofar. I was arrested because they were afraid that the call of the shofar might awaken our hearts and strengthen our resolve- as it is meant to do, as it has always done- to change our ways, to rise up and to fully realize the values of Jewish solidarity and unity that call us to act so that, in the words of Jeremiah that we read on Rosh Hashana, “our sons will return to their borders.”