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Yom Kippur: A Bombarded Metula Vows
In 1886, my great-grandmother’s grandfather, Yisrael Lishansky, arrived in Israel out of a deep Jewish love and connection to the land of the Jewish people. He and his children settled down and helped different towns and villages from Petach Tikva, to Yavne’el, Zichron Yaakov, and also the northern town of Metula. The town of Metula, built in 1896, is one that you likely would not hear about. It is a small town on Israel’s northern border, with fewer than 2200 residents. My family, the Lishansky family, planted its roots in the city and farmed its land, and my cousin Motaleh still drives his tractor on the fertile ground outside the city. As a child I remember going ice skating in this city, which holds Israel’s largest skating rink and ice hockey team, and visiting our cousin, Yossi Goldberg, who served as the mayor of this beautiful city.
I remember visiting my cousin’s hotel, the Lishansky hotel. There, standing on the street, you could easily walk to the Israeli-Lebanese border. In fact, the very reason Israel’s map looks like it does, with a finger extending north, is because of the farmers of Metula, and the British and French negotiating that border in the early 1920s, deciding to leave those Jewish farmlands inside the future Jewish state of Israel.
And yet, this year, even as we speak, there is no one–not even my cousins who lived there for more than 120 years–is living in Metula. The daily Hezbollah rockets and missiles took down Metula’s houses one after the other and forced its residents to leave.
For more than a year, my cousin and his family have been internally displaced inside Israel. They see images of their city, a beautiful pastoral city in ruins, and wonder what future there can possibly be for them. How it is that they will ever return to their homes? If they do, what homes and businesses are awaiting them after all.
Yet, despite the hardships, the people of Metula do not lose hope. They draw on more than 120 years of resiliency. Part and parcel of who they are is the grave and story of Joseph Trumpeldor and the heroes of Tel Chai. Another local town, Tel Chai, sits less than 5 miles away from them. There, Jewish farmers, led by Joseph Trumpeldor, led the first Jewish armed defense in modern history. The farm of Tel-Chai was surrounded. After sustaining a terrible loss to an onslaught that came their way in which Joseph Trumpeldor was killed with the words: “it is better to die for our own land” as his last words, the defenders of Tel-Chai retreated to nearby Kfar Giladi. A few days later, they returned to Tel Chai. Where the heroes of Tel-Chai were buried there is a lion-shaped monument roaring, reminding everyone passing by of the heroism of its defenders. They vowed to return, and return they did.
On Yom Kippur, we engage in Hatarat Nedarim, the annulling of vows, because we recognize there are aspects of our lives we must atone for. There are mistakes we have made, wrong decisions we have acted on, bad habits we acquired, and unthoughtful ways we have taken. “Did we really have to do that? Could have I not done better?” we ask ourselves. Yom Kippur is a day of regrets. We tap ourselves on the chest with Al Chet and Ashamnu, nitpicking every possible thing we might have done wrong. Did we keep Shabbat the way we could have? Did we study and teach Torah to the best of our ability? On Yom Kippur, we confess to every possible sin, doing something very Jewish and at times, even confessing to sins we have never committed. It is a day that might seem filled with regret and remorse.
Yet when speaking of the laws of Teshuva, Maimonides speaks of another kind of Teshuva, a Teshuva of resolve, a Teshuva of creation. “Keitzad Hi Hateshuva Hagemura” It is the Teshuva about which the Talmud says that not only are past sins forgiven, but they are converted into merits. It is the Teshuva Maimonides uniquely described as a Teshuva which God Almighty Himself can look straight into our hearts and testify we will never go back to that again. Yom Kippur is a day of regrets, but it is also a day of resolve. It is a day we decide the future will be different. Yes, two parts of Teshuva are abandoning the sin, and and repenting for it. Yet another equally important component is a Kabbala La’atid, a resolve for the future.
In 1943, as news of the horrors of the Holocaust came to Israel and became a well-known matter, Israeli poet Avraham Shlonsky, wrote a poem structured like the Kol Nidre we read tonight.
In the presence of eyes which witnessed the loss,
And piled on cries on my broken heart.
With the permission of my mercy, which compelled me to forget,
I have made a vow to remember it all. To remember and never foget.
To forget nothing until ten generations later,
Until the perpetrators pass from the world.
I forbid if for nothing this night of anger goes by,
And if I return to my mistakes,
And learn noning this time too.”
On the night of Kol Nidre and Yom Kippur, we learn the power of regret and remorse. We also learn the power of resolve. If standing here with everyone dressed in white and the Torah scrolls at the Bimah is what it takes to undo an accidental vow we may not have even noticed, just imagine what the power of the vow kept in place is. A neder, a vow is an expression of human resolve, but we don’t need to use the wording of a vow or the technical entanglements of the laws of nedarim to resolve. Without making a neder or anything like it, we can resolve in a way that even God Almighty can look directly into our hearts and testify that we have been transformed.
As the Jewish people face challenges like many of us have not seen in our lifetime, it is easy to look around and feel overwhelmed. Like the people of Metula looking at their ravaged town, like the defenders of Tel-Chai looking at a fallen Trumpledor, we may be wondering where this is all headed. And yet, as the people of Metula know that it is the courage of their small town that has shaped the map of Israel and given Israel a great part of its north, like the defenders of Tel-Chai in 1920 coming to realize they are the first Jews in modern history to bear arms in defense of the land of Israel, it is upon us to realize, history is calling on us, and yes, we can lead the way into a much better future. The kind of Teshuva we have seen discussed in American Jewish life in the past, is not the kind of Teshuva this year calls for. It is not just about asking for this sin, or that shortcoming to be expunged, it is not just about undoing mistaken vows, but it is about the Teshuva of creation and resilience. It is about the Teshuva of “ad sh’yaid alav.” God Almighty Himself can look into our hearts and know that things are going to change.
I will not stand on Kol Nidre night and ask anyone to make a vow, for Kol Nidre teaches us how serious a vow can be and how difficult dealing with its fulfillment can be. I would encourage everyone to take the creative path of Teshuva described by Maimonides, one that is creative, forward thinking, and commiting to do everything to make sure the future is far far better than the present.
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