This is the sermon that I delivered on Yom Kippur morning 5785 (2024) at Am Shalom Congregation in Barrie, Ontario.
This poem is called “Birkat Shalom – Blessing of Peace” by Marcia Falk
נשאל מעין השלום
יזל כטל
יערף כמטר השלום
ותמלא הארץ שלום
כמים לים מכסים
Let us ask of the wellspring of peace:
May peace drip like dew,
And then may it flow like the rain,
And then may the world fill with peace
as the waters cover the sea.
(Falk, Marcia. The Book of Blessings (2017 edition), p. 251. Translation mine.)
As the waters cover the sea….
The midrash tells a story of a group of people who were traveling together over the sea by boat. As it often is on such a journey, resources were limited. The passengers had to share food and water and space. And it was a long trip, so people got worried about whether they’d have enough.
And so it was that one of the passengers decided to do something to make sure he’d have enough. He decided to cut a hole into the floor of his room – so that he could catch fish from the water below. He went about gathering the tools he needed – a saw, a few buckets. Some galoshes in case it got a little wet. People started to ask what he was up to… and he told them: “I’m going to cut a hole in the floor of my room so I can catch fish.”
His fellow passengers were horrified. “You can’t do that!” they cried out.
And he replied, “Sure I can. This is my space. I’m allowed to do what I want with my room. I am not cutting a hole in your part of the boat, only in mine.”
The other passengers knew, of course, that it doesn’t work that way. A hole anywhere in the hull of the boat would let water into the entire boat. So they reasoned with him; they agreed to share resources; and thankfully they were able to stop him from cutting the hole that would have sunk them all. (Based on Misod Chachamim)
Although I don’t know this for sure, I’ve suspected for a while that this Midrash may be the origin of the saying “We’re all in the same boat.”
This is, in many ways, a story about what it is to be human. As human beings, we share this world and its resources. We share the same basic needs. And we share a common destiny: What you do has an effect on me, and what I do has an effect on you. Because we’re all in the same boat.
It’s relatively easy to think about this message in these universal ways – to tell stories about it and spin parables. It’s much harder when you start to drill down to particulars. When you start to consider what it means to be in the same boat with people with whom we have major disagreements; in areas of the world where there seems to be intractable conflict. Places where it feels impossible to live together. Places, of course, like Israel and Gaza.
For a year now, Israelis and Palestinians have been mired in war and conflict. For a year, and really, for much longer. In this moment, it can be hard to imagine any kind of common destiny in that part of the world. Hard to imagine any possibility of a shared future for the people sharing that small strip of land. So much of what we see right now is violence and hatred and fear.
And yet, that doesn’t change the truth of what we know in our souls – that we’re all in the same boat. It doesn’t change the truth that this violence and this destruction are affecting all of us, making it harder and harder to live together. It doesn’t change the truth that cutting a hole in the boat we share is only going to sink us all.
So where do we go from here? What do we do after a year of terrible violence; a year in which all trust has been lost; in which despite the poet’s vision of shalom drip-dripping into an ocean, the truth is that any real vision of peace seems far, far away. How do we find hope and a way forward?
I think we start by remembering the message of this Midrash: that we need each other and we share a destiny. That we are all in the same boat together.
I think we start by trying to see each other’s humanity.
This has been an awful year in so many ways. It was 12 months ago this week that we woke up on Simchat Torah morning – a morning that is supposed to be filled with joy and celebration – to the news of what we now know as October 7. The worst terror attack in Israel’s history. And that was only the beginning of what has now stretched into more than a year of pain and suffering for Palestinians and Israelis and all of us who care about them.
This description comes from the website of Standing Together, an organization of Jewish and Palestinian citizens of Israel who stand together for peace, equality, and social justice. They write:
The months following October 7th have been one never-ending nightmare. All of us, Palestinians and Jews across Israel, Gaza, and the West Bank, have endured unprecedented violence, loss, and trauma…. Since October 7th Gaza has faced unrelenting bombardment and a catastrophic humanitarian crisis. In the Occupied West Bank, military raids and settler violence have become increasingly frequent and fatal…. Israeli communities along Israel’s northern and southern borders are still displaced… and Israeli hostages remain in captivity
Right now, Israel and Palestine are a traumatized society. No matter where they live; no matter which side of which border, Jews are traumatized; Palestinians are traumatized; and we in the diaspora are traumatized right along with them.
That’s an important truth for us to hold on these High Holy Days. It’s important for us to recognize and make space for the fact that this is not an ordinary year. That we’re feeling tired, and afraid, and embattled. And so in that sense, we need this holiday more than ever.
We need its comfort. To be together; to sing and stand shoulder to shoulder in support. We need its traditions; its rituals and prayers that bring us meaning. And we also need its admonishment. We need its call to thoughtful reflection; its reminder that we can and should be our best. We need its prescription to examine our souls.
One of the things that we know about trauma is that it can shape our behaviour. Trauma breeds fear. Fear leads us to circle the wagons, to close off options. It stops us from seeing the whole picture.
In fact, one thing that has made the situation even harder over the past year has been the discourse about it – the way we talk about it as a society. We are stuck in an endless trauma loop, where there are victims and there are aggressors and there are good guys and there are bad guys. And you’re either on my side or you’re on the other side.
It’s a black and white thinking that means that we’re not really even talking to each other. Pro-Israel and Pro-Palestinian groups shout at each other across barricades. They shut each other out; they vilify each other and boycott each other’s events. Rarely does a word of dialogue get exchanged. I hear from kids on campus who are smart, nuanced thinkers that they don’t feel comfortable in either kind of space. Even within the Jewish community, Zionist and non-Zionist Jews have declared each other to be beyond the pale: “I can’t even talk to you, because you don’t share my narrative.”
This is where we are in October 2024. If you bring up Palestinian suffering, then you’re pro-Hamas, pro-terrorism; if you mention October 7 or the hostages then you’re abetting settler colonialism. And the louder we shout, the less anybody hears.
When did our discourse become this toxic?
When did the words “pro-Israeli” and “pro-Palestinian” become mutually exclusive?
When did we all stop being able to see each other’s suffering?
The reality is, there is a clear connection between this toxic way of seeing the world and the trauma that we are all experiencing. Psychologists teach that when we undergo trauma, we experience a narrowing of what’s called the thought-action repertoire. That’s the set of choices and viewpoints that you can access in a given moment. When we feel afraid, it becomes narrowed. We literally see fewer options and fewer sides of the story. We close our minds to nuance. Which means that we’re likely to behave in ways that are less compassionate, less patient, and less rational.
That’s why, for example, the Israelites built a Golden Calf when they were afraid Moses was gone – an act that made no rational sense in the situation. It’s why loving people lash out at their family members when they feel angry or scared – because they don’t see other options. And in the context of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, it’s why people pull down posters of the hostages, because it doesn’t match their narrative. Or why I – who care about human beings of all backgrounds – can feel myself starting to shut down when I hear stories about people in Gaza suffering. Because I’m afraid your story makes mine false. Or that if my story is true, yours can’t be. My point of view becomes narrower, and I need the story to be simpler. I can’t see the humanity on both sides.
And that’s where so many of us on all sides of this thing are stuck right now – unable to see the suffering and validate the humanity of the people we perceive to be on the other side. That’s where we’re stuck.
And that’s where the High Holy Days come in. Because trying to see each other’s humanity is exactly what Judaism asks of us during this season.
There is a passage in the Talmud that teaches this lesson through the sounding of the shofar.
One of the names for Rosh Hashanah is Yom T’ruah – the day of the sounding of the shofar. (Yom Kippur is also a kind of Yom T’ruah, since we end our day with the shofar blast.)
In the Talmud, in Tractate Rosh Hashanah (33b), the rabbis have a discussion about the meaning of the shofar. They translate Yom T’ruah – the day of the sounding of the shofar – into Aramaic as “יום יבבא– a day of wailing” because the shofar sounds like wailing or crying. This, according to the Rabbis, means that the shofar is actually supposed to be a reminder to us of how much sadness and pain and suffering exist in the world. We’re supposed to hear wailing when we hear the shofar.
That’s a very powerful High Holy Day teaching – that the shofar is meant to call us to hear and alleviate suffering. To pay attention to the people in our world who are in pain, and to do what we can do to make it better.
But the passage gets even more powerful, because the Rabbis ask whose suffering, whose wailing, are we called to hear when the shofar is sounded, and they answer by quoting the book of Judges: בְּעַד֩ הַחַלּ֨וֹן נִשְׁקְפָ֧ה וַתְּיַבֵּ֛ב אֵ֥ם סִֽיסְרָ֖א – Behind the lattice, the mother of Sisera wailed (Judges 28:5).
Sisera is none other than an enemy general – a commander of a Canaanite army that the Israelites fight against in the book of Judges, and defeat – hence his mother’s wailing.
Why would the Rabbis of the Talmud call a Canaanite general to mind in this moment of the sounding of the shofar? I’m grateful to the rabbis of T’ruah (the rabbinic human rights organization) for explaining it this way:
When we hear the sound of the shofar, we are reminded to hear the weeping of bereaved mothers. It doesn’t matter if that mother is Sara [our mother] or the mother of Sisera; all weeping sounds the same. (Source)
The sound of weeping is the sound of our common humanity. It is a sound that we might rather tune out when it doesn’t match our own narrative. But our tradition begs us – begs us – to hear the weeping of the bereaved mother. Even the mother who sits on the other side of the border. Our tradition begs us to see each other’s humanity.
Now you might ask me: Why are you talking to us? Doesn’t this apply to both sides? Don’t we need others to see Jewish suffering and recognize Jewish humanity?
And the answer is yes, absolutely. This is a message that I think the entire world needs to hear. It’s so awful when people pull down posters of the hostages, because their suffering doesn’t fit the narrative of Israeli aggression. It’s so awful when people deny that Israeli women were assaulted on October 7, because that pain doesn’t fit the narrative of liberation.
I would like to tell the world to stop behaving in these ways. To listen and see our humanity. And I also know that two wrongs don’t make a right, and that I can’t control how others behave. I can only control how I behave.
And I know that it’s equally awful when we Jews close our eyes to Palestinian suffering. When we try to deny or minimize the number of children who have been killed, or look away from the scale of destruction in Gaza. This is exactly what our tradition is begging us not to do – and this is where we can make a change.
In a world where everybody is denying everybody’s humanity, all we can do is lead by example. All we can do is live by the values of our tradition, and try to change the tenor of the conversation by seeing and centering humanity.
I want the world to hear about Kfir and Ariel Bibas, who were kidnapped as babies and who, we hope, are still alive in captivity. And I want us to hear about 7 year old Nana, a resident of Gaza who has become afraid of birds because of the Israeli fighter jets that wreak destruction all around her.
I want the world to hear about Maoz Inon, an Israeli entrepreneur who lost his parents on October 7 and has spent the last year calling for an end to war and violence. And I want us to hear about Dr. Izzeldin Abuelaish, a Palestinian physician whose daughters were killed in the 2008 Gaza war, and who has lost more than 40 members of his extended family this year, who has channelled his losses into a call for freedom, dignity, and equality for all.
If we can put humanity at the centre of the story. If we can try not to be threatened by the suffering of the other, then maybe we can remember that we are all in the same boat. And if we, as a Jewish community, can begin to lead on this, then maybe – just maybe – something can finally change.
The Hasidic Rebbes taught that before you can change the world, you have to start with yourself. In fact, it is the only way to change the world.
A little while ago, I quoted from Standing Together, an organization of Jewish and Palestinian Israelis working together for a better future. I read their statement about the awfulness, the pain of the past year. This past Monday, on the anniversary of October 7, a member of the Standing Together leadership team named Jess Bricker posted a different kind of statement. A vision for what a different world could look like.
Here’s what she wrote:
I think in the future, when there is liberation and peace, people will write about how tragic it was that Jews and Palestinians took so long to understand that we have deeply shared interests. They will write about how dehumanization was more powerful than missiles and bullets. They will talk about how much life was lost because we were unable to feel each other’s pain and hold space for each other’s grief. The children of Kibbutz Be’eri and Khan Younis will share the stories they heard from the grandparents about these dark years…. They will talk about the stories they heard of brave Jewish and Palestinian activists who turned their despair into help and their pain into action. They will talk about the moment that the tide shifted…. They’ll understand that Palestinian liberation and Jewish safety were always interconnected. But mostly, they’ll be able to look each other in the eye and see each other’s pain.
Is it a pipe dream? Maybe. But I think she’s right about where it begins. With “looking each other in the eye and seeing each other’s pain.” With recognizing each other’s humanity and seeing one another’s suffering. Acknowledging each other’s claim to our shared homeland, and affirming one another’s right as human beings to live in peace and freedom. Those are the tiny drops – to paraphrase the poet – the tiny drops of peace that might someday grow into a light rain, and that eventually, we hope, can still blanket the world with shalom כמים לים מכסים – as the waters cover the sea.
So, on this Yom Kippur – on this day of reflection and atonement – may we commit ourselves to that vision. No matter how out of reach that future may seem, may we commit ourselves simply to the task of trying to see the humanity of the other. And may that be the step, the tiny step, that begins to change our world.
Amen.
Rabbi Micah Streiffer 