“Don’t let the light go out.” Chanukah in a time of darkness.
On December 1, Association of Reform Zionists of America Executive Director Rabbi Josh Weinberg posted a blog here in which he squarely faced the challenges posed by the then- incipient new Israeli government. He urged that we still stand with Israel as we, at the same time, do everything we can to resist the dark forces which appear to be ascendant. The core of his analysis is this portion of his post:
"The newly elected ruling government coalition, which includes various incendiary characters, is sending two clear messages:
"1. The Jewishness of the State is more important than democracy;
"2. We don’t care about Diaspora and liberal Jews.
"Our response:
"1. The State of Israel cannot be a Jewish and democratic State according to both traditional Judaism and Israel’s Declaration of Independence if it forsakes the democratic to favor exclusively the Jewish. A measure of any democracy is how it protects minorities and cares about the Other.
"2. We Diaspora Jews will not give you (the newly elected government) the pleasure of winning by turning our backs on the most important project in Jewish history. We will double down in support, by showing up, by raising our voices, and by challenging those who compromise Israel’s democratic values."
I agree with Rabbi Weinberg.
I would like to offer some additional perspectives, that are particularly pertinent in the season in which we have just completed the celebration of Chanukah:
In 2018, I was very worried. In a blogpost discussing the dangers and implications of the “nation state” bill in Israel, I concluded with the lyrics of Peter Yarrow’s anthem, Light One Candle, along these final words: “I do not know from where we will be able to protect the light in the years that come. But we cannot let the light go out.”
Four years later, things are barreling toward the worst-case scenario. Aaron David Miller has been a prominent supporter of Israel for decades – and his November 29 piece in the Washington Post illustrates just how bad it has gotten:
“Having brought to life the radical, racist, misogynistic and homophobic far-right parties, Netanyahu is now stuck with them. He has cut a deal with convicted inciter of hatred and violence Itamar Ben Gvir and made him minister of national security, with far-reaching authority for the West Bank, Jerusalem and mixed Arab-Jewish cities in Israel proper. Bezalel Smotrich, who has called for the expulsion of Arabs, is in line to run the finance ministry, with additional authority over the Civil Administration, which governs the West Bank. And Avi Maoz, who proudly espouses a fierce anti-LGBTQ agenda, has been made a deputy in the prime minister’s office in charge of ‘Jewish identity.’”
See, also Thomas Friedman's Dec. 15 column in the New York Times.
It is as if here, in the United States, Donald Trump were elected president and put Stephen Miller and Marjorie Taylor Greene in charge of the fundamental policies of our government.
I will still love our country even if Trump returns to power, just as I, at a gut level, still love Israel. But my generation of the Diaspora faces the challenge of conveying this love to the next generations, given what is happening.
Aaron David Miller understandably calls for United States Government pressure on Netanyahu to convince him to change course. But is it too late? This has been building since Menachem Begin announced in 1977 that he would “create facts in Judea and Samaria.”
So what do we do now? I do not have an all-encompassing answer. The ethnic-expulsion and homophobia which is the approach the new coalition is preparing to follow (and forms of which are emanating from Mar-a-Lago now, as Trump plots his return to power) is antithetic to Reform Jewish values. How we, as the American Reform Jewish Community, respond may determine whether the Diaspora will be able to keep the light from going out.
How do we convey our Jewish values to our children and grandchildren in light of the horrors that are likely approaching? And to the extent that our children and grandchildren have absorbed the Jewish values we cherish, how do we convince them that they should continue to identify as Jews?
Here is my attempt to answer the first question: We live out our values and do not shy away from saying them out loud. Our children learn from both our words and our actions. We do this even if others in the Disparate Diaspora are discomforted by our forthrightness in stating our well-warranted fear that our cousins in Israel may be committing horrible acts in the name of “the Jewish People,” and that they may be committing moral and ultimately physical suicide.
The Prophets were unsparing in their criticism of our people’s shortcomings, and their warnings pre-saged the destruction of the Jewish States of antiquity. That lesson from the Prophets suggests that, in our day, a rejection of the idea that Jewish survival demands that we turn a blind eye, or are silent, in the face of acts of ethnic expulsion and homophobia. We must reject that idea, if for no other reason that children who seek truth also sense hypocrisy. So we must make common cause with others who are the subject of oppression and victims of the tyrant’s boot. Otherwise, our future as a Jewish People rooted in the concept of Tikkun Olam – repairing the world – will be bleak. We cannot morally survive if we just “turn our heads and pretend that we just do not see.” We cannot become those who we despise. Nor can we be silent bystanders.
It is true, as Hillel taught, that if we are not for ourselves, who will be for us? And it is equally true, as Hillel also taught, that if we are only for ourselves, what good are we? We hold fast to our religiously-based values, even as some in our community do not.
That is how we convey those values to the next generations.
My attempt to answer the second question is trickier, because it is so complex. Human beings are social animals. We live best in communities. And when those communities have rich, warm traditions – as ours does -- our progeny are attracted to them, as well, and want to be a part of those communities.
The more meaningful those communities are, the more likely succeeding generations will want to preserve them. In my own life growing up in the 1950s and ‘60s, I absorbed the stories of my immigrant ancestors whose understanding of what it meant to be Jewish made them social democratic activists in the New Land of America. These stories inspired me and made me determined to be the next chain in that part of our tradition. As a child, the tales of Jewish labor activism in the wake of episodes like the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire made me feel proud to be a link in that chain. And that pride was not shaken when I later learned that the owners of the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory also were Jewish.
In the United States, we are now engaged in painful, but needed, discussions as to the degree to which the United States, through European Americans’ extermination of indigenous peoples and the building of an economy on the backs of enslaved Africans, was (and continues to be) a “racist endeavor.” Recognizing such embarrassing elements in our history and present-day circumstances does not make people anti-American. As the American statesman Carl Schurz proclaimed a century and a half ago, “My country, right or wrong; if right, to be kept right; and if wrong, to be set right.” Those who point out a nation’s flaws in order to help it get on the right track are not enemies of that nation. Rather, they stick with their nation, their communities, to help them be the best that they can be. The same is true of our faith community.
At the season of Chanukah, let us be reminded of the value of keeping the light lit – not just because we are a tribe, but because our tribe is rooted in universal principles of justice and freedom. For all. Yes, for all.
Peter Yarrow's Light One Candle
is both an anthem and a reminder. So I
begin where I began in 2018:
Light one candle for
the Maccabee children
With thanks that their light didn't die
Light one candle for the pain they endured
When their right to exist was denied
Light one candle for the terrible sacrifice
Justice and freedom demand
But light one candle for the wisdom to know
When the peacemaker's time is at hand
Don't let the light go
out!
It's lasted for so many years!
Don't let the light go out!
Let it shine through our hope and our tears. (2)
Light one candle for
the strength that we need
To never become our own foe
And light one candle for those who are suffering
Pain we learned so long ago
Light one candle for all we believe in
That anger not tear us apart
And light one candle to find us together
With peace as the song in our hearts
Don't let the light go
out!
It's lasted for so many years!
Don't let the light go out!
Let it shine through our hope and our tears. (2)
What is the memory
that's valued so highly
That we keep it alive in that flame?
What's the commitment to those who have died
That we cry out they've not died in vain?
We have come this far always believing
That justice would somehow prevail
This is the burden, this is the promise
This is why we will not fail!
Don't let the light go
out!
Don't let the light go out!
Don't let the light go out!
Songwriters: Peter Yarrow
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