First Fruits and Final Chances

What can we learn from the script we’re asked to say on Shavuot about the Jewish relationship to the Land?

Thousands of years ago this time of year, Hebrews prepared baskets to carry their first fruits to Jerusalem for the holiday we now call Shavuot (known as the Feast of Weeks because it occurs seven weeks after Passover). In those days, we would ascend to the Temple with our baskets to raise the fruits before our priests, reciting the lines immortalized in our tradition: “our father was a wandering Aramean, and he went down to Egypt, and he lived there,” only to be oppressed, only to rise up, only to win freedom in our land, where we can grow food to give freely in thanks.

I thought of that ritual while watching the unfolding catastrophe in Gaza and the unfolding international coalition set against Israel. Our people are once again caught between a rock and a flaming sword: on one hand we have Hamas, a movement that perfected suicide attacks, who uses the pain and suffering of the people it governs as a weapon against Israel. There is no question to anyone willing to do a little research that there was, until now, enough food to feed Gaza in Hamas’ warehouses – and Hamas could, at any moment, surrender to flood Gaza with international aid. They choose not to surrender.

The flaming sword represents our own extremists, so hell-bent on capturing every pebble of land that they are willing to sacrifice the unity of the People of Israel. An ideology turning a blind eye to the fact that, throughout our history, we have been repeatedly vomited from our land. An ideology imagining that the Eternal who destroyed the Temple and scattered its priests will protect them if only they set up another settlement to capture another grain of sand.

An ideology controlling a government unable to show empathy to the families paying the ultimate price. An ideology basing its power on those who sit in air-conditioned houses of learning paid for by the 60% of Israeli society who serve in the army and pay taxes. An ideology who couldn’t care less how many Gazan children are killed. A government I can only imagine our wandering Aramean ancestor would have been ashamed of. After all, he argued with the Eternal to save innocents in Sodom.

Israeli society is already paying the price: boycotts, divestment, and sanctions. Rising inflation, dwindling housing stock, no seats left on the limited flights for businesses to bring money home. These actions are intensifying. In less than two weeks from our Feast of Weeks, France and Saudi Arabia will host a summit in New York to reportedly declare their recognition of a Palestinian State and the measures against Israel to make it so.

I believe there is only one way out for us: to recognize, as the progeny of Wandering Arameans, that our life in the land is not guaranteed. That it is a privilege to be alive to raise our first fruits in thanks, to watch our children wear white to school and dance with flowers in their hair. To learn from our past that our relationships with our neighbors and the empires of the day, will determine if our songs are of thanks giving or mourning.

Perhaps that was what the calendar tried to tell us when this year’s Nakba Day (the day Palestinians memorialize their exile) coincided with Lag Ba’Omer, a day we remember the rebellion of Simeon Bar Kochba and the subsequent destruction and death of Jewish life that followed.

We are, after all, a people well acquainted with the cycle of armed rebellion and destruction. A people who established a nation from tribes, a people who believed the Eternal would fight our battles only to see our Temple destroyed, our homes burned down, our children enslaved. A people who learned we do not own the land, that living in it is a privilege earned by remembering we were slaves in Egypt and acting towards the stranger in our midst accordingly.

The French-Saudi summit could be an opportunity for Israel. We can snatch victory from the jaws of defeat if only we had a leader courageous enough to remind Israelis that over the past three decades we’ve conducted two experiments on Palestinian self-determination. The first, ending with a colossal failure on October 7, 2023, was to fence off the Palestinians and pump them with money to buy quiet. That was an experiment designed and executed by Netanyahu and his administrations, with Qatari support.

The second, in Judea and Samaria, centered around interdependence and cooperation: a Palestinian Authority managing the daily affairs of millions of Palestinians in close security cooperation with Israel. According to every defense official, the experiment in Judea and Samaria with the Palestinian Authority has been a success, resisting regular attempts by extremists on both sides to blow it up.

Now is the time for a brave leader to emerge in Israel to affirm to the world that we are ready to build on that success in a regional deal: Israel will support upgrading the Palestinian Authority’s diplomatic status in return for agreement that Palestine would join 21 demilitarized states renouncing weapons of war. In return for our neighbors rooting out Hamas as they did their own Muslim Brotherhood chapters.

Now, not after France and Saudi Arabia and their allies make their declaration. Now, not after we are forced to our knees.

Upgrading the Palestinian Authority would be a blow to Hamas, a signal to the Palestinians that we bless those that bless us and curse those that curse us. Making a deal with Saudi Arabia would be a blow to Hamas, who attacked us to scuttle the deal. Joining our allies in recognizing Palestine (instead of throwing a temper tantrum when they do) is the only dignified response, driving the final nail into Hamas’s coffin and increasing the odds we will live to celebrate many more Feasts of Weeks in the years to come.