“There is a three-year-old girl named Avigail in the Gaza dungeons. Whenever I think of her, I am devastated,” says Rabbi Ammi Hirsch. “How did it come to this — this visceral rage on campus and in the streets of America that seems impenetrable to reason?” he asks. “It has been germinating for a long time — fed by extremist ideas, nourished by radical teachers, and tolerated by cowardly administrators…”
Rabbi Rena Rifkin wonders how we can be grateful for being Jewish “when we are tucking our magen David necklaces into our T-shirts, using fake last names on our uber accounts and even taking down mezuzot from our front doors…” Although we have every right to be scared, “we must fight back the fear and fight for the joy” that Judaism offers us each day.
“Many of us feel overwhelmed by the unending onslaught of terrible news and a sense of deep foreboding for what is yet to come,” says Rabbi Samantha Natov of the destruction and hatred rising up around us. But “our hope is not yet lost. It is 2,000 old… together we can choose life again and again.”
Reflecting on the massacre of over 1,400 Israelis by Hamas, Rabbi Ammi Hirsch wonders: “What culture, what mindset, what belief system produces — or condones — such brutality?” This week’s parashah describes the flood that wiped out humanity, he says. But, like Noah, “even when the world is awash in immorality, it is still possible to be righteous…”
A week after Hamas massacred more than 1,000 Israeli civilians, “we gather for Shabbat on the day that Hamas has termed ‘A Day of Rage,’” says Rabbi Ammi Hirsch. “These rally-goers are not supporting peace. They are not supporting Palestinian rights. They are supporting a Nazi philosophy of exterminating Jews.” So what can we do? “Show up,” he says. “Hold everyone accountable. Insist on moral clarity…”
At a gathering mourning the surprise attack by Hamas on Israeli civilians and expressing solidarity with Israel, Rabbi Ammi Hirsch said: “We saw in vivid reality what a pogrom looks like… Make no mistake: Israeli civilians were massacred because they were Jews. They massacred whole families. They slaughtered babies. They raped young women… and they ask why there is no peace? The days of murdering and massacring Jews with impunity are over… Israel will prevail. Am Yisrael chai!”