Shofar of the 7th, Shofar of the 1st, Shofar of the Nation

Something Unprecedented Is Being Asked of Us

One hundred …

Just over one hundred years ago, there were 60,000 Jews living in the land of Israel. Today there are 7, 260,000. That’s a 12,000% increase. When is the last time any of your stocks did that well?

There hasn’t been an aliyah to the land of Israel with the magnitude of 1920-2020 since Joshua first led the Jews across the Jordan river.

Today, less than 50% of all Jews live in the Diaspora, and of those, 80% live in just one place: America. All the other great Diaspora communities of Jewish history have vanished. If the Diaspora were an old family business, we’d say that it has dwindled to one last cash cow franchise, and all the measurables of that last standing franchise are trending down.

Ninety-nine …

Just over one hundred years ago, over 99% of all Jews lived in the Diaspora, a place every one of us wanted out of, and where we all shared a common, seemingly impossible dream: Next Year in Jerusalem, and we weren’t talking about a vacation.

When my grandparents were children, no one could imagine that a Jewish state would ever exist. Now, in the historic blink of an eye, the ancient land of prayers and dreams is suddenly a thriving country that my children and grandchildren grew up with and take for granted.

Today, the majority of Jews live in a Jewish country; a dynamic, challenge-infused, Jihad threatened, Middle Eastern island of remarkable social, economic, and spiritual resilience.  There hasn’t been a historic shift like this since the destruction of the First Temple, though that shift was in the wrong direction.

One nine four eight …

With the birth of Israel in 1948, we are now living amid a post Diaspora reconstitution of Am Yisrael in Eretz Yisrael.

As such, it’s critical to ask: What is this event of biblical proportions all about?

If this great reconstitution of our ancestral, collective peoplehood, in our ancestral homeland, has an ultimate meaning and purpose—a mission statement—beyond the creation of one gigantic iron dome shielding us from the ever-morphing presence of Jew hatred in the heart of mankind, then it must be—

Our Vision:    The reconstitution of the Children of Israel in the Land of Israel is for the purpose of fulfilling our founding mission of, “And through you all the families of the world will be blessed.”

Our Mission: To build a society where all Jews see one another as vital, contributing members of the Am Yisrael family, and so unleash our collective potential as a shining “Light unto the nations.”

“The purpose of creation could not be fulfilled until the Jewish nation left Egypt and received the Torah at Sinai. It was then that they would achieve the potential for being a ‘light to the nations’.”

Netziv, 19^th century scholar, Introduction to Exodus

Breaking News

Every day we pray that “a great shofar will be sounded, and they shall return…” In the spring of 1948, in a letter to his students in the Ponevezh yeshiva in Bnei Brak, Rabbi Eliyahu E. Dessler said that the “voice of the great shofar and the voice of Eliyahu” come in the guise of historic events. Depression, wars, the rise of Communism, the Children of Israel returning to the Land of Israel, and the Oct. 7^th onslaught and all that followed it, are nothing less than blasts of the shofar that rivet our attention on the nature and meaning of our time.

Echoing a similar theme, Rav Avigdor Nevensal, Rabbi Emeritus of the Old City, in lamenting the absence of prophets who can decipher the meaning of events for us, says that we are not altogether bereft of heavenly inspired insight. Though we don’t have prophets, “We do have newspapers and the news that are the word of God being broadcast every day, and every hour.”

Yes, the shofar is sounding, and as Maimonides says, it’s overarching message is, “Wake up from your slumber!”

Shofar of the 7^th

On October 7^th, Shabbat-Simchat Torah, and over the last year—in the historical-spiritual context of this reconstitution of our nation—we were struck with a massive and brutal, wake-up call. This has been a year-long sounding of the shofar; perhaps even the shofar gadol of a millenia of prayers.

Today, Israel has been transformed into one sprawling, raucous beit medrash, and as our Sages long ago taught, a beit medrash is a place of war, “the war of Torah.” Within the beit medrash walls, the interlocutors fight like enemies, only to emerge as the dearest of friends: Chaverim—מחוברים—deeply, deeply connected. Israeli society today is a battlefield where colliding perspectives and values are searching, perhaps, for a truth higher than most can imagine from within the narrow, blinding, four cubits of their long-held preconceptions and assumptions, their konseptziot.

Long ago, when I was an Aish HaTorah yeshiva student, one of the highlights of the year was when we were visited by the late Ner Israel Rosh Yeshiva, Rabbi Yaakov Weinberg. Rabbi Weinberg would spend a few weeks teaching daily on a wide variety of topics. At around 10:00 am, he would enter the beit medrash door, look at the list of topics that had been posted for the day, and then proceed to the front of the room and begin teaching.

Israel today is one enormous, contentious, beyond vibrant beit medrash, and for over a year now, heaven has been posting the topics for discussion. Our heavenly edited headlines are the “voice,” of the shofar screaming out and telling us that we absolutely must clarify, together, the core issues required to grasp and actualize the meaning of our return to the Land—our teshuva—and the purpose of our place on the seventy-nation stage of human history.

Shofar of the 9/11

After 9/11, I had a quote over my office desk. I don’t remember the source, but it said: “What if 9/11 was a wake-up call and we fail to wake up?” Twenty-three years have passed since that day, and I wonder …

We Jews can’t afford not to confront all the critical issues roiling our beit medrash. We can’t afford not to wake up. The very safety and well-being of millions of Jews hangs in the balance, as does our ability to fulfill our mission as a nation.

Shofar of the 1^st

Rosh Hashanah is coming, and the shofar will sound.

Something unprecedented is being asked of us.

I’d like to offer a list of seven critical issues that we absolutely must work through, together. I can’t imagine many things more important than to dedicate our Rosh Hashanah thoughts, conversations, and “war of Torah” discussions to, other than these issues. The seven issues are—

1. Unity.
2. Guarantorship and Responsibility.
3. War.
4. Independence and Values.
5. Israel. Eretz. Zionism.
6. Torah.
7. Antisemitism

I will offer thoughts meant to kickstart reflection and conversation. I actually hope you disagree with all my perspectives, and that your friends and family disagree with both us, because that will lead to the clarifying “war of Torah” needed to yes, in the end, bring us together. I will also put forth confrontational questions, because if we skirt them we’ll never get to the frank conversations that need to happen.

I’m sure I missed some issues, but hope this will be a helpful start; to our year, our “learning,” and the future that lays not just ahead of us, but more importantly, within the hands of each of us.

And through you all the families of the world will be blessed.

Israel is now one great, raucous beit medrash,

in which the shofar is sounding.

Shofar of קונספציות

Before diving into the list, I believe we need to stop and consider a headline message that is vital to successfully engaging any and all of these issues.

The term konseptsia, “preconceived understanding, assumption, and approach,” has permeated the conversation in Israel since the 7^th. What we thought we knew on the 6^th, about our enemy, our military, our safety, our future, and more, was wrong, simply wrong. That shattering of preconceived and strongly held convictions has pulled the rug of certainty and complacency out from under our feet. It leaves us shaken and insecure, while at the same time offering a historic opportunity to revisit and rethink the rightness of everything we thought was so rock solid true.

If our collective Rosh Hashanah shofar is to have any collective meaning, it will be founded upon our willingness to humbly admit that we were mistaken about a thing or two—a very, very consequential thing or two—and to be prepared to bravely “listen” and “hear” other potential ways of looking at matters; matters that can directly and dramatically impact, “ who shall live and who shall die.” And maybe, just maybe, the “right” way of looking at things is not your way or your way or your way, but a radically different, blended, respectful, and higher way called Our way.

And through you all the families of the world will be blessed.

Israel is now one great, raucous beit medrash,

in which the shofar is sounding.

Shofar of the 8^th

In the days and weeks following the 7^th, the collective intuition of the nation identified a direct relationship between the devastation of the 7^th and the awful infighting that had been raging for a year, and the hate-filled pirud that led many to speak in terms of civil war. In one morally grotesque shofar instant, by the mourning of the 8^th, we were awakened. The shattered and charred door to our bloodied beit medrash was lying amidst the ashes of Be’eri and drowning in the tears of Nir Oz. And so, we knew then, as we know now, that the very first “topic” we would need to confront would be “b’yachad.” From those dreadful first days, and throughout every day since, though painful differences and schisms remain, we all sense that somehow everything comes down to one thing, achdut, Unity.

It’s not surprising that with the eruption of war came an eruptive understanding that the key to victory, to our very survival—indeed the key to everything—lies in ביחד ננצח, “Through unity will we be victorious.” Indeed, that understanding is something that we have known for a long, long time.

“…The generation of Achav was victorious in battle, despite the fact that they were idolaters. Why? Because they had peaceful relations with one another. The generation of King Shaul, however, was vanquished in battle despite the fact that they were a righteous generation? Why? Because there were those who slandered their fellow Jews and sewed dissension among the people.”         Yalkut Shmoni 2:213, Medrash Bamidbar Rabbah 19:2

And through you all the families of the world will be blessed.

Israel is now one great, raucous beit medrash,

in which the shofar is sounding.

Shofar of Unity

But what does Jewish unity actually mean? What is it beyond a feel-good platitude on a bumper sticker or billboard? That’s what we are being asked to consider.

I’ll offer my two cents. You can take it or leave it.

The meaning of Jewish unity is: Far more than a collection of individuals with a shared land, language, and social contract, our essential identity is that of “One person with one heart.” Achdut points to something both intrinsic and transcendent. When we reflect on ourselves through the lense of Achdut, we encounter our individuality as the limb of a body, a spark in a flame, a unique photon in a brilliant ray of light. And, just like the meaning and purpose of any limb or organ is only in terms of its relationship to the body, the same is true with every individual Jew’s relationship to the Jewish people. The essence of every Jew is his or her place within, and relationship to, Am Yisrael.

Like a philharmonic orchestra, we are One. Like a philharmonic orchestra, we may be divided into different sections, populated by a rich variety of personalities with vastly different skills—each of us a uniquely crafted instrument with a beautiful, indispensable “voice,”— yet, at the same time, our individual identity can never be separated from a shared vision, mission, focus, and commitment to the soaring symphony of Am Yisrael.

Slander, backstabbing, and hatred amongst the ranks of the orchestra is a symphonic death sentence. The same with the Children of Israel and the Nation of Israel.

“Rabbi Yochanan bar Turta said: ‘The first Temple was destroyed because people worshipped idols, engaged in forbidden sexual relationships, and murdered one another. When it comes to the second Temple, however, we know that there was widespread Torah study, people were meticulous in their observance of the mitzvot and in general were people of good character. Nonetheless, they were driven by money and hated one another for no reason, and hatred for no reason (sinat chinam) is worse than all three fundamental transgressions …”

Jerusalem Talmud, Yuma Halacha א

(And the Talmud concludes) “And so it is, in every generation that the Temple is not rebuilt, that generation is viewed as if they themselves caused the original destruction.”

The destroyed Jerusalem of the first exile was eventually rebuilt. The destroyed Jerusalem rooted in internecine hatred wrapped in a culture of elevated religious observance, is still waiting to be fully restored. Perhaps all the Torah, mitzvot, and refined character in the world—as wonderful and necessary as they may be—can still leave us devoid of a higher difference-maker value.

Maybe, just maybe, the Shofar of the 7^th, and the shofar of the 8^th, have created the opportunity for our generation to by the one that embraces the call of the great shofar of Unity.

And through you all the families of the world will be blessed.

Israel is now one great, raucous beit medrash,

in which the shofar is sounding.

The Shofar of Guarantorship

On the Shabbat before Rosh Hashanah, we always read the parsha of Nitzavim. Within Nitzavim there is a mini parsha of ten verses. (Devarim 30:1-10) This mini parsha has two names; the parsha of teshuva-return, and the parsha of geula-redemption. Within the verse that precedes those ten, our sages found the following message: “All Jews are fully responsible guarantors one for the other.” The road to return, and the road to redemption, is the road of collective responsibility.

The essence of collective Jewish peoplehood is a two-sided coin. On one side is Achdut, Unity, and on the other side is Arvut, collective, mutual responsibility. As many put it, “If one’s left hand is causing pain, would the right-hand strike it in revenge? Obviously not.” Both hands are part of the very same person. The well-being of one is the well-being of the other, and the well-being of the All, is the well-being of each and every individual. The challenges and pain of one Jew, or group of Jews, is not just the pain of all the others, it’s simultaneously a call to all the others for assistance.

When things go bad for some Jews, they are going bad for all Jews. But more, when things go bad for some Jews, Arvut—guarantorship—obligates all Jews to step up and come to the assistance of their fellow Jews, whatever the need may be; physical, emotional, monetary, or spiritual.

To think like a Jew means to be thinking of all Jews, and to always be thinking in terms of, “How can I help?”

And through you all the families of the world will be blessed.

Israel is now one great, raucous beit medrash,

in which the shofar is sounding.

Shofar of Responsibility

Sometimes the best way to understand things is by looking at the opposite.

The opposite of responsibility is, “It’s not my job.”

To be responsible is to embrace the weight of obligation and to say, “It’s my job, I’ll get it done.”

As President Truman put it, “The buck stops here.”

That’s Responsibility, that’s Achrayut.

And through you all the families of the world will be blessed.

Israel is now one great, raucous beit medrash,

in which the shofar is sounding.

Shofar of Example

When it comes to Unity-achdut, Guarantorship-arvut, and Responsibility-achrayut, perhaps the clearest way to not just understand, but to internalize their meaning, is by example. And for the last year, from October 7^th until today, Israelis have been, by and large, one gigantic model of all three.

On October 7^th, having no idea what was unfolding, hundreds of Israelis jumped in their cars and headed south. They didn’t know what the need was, but they did know that they were absolutely needed. If that’s not achdut, arvut, and achrayut all rolled in one, what is?

Beginning on October 8^th, over 350,000 reserve soldiers were called to duty. Two hundred thousand of them are husbands and fathers in their 30’s and 40’s, and many of them have been serving for five months or more. If that’s not achdut, arvut, and achrayut all rolled in one, what is?

All the wives and children of those reservists had their suddenly anxiety filled lives turned upside down, and they all needed one kind of support or another, and still do. And our northern cities and towns? We’ve lost the north of Israel. It’s now inaccessible to all Israelis other than soldiers, and the handful of citizens that remain there, while thousands and thousands of families are scattered across what’s left of Israel. In a thousand different ways, legions of friends, neighbors, and strangers rally every day to the sides of those miluim wives and children, and the internal refugee families. If that’s not achdut, arvut, and achrayut all rolled in one, what is?

October farms:

“What used to be a strong agricultural sector is now crippled, and the ripple effects are being felt at grocery stores and on family dinner tables across the country. They are having an even deeper effect on those who were struggling to put food on the table in the first place. With 75% of Israel’s produce grown in the Gaza envelope or the northern border, the losses should come as no surprise. The numbers are staggering; over 150,000 tons of produce has gone to waste since the war began.”  Joseph Gitler, founder Leket Israel, Times of Israel 9/22

Israel’s flourishing agriculture sector employs 30,000 foreign workers. After October 7^th, almost all of them fled the country. Farming in Israel was devastated, accept that it wasn’t. Since October 7^th, one organization alone, Leket Israel, has organized over 60,000 volunteers to help with farming. Days after October 7^th, Dr. Carmel Blank, a faculty member in the Behavioral Sciences Department at the Ruppin Academic Center, used whatsapp to launch an effort to organize volunteers to help farmers. One year later, via her eleven whatsapp groups, over 10,000 volunteers have harvested over 200 tons of fruit and vegetables. I have the privilege of volunteering with a group from Jerusalem called Thursday Volunteers Bus. The weekly bus pulls out at 6:00am and heads for whichever farm needs us that week. Thursday Volunteers was launched on October 19^th by Adriana Folberg Blum, a Brazilian immigrant with no immediate family impacted by the war because—

“I felt disconnected. I felt a need to help, and helping farmers was my way to do that. On October 19^th I started regular drives down south, taking friends with me… Back in the 1950’s, farmers began to transform the desert into the green fertile fields that became a world leader in agricultural production. Now it’s my turn, and with the help of my friend Tzippy, and a bus provided by Leket Israel, my turn has become our turn. I have no idea how many tons of fruits and vegetables we have picked or how much planting, pruning or weeding we’ve done but …”

At 67, my presence usually pulls the median age on the bus down by a few years. I never had the privilege of saying I served in an IDF unit, so my nickname for Thursday Harvesters is The Grey Brigade. That’s my unit now, and Adriana and Tzippi are my commanders. A couple weeks ago, in four hours of work, we picked 900 kilos of cherry tomatoes. That’s a lot of Shakshuka.

Carmel and Adriana and Tzippi are just three examples of many other homemade volunteer efforts. Countless citizen volunteers, rallying to support the spirits and stomachs of our soldiers, have made and distributed millions of sandwiches, challot, al-haeish steaks, and much more to those fighting to protect us all. As a proud father, I can’t not give a shout out to letsdosomething.com. Check it out and you will see why.

Since October 7^th, over 1,000 citizen-initiated efforts of all sizes have engaged almost 50% of Israelis in volunteering in innumerable ways. If that’s not achdut, arvut, and achrayut all rolled in one, what is?

And through you all the families of the world will be blessed.

Israel is now one great, raucous beit medrash,

in which the shofar is sounding.

Shofar of War

On October 7^th, the 7.2 million Jews of Israel were surrounded by a Jihadi ring of enemies—Hamas, Hezbollah, Iran, Houthis, and others—that were bent on the destruction of the Jewish state, and the slaughter and rape of as many Jews as they could get their hands on.

This is war. Jewish lives, perhaps millions of them, are being targeted by Haman-like, Inqisition-like, Nazi-like forces that are hell bent on our destruction.

One of the great and tragic misconceptions that was obliterated on October 7^th, was that Israel could rely on a smaller, more technologically advanced army to meet its defense needs. In the decades prior to October 7^th, the IDF reduced its size by five divisions, representing almost 30% of its forces. Today, Israel is suddenly faced with at least a three brigade gap in its needs to protect the borders, the country, and its 10 million citizens. That’s an urgent and ongoing need for 30-40,000 soldiers.

The voice of the shofar of war is not just a call to battle, it’s a call to confronting one of life’s most basic questions. What am I willing to fight and die for?

War is a shofar that unifies. Beyond unity for the sake of survival, war also holds the potential to unify us in grappling with the meaning of that survival.

Am I willing to risk my life fighting for the survival of Israel, and the safety and security of her people?  Am I willing to teach my children and grandchildren to fight and risk their lives if necessary?

Am I willing to risk death for the Jewish people? If I am, what does that tell me about my life, and about my people? And if not, what does that mean?

And through you all the families of the world will be blessed.

Israel is now one great, raucous beit medrash,

in which the shofar is sounding.

Shofar of Independence

As the Nation of Israel approached the foot of Mount Sinai, we experienced a collective transformation. With our arrival at Sinai, we completed a transition from being a collection of individuals with a shared history and heritage, to something that exists nowhere else on earth: something called “One Person with One Heart.”

Then, as the moment of Sinai enveloped us, we experienced a further transformation. Our sages capture that transformation in one word, חירות, independence. The whole world knows of the Ten Commandments. What the world doesn’t know is that we Jews don’t refer to them as commandments; to us they are the aseret ha’dibrot, and the best translation I can come up with is ten declarations. These ten declarations announced to the nation of Israel, and to mankind, ten core values upon which could be built a society, and a world, befitting of human beings created in the image of God. The ten דיברות, core value-declarations, were not just חרות, “chiseled” on stone tablets, they were chisled and inscribed upon the collective “one heart,” of the nation. Indeed, the first of the core value-declaration dibrot, “I am Hashem your God …” only has meaning in the context of national liberation and independence: “…who took you out of the land of Egypt, from the house of servitude.”

At Sinai, Moses sounded a shofar, and “The voice of the shofar sounded louder and louder.” The revelation of the ten value declarations that were inscribed upon the collective heart of Israel, unfolded within the soaring notes of the shofar of Moses. That experience created independence; a fundamentally distinct national essence independent of the identity markers of all other nations. A distinctly independent people, with distinctly independent values, and a distinctly independent mission.

The Shofar of Independence: What is it that distinguishes us from all others? What are our core values, independent of the values championed by any other people, today, or at any other time in history. Who are we? And what makes us, us?

The Jewish state once tried to answer these questions in the form of a document called Megillat Atzmaut, The Declaration of Independence. The Megillat Atzmaut is not Torah from Sinai, but it is a remarkable document. If it were up to me, I’d make it required reading by all those present in our raucous beit medrash.

And through you all the families of the world will be blessed.

Israel is now one great, raucous beit medrash,

in which the shofar is sounding.

Shofar of the Land

“Torah and Eretz Yisrael were said in one utterance: בדיבור אחד.

They are like inseparable soulmates.

Regarding the Torah:       ‘Torah was commanded to us by Moshe, מורשה, as an inheritance.’

Regarding Eretz Yisrael:  ‘I gave it to you, מורשה, as an inheritance.’

‘Inheritance,’ tells us of a fundamental linkage. What one is to us, the other is as well, and they are inseparable.”

R. Shlomo Y. Teichtal, Intro. Eim HabBanim Semecha

Our tradition teaches that every Jew has a corresponding letter in the Torah. Just like a Torah missing just one letter is unusable, the same is true for the land of Israel. Every Jew has a place in Israel, and without every Jew, it’s as if the land is still desolate. Similarly—

And who is like Your nation Israel, a nation that is One upon the land …”

Samuel II, 7:22-23

Our tradition insists that we are only “One,” when we are “upon the land.” The distinctly unique nation of Israel, with its distinctive values, in service of our distinct mission, is only manifest upon this distinct land, the Land of Israel.

What could that possibly mean?

What does it tell us about our relationship to Israel?

Theoretically, why couldn’t we be who we are somewhere else?

Why did we pray and long and yearn for the land of Israel for two thousand years? Why do we need a land at all? Why this one? And why, even if the whole world were to rise up in one voice claiming that “From the river to the sea Palestine will be free,” do we insist that this land is ours, and ours alone, forever.

Nine hundred years ago, Rashi, the great biblical commentator, taught that the reason the Torah begins with the account of creation is because, “One day the nations of the world will accuse us of stealing the land of Israel,” and our collective response will be: “No!” The God who created the world with a meaning and purpose, and the God who forged the Jewish nation with the mission of being a source of light and blessing for all mankind, is also the God that gave the land of Israel to the people of Israel. So “no, we’re not thieves at all.”

Did Rashi anticipate the UN General Assembly, the ICC, and legions of Ivy Leaguers? And did he have something very important to tell us about who we are, the meaning of our land, and how to advocate amidst a world wide web of social media Jew haters?

If Rashi were being interviewed on MSNBC today, and if Rachel Maddow said: “Rabbi, our time is up and I have one last question. In a word: Are you a Zionist?” What would be his answer. More importantly, what is yours, and why?

And through you all the families of the world will be blessed.

Israel is now one great, raucous beit medrash,

in which the shofar is sounding.

Shofar of Torah

In Israel today there is a large segment of Jewish society known as Chareidim. The Chareidi sub-society is a community that holds lifelong immersion in Torah study, or as-long-as-possible immersion in Torah study, as its most sacrosanct value. It also believes that absent the Torah study within the walls of its great yeshivas and kollels, that the very soul of the nation would wither, the success of the IDF would be terribly jeopardized, and the very safety of the country compromised. It believes that the value of Torah study above all else keeps the inner heart of the nation beating, and exempts its men from army service.

This has led to a caustic debate and often hate-filled division within our great beit medrash.

This battle over the meaning of Torah is a broken-hearted shevarim blast from the shofar.

Our timeless commitment to a Torah that is the timeless heart of our nation, is now tearing our heart to pieces. And so we must look within ourselves, look one another in the eyes, and grapple with questions like—

What is the value and significance of Torah study?

What role has Torah study played in our history and survival? To what degree is it bound to our collective essence? What role did it play in our determination to one day return home to the land of Israel?

David Ben Gurion famously said that, “In Israel, in order to be a realist, one has to believe in miracles.” He was right. For the Children of Israel to flourish in the Land of Israel, a robust economy and a strong army is required, as is a vibrant spirit. In 1961, on the occasion of Israels bar mitzvah, Ben Gurion penned an essay in The Atlantic titled, The Kingdom of the Spirit. He wrote that—

“The Jewish people are not only a national and political unit. Since their first appearance on the stage of history they have been the personification of a moral will and the bearers of a historic vision… It is impossible to understand the history of the Jewish people and their struggle for existence, unless we bear in mind the unique idea which their history embodies, and the stubborn opposition, not only physical, but also spiritual, moral, and intellectual, which the Jews have always confronted.”

“The Jewish people, who after two thousand years of wandering and tribulation in every part of the globe will not abandon their historic vision and great spiritual heritage—the aspiration to combine their national redemption with universal redemption for all the peoples of the world … The roots of independence lie in the heart, in the soul, in the will of the people … The most dangerous form of bondage is the bondage of the spirit.”

“The Jewish people’s rejection of the dominance of physical force, however, does not mean the denial of the place of physical force as a means of defense, to ensure life. We should be denying Jewish history from the days of Joshua Bin-Nun until the Israel Defense Forces if we were to deny the fact that on occasion there is a need for physical force to preserve life … The faith of the Jewish people in the superiority of the spirit is bound up with their belief in the value of man. Man was created in the image of God. There could be no more profound, exalted, and far-reaching expression of the value of man than this.”

“Unlike the other ancient peoples, ours did not look backward to a legendary golden age which has gone never to return, but turned their gaze to the future, to the Latter Days … when nation will not lift up sword against nation, or learn war anymore. This expectation and faith in the future have brought us to the beginnings of our national redemption, when we can also see the first gleams of redemption for the whole of humanity.”

There is a reason the Jews are known as the people of the book.

Does the book, the Torah, not inform everything about who we are?

Could Ben Gurion possibly have penned those words had his outlook not been thoroughly shaped by the book?

And so we ask:

What isn’t clear about the value and significance of Torah study? Yet ironically, the deepest rift in our beit medrash swirls about that very value. And so the questions must be confronted:

Does this value justify two segments within Israeli society, one that by and large serves in the IDF, and one that by and large doesn’t?

If all Chareidi yeshivot and Torah study ceased for a week, would there not still be hundreds of other yeshivot, schools, and tens of thousands of people, including thousands of soldiers, engaged in daily Torah study?

Is the Torah study of any group or individual higher, holier, or more meaningful than any other?

What is its place in the Israel of today, and what might be its role in our future direction?

The world of the Chareidi beit medrash is clearly one of the make-or-break topics within the great and raucous beit medrash that is Israeli society today. Let’s pray: May this “war of Torah,” end with the emergence of deeper bonds of brotherhood, and a deeper connection to both our beloved Torah, and our beloved land.

And through you all the families of the world will be blessed.

Israel is now one great, raucous beit medrash,

in which the shofar is sounding.

Shofar of Antisemitism

Jew hatred. That’s what antisemitism is. It’s not merely another form of bigotry or racism or discrimination. It’s a primal, worldwide, cross cultural, trans-historical hatred of Jews as Jews. A hatred that always, regardless of where it raises its ugly head, sets its sights on nothing less than the genocidal elimination, or wall-to-wall conversion, of the Jews. All the Jews.

Today, the shofar of Jew hatred is deafening, perhaps nowhere more than in the United States, home of the last great Diaspora community. The mad, rageful voice of this shofar may be blasting on the streets and campuses of America, but it is fueled by events in Israel.

The wake-up call of the shofar of antisemitism has extended the soul searching of Israels beit medrash into every Jewish home in America. The question that American Jews are being forced to confront is: Is it now our turn? Where once American Jews were secure in the conviction that It can’t happen here, the question today is will it happen, what new form will it take, and when?

In 2020, ADL CEO Jonathan Greenblatt wrote a disturbing wake-up call of a book titled It Could Happen Here, and that was before the deafening shofar of Oct. 7^th upended everything. By late December 2023, A Harvard/Harris poll (consistent with many others) showed that among18-24-year-old Americans, 51% believe that Israel as a Jewish state should be destroyed, and 60% think Israel is perpetrating genocide against the Palestinians. These are the people in academia, and on American campuses and city streets, that are the up-and-coming leaders of America.

New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft recently invested $100 million dollars in creating a foundation to combat antisemitism. They recently released their Stand Up to Jewish Hate Survey measuring Allies, Unengaged, and Haters. Over the last year, Allies have declined by almost half, and Haters have almost doubled. Kraft said that, “Hate is out of control in our country. I’ve never seen anything like this in my lifetime.”

Today, Jews across America know that if the Jews of Israel are in the crosshairs of Jew haters at Columbia, Penn, and Stanford, then the Jews of America may soon be targets too. As always, those that hate Jews, hate all Jews, and now those that seek the destruction of Israel, also seek the destruction of Jews everywhere. With the recent hindsight of history, American Jews know that what Voltaire said about, “Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities,” is an apt description of the clouds gathering over synagogues and Hillel Houses, and they are increasingly fearful that yes, It Could (or Will) Happen Here.

Post Oct. 7^th Israelis are now living and breathing the air of a brutal wake-up call. Israelis now know in their bones that vexing, caustic disagreements are our Achilles heel, that we have only one true home, that every stranger on the street is a family member we haven’t met yet, and that “Only together …”

Is Diaspora America also waking up or is it doomed to cling to the hope that “this will pass,” that “things will return to normal?” Do those hopeful words sound familiar to Jewish ears everywhere?

Is Diaspora America doomed to end with Jews desperately seeking refuge from a storm?

Or might it end with a before-it’s-too-late shift in konseptziot—long held perceptions and assumptions— and with Jews storming the heavens, and the El Al website, in search refuge?

What do you think?

And you and you and you?

And through you all the families of the world will be blessed.

Israel is now one great, raucous beit medrash,

in which the shofar is sounding.

Rams Horn: Shofar of King, Shofar of War, Shofar of My Nation

Our tradition tells us that our very roots as a nation with a mission are also directly related to the shofar. The shofar sounded at Sinai, where we received the Torah and the ten commandments.

The shofar will herald the Moshiach, the dawn of a blessing-saturated time when “Nation shall not lift up sword against nation, nor will they study war anymore.”

Those two shofars share the same origin; both are rooted in the ram of Avraham, and in Avraham actualizing the potential of— And through you all the families of the world will be blessed.

A central theme of our Rosh Hashanah prayers is malchut, kingship, and for that reason, one of the meanings of the shofar is that its sounding represents the coronation, so to speak, of God as King. Regarding God as King, our tradition tells us that—

אין מלך בלא עם

“Without the nation, there is no King.”

This war has a name, Swords of Iron, though it hasn’t really caught on, and few refer to it by name. The reason for that, I believe, is that it’s the wrong name. On the surface, this war is being fought by the IDF with all sorts of weapons; iron, lithium, and otherwise. Beneath the surface, however, the Nation, Knesset Yisrael, collectively intuits that something far more profound is taking place.  We all know that the true name of this war is מלחמת העם – the Nations’ War.

For that is what it is. From that blacker than black first day until today; from the front lines to the home front, the ever-present, definitive essence of this war comes down to one word, עם – Nation.

The meaning of without the nation, there is no King is this: Think of the Nation of Israel as a vessel into which can be poured the blessing filled light of God. The larger the vessel, the more Godliness it can contain, and the more blessing it can share with the world.

Within this great and raucous post October 7th beit medrash, the Am is being reforged, and a gigantic vessel-Nation is emerging in all its glory. Despite all the horrific wall-to-wall pain that has enveloped so many of us, despite all the waves of bewilderment, and despite all the raging political turmoil, the Nation understands: No matter what, one way or another, we are here for one another. From 100’s of 1,000’s of soldiers and their families, to the millions that have selflessly volunteered in endless ways to support our soldiers, support our precious hostage families, support Nova survivors and their families, support the wives and children of men and women serving for months on end in the reserves, support and assist the tens of thousands of families displaced from their homes for a year: And on and on and on and on …

It’s true, we are a small nation with a tiny country, yet we are also one very large family.

Our Nation heard the call of the shofar, and it showed up for duty.

And through you all the families of the world will be blessed.

Israel is now one great, raucous beit medrash,

in which the shofar of our Unity is sounding.

Shofar of Return

Just over one hundred years ago, there were 60,000 Jews, less than 1% of our nation, living in the land of Israel, and then the shofar began to sound. Today, the over 7 million Jews of Israel have the privilege of being enrolled in the largest, most dynamic beit medrash in history.

Rosh Hashana begins the Ten Days of Teshuva, the Ten Days of Return. For Am Yisrael, “return” has multiple meanings; return to our homeland, return to our values, return to our shared identity as a mission forged, and mission focused nation, and return to our truest inner selves, as individual Jews, and as a collective, symphonic Nation.

I’ll conclude with a story that our tradition says took place on Rosh Hashanah.

Two thousand nine hundred years ago, a great woman lived in the town of Shunam. She was visited by the prophet Elisha and his student Gehazi. Before they departed, in thanks for her hospitality, Elisha offered to bestow a blessing upon his hostess, but she declined the offer saying, בתוך עמי אנוכי יושבת – “I dwell amidst my nation.”

Imagine it was Rosh Hashanah and you were offered a blessing from the Gaon of Vilna or the Baal Shem Tov. Would you decline? That’s precisely what the woman from Shunam did, because to her mind, she was already immersed in a vastly higher source of blessing.

בתוך עמי אנוכי יושבת – “I dwell amidst my nation.”

It’s Rosh Hashanah.

The shofar is sounding. And all the blessings in the world await us.

May this year and its curses come to an end. An END!

May a new year filled with blessings please, PLEASE! begin.

May our hostages be returned to their families, and our nation.

May the refugees return home, and their children return to their friends and schools.

May “all evil be utterly eradicated, in a puff of ashen smoke.”

And may the curtain rise on a new blessing filled era,

for all the families of the earth.

It’s up to us.

ביחד ננצח: “Through the unity of our nation, God willing, will we be victorious.”

Afterword

אחרון אחרון חביב

“We save the most precious for the end.”

Most hostage family members would do anything, and demand anything, to bring their loved one’s home. Wouldn’t you? BRING THEM HOME NOW is an undefinable scream clothed in the ragged and brutalized limitations of language.

Jews being taken hostage has happened before, but never have so many been taken at once, in such a depraved manner, and never has the entire nation had its heart riveted like this for so long. BRING THEM HOME NOW. BRING THEM HOME NOW. Four words, four agonizing cries of the shofar.

Something unprecedented is being asked of us. But what is it?

Imagine if those words, and their images, came to you in a nightmare every night for a year. A child, a grandmother, a father, languishing in dark tunnels.

BRING THEM HOME NOW!

Imagine if those words were not a scream in your night, but a whisper in your soul. An all but silent whisper; over and over and over. Within the desperate quietude of that whisper: What would you hear? What must we hear?

The shofar.