Ki Ain Banu Ma’asim
Gaza City is burning.
Hundreds of thousands of Palestinians are caught in the crossfire between the IDF and what remains of Hamas with nowhere to go. No escape from the devastation.
We are in the last week of Elul, the holy month of introspection and reflection.
The King is in the field, observing.
Avinu malkenu, chanenu v’anenu – our Father, our King, be gracious to us, be gratuitously loving, and answer us even though we don’t deserve it – ki ain banu ma’asim – because we have no good deeds to invoke in our defense.*
I have opposed this war for nearly two years. I have advocated against its needless overreach as soon as IDF leadership said Hamas had lost control of Gaza. I have created educational material on the political motives behind a military operation opposed by the defense establishment and I have spoken out – often – against the human cost, the loss of loved ones, for both Israelis and Palestinians living between the river and the sea.
But as I prepare for the Gates to swing open, for the Yamim Noraim, the Days of Awe, to commence, a haunting melody repeats in the background, the refrain: ki ain banu ma’asim.
It is not enough.
We have not done enough.
People are dying, people are starving, the children of God cry out: “Enough!”
The Psalms tell us “God is close to the brokenhearted” and now with God in the field, how close must They be. Their children, Chosen and not, are hurting.
The nation of Israel is still bleeding from the open wound of October 7, and no healing can begin until all hostages are home.
Palestinians in Gaza are experiencing the utter destruction of their homes, their sanctuaries, their entire way of life. Whole families have been wiped off the face of the Earth. Parents are mourning the loss of multiple children. Orphans are multiplying beyond what a decent heart can bear.
When the Gates swing open, what will we have to say?
Rabbi Danya Ruttenberg, author of On Repentance and Repair, recently wrote a devastating self-critique of the book’s section on Israel/Palestine, arguing “the annihilation and genocide in Gaza” can never be forgiven.
In our tradition, the obligation of repentance and repair for serious harm can be deep, ongoing and consume the rest of one’s life… This is an obligation from which we can never be free. Never.
It doesn’t matter whether you believe the famine in Gaza is man-made or invented. It doesn’t matter whether you believe Hamas is only defeated when it loses control of the Strip or when every last of its members are dead. It doesn’t matter whether you read enough Hebrew to consume primary sources or are consumed by influencer content on social media.
Ki ain banu ma’asim.
In his primer for the High Holy Days journey, Rabbi Alan Lew writes:
Heartbreak is precisely the feeling that we have done our best, we have given it our all, but it hasn’t been enough. Not nearly enough. And this is what we mean when we say, “God is close to the brokenhearted.”
Some of us have left it all out on the field. Some have sat on the sidelines. Some have cheered loudly from the stands.
And yet ain banu ma’asim.
The government of fear, hatred, and reckless abandon could not have plunged us into the abyss without the implicit consent of many. And it could not keep digging us deeper into darkness without the complicity of many more.
Rabbi Ruttenberg is right. There is no forgiveness for Gaza.
But redemption remains. If we choose life. If we seek truth. If we require an accounting in this world. Not the next. If we eject the people responsible from public life. If we ensure the national rights of the Palestinian people are not only respected but realized. If we return, making teshuva, to the ethical and moral core of our tradition.
Maybe in the future we will stand, together, with humility and chesed at the opening and shutting of the Gates.
Ki yihye banu ma’asim.
* Translation by Rabbi Alan Lew in This Is Real and You Are Completely Unprepared
