Oz V’Shalom
A Sermon for Yom Kippur Morning 5785
Rabbi Caryn Broitman
October 12, 2024
I would like to talk to you this morning about two important ideas in our tradition: strength and peace; oz v’shalom. In the Bible, Psalm 29 ends with the verse: H’ oz l’amo yiten; H’ yevarech et amo vashalom. “God will give strength to his people; God will bless his people with peace.” So we might ask, what is the relationship between strength and peace?
Now, there is no right answer to this question, and it is not an easy question to talk about at a time of war, because the stakes are so high, and emotions are so raw. But there are no easy topics at a time like this. Saying one thing may offend some, while not saying that same thing may offend others. It makes a person really understand why the prophet Jonah ran the other way.
But I think it is exactly at a time like this that we need to address the question, for it has been central to our history and to the unfolding present. What is the proper use of power? When do you fight and when do you negotiate? When do you respond with might and when do you show restraint? What constitutes strength? And what leads to peace?
We must address these questions with great humility. We are far away and know so little. There are no answers to these questions that are right for all times, and often no single answer for any one time. But that is why we need each other to wrestle together with them. We benefit from the hard-earned wisdom and insights of our people, who have discussed and debated these questions for millennia throughout our history. We also need the perspectives of those near and far. As the Zohar, the Jewish book of mysticism tells it—those near to catastrophe know what it is like to sit in the ruins. Those far from it can see other things because they are far.[1] So my intention this morning is not to give answers but to start a conversation around questions. And while every situation is different and we cannot look to our history and literature for text-book answers, I would like to turn to the tradition I love and to the history of our people whom I love to look for guidance, and God willing, for insight, wisdom, and hope.
What is the nature of strength, and what is the relationship between strength and peace, power and spirit? When do you fight and when do you accommodate? The Bible addresses these issues in the book of Jeremiah, who lived during the rise of the Babylonian Empire. It was a tumultuous time in history that ended with the brutally violent conquering of Jerusalem, the destruction of Solomon’s great Temple, and the forced exile of many Judeans to Babylonia. Before the destruction, when the Babylonians first came to dominance, they offered the Judean kings limited sovereignty if they would become vassals of the empire. Some Judeans wanted to make that accommodation with Nebuchadnezzar, others wanted to fight for full sovereignty and freedom. What side was Jeremiah on? In his own words: “Serve the king of Babylon and live. Otherwise, this city will become a ruin” (Jer. 27:17).
With the help of hindsight, Jeremiah was right, which is probably why his book was included in the Bible at all, because at the time, Jeremiah was not a popular guy. He conveyed a message that the kings and the officials did not want to hear. They had their own “prophets” whom they employed to tell them that everything would be fine, that they would have complete victory. Jeremiah said he wished that were true, but the real truth was that their words were “lying assurances” (Jer. 28:15). Real prophets don’t tell people what they want to hear, he said. They tell people what they need to hear.
But speaking truth to power is not easy. King Zedekiah had his own reasons to fight. He wanted to protect his own power. He was afraid he would be put in jail. His officials had the same interests. So they proclaimed against Jeremiah: “Let that man be put to death, for he disheartens the soldiers,” (Jer. 38:4). Dissent was as difficult then as now. Jeremiah was accused of being a traitor, he was imprisoned without food and water, as the book describes, “lowered into a deep pit, where he sank into the mud” (Jer. 38:6).
Having locked away dissenters, King Zedekiah went on to fight, and he lost. Jerusalem was sacked, and he and his officials along with others were exiled. The poor were allowed by the Babylonians to stay to work the land with the moderate Jewish leader, Gedaliah, who was put in charge. Gedaliah, was assassinated however, by extremist Jews loyal to the king (Jer. 40:6-41:7). To this day, Jews commemorate that assassination every year, with a fast. The fast of Gedaliah, Tzom Gedaliah, takes place on the day after Rosh Hashanah. This year the fast took place on Sunday, October 6th.
The debate about security, strength and peace continued in our history during the next time Jewish sovereignty was threatened—the First Roman-Jewish war beginning 66 CE. The Roman Empire was a brutal one, and Jews had a difficult choice about how they should respond. Those Jews who pressed for a military response gained control, and the province of Judea revolted. Unfortunately, they lost, and the results were catastrophic. Jerusalem fell and the Temple was destroyed in 70. The last hold-out, Masada, fell in 73.
Over that time, while there were those Jews who wanted to fight the Romans to the death, and there were those who favored accommodation as the best way to survive. The Rabbis who wrote the Talmud and constructed the way of life that became Judaism as we know it, were the descendants of the accommodationists. They opposed those groups who advocated for military solutions whom they called in the Talmud Kana’im (Zealots), Sikarikim (dagger men) and Baryonim (hooligans or thugs). The rabbis’ own founding story is the story of Rabban Yochanan Ben Zakai and the founding of the school of Yavneh—a story found in the Talmud which carries with it all of the complexities and challenges of Jewish survival and the use effective use of power (BT Gittin 56a).
The context of the story is that the walled city of Jerusalem is under siege by the Romans, though the Judeans have stores of wheat to that could help them survive under siege. The Jewish militants, or as the Talmud calls them, “thugs,” do not want to surrender and instead are committed to fight to the death. As the Talmud tells it, the Rabbis said to them, “Let us go out and make peace with [the Romans, but] the militants did not allow them.” [The thugs] said, “Let us go and fight a battle with them.” The Rabbis said [back] to them, “You will not be successful.” [Hence, the thugs] got up [and] burned those stores of wheat and barley and there was a famine.
The leader of the militants was the nephew of the Torah scholar Rabban Yochanan ben Zakkai, who opposed them. Rabban Yochanan sent for his nephew to come in secret. He said to him:
“How long are you going to act in this way and kill everyone through starvation?”
“What can I do?” Abba Sikra said. If I say anything they will kill me.”
“Find a way for me to sneak out of the city,” Rabban Yochanan ben Zakkai says. “Perhaps we can still save something.”
So Abba Sikra, knowing that the dead are forbidden to be buried inside the city walls, comes up with a plan. “Pretend to be sick,” he says to Rabban Yochanan,” and let everyone come ask about you. Then take something that smells bad like a dead animal and lay it down next to you in your bed secretly so everyone will think you have died and your body is starting to rot. Then let your students come and take hold of your bed and carry you out of the city.” So he did that, and Rabban Yochanan succeeded in escaping to the Roman camp where he met Vespasian.
Rabban Yochanan greets Vespasian and successfully predicts he will be king. Vespasian wants to reward him and asks what he wishes for. This is Rabban Yochanan’s chance. What will he ask for? He asks to save the lives of teachers of Torah, so he could establish a center in Yavneh where they could teach and pass on Torah to others. And that story is considered the beginning of a new Judaism, that has continued through our time.
What Rabban Yochanan asks for has been controversial for the last 2,000 years because of what he did not ask for. He does not ask for the most obvious thing, the most desperately longed for thing, and that is saving the city of Jerusalem from Roman destruction and desecration. Later critics didn’t mince words and called it traitorous. Yet the Talmud defends Rabban Yochanan. Rabban Yochanan did not request that Vespasian save Jerusalem, because Vespasian would not have granted that request, and then everything would have been lost (BT Gittin 56b). So he asked for what he thought was possible. He settled for something small, because through it something larger would emerge. Through it we would survive.
The story about Rabban Yochanan contrasts with the story of Masada, the last hold-out of the Zealots who chose, according to Josephus, to fight to the death and even kill themselves and their wives and children rather than submit to the Romans. The rabbis of the Talmud were not impressed. They had a different philosophy of survival. And that is on full display in their discussion of another historical attempt about 60 years later to fight the Roman Empire. This revolt was led by a charismatic figure believed to be the Messiah. His followers called him Bar Kochva, meaning the son of a star. The other rabbis called him Bar Koziva, son of a liar.
Rome was undoubtedly a brutal regime and military resistance was justified. But was it smart? Did strength lead to peace? Bar Kochva’s revolt against Rome which began around the year 132 C.E. briefly succeeded but was eventually crushed, leading to banishment from Jerusalem, 580,000 deaths, and the destruction of 900 villages, according to a Roman historian at the time.[2] The rabbis of the Talmud described the consequences in even more dire and graphic terms. And while the great Rabbi Akiva supported the revolt and thought that Bar Kochba was the Messiah, the consensus of the rabbis was that Bar Kochba was an untrustworthy extremist rather than a messiah. Rabbi Yohanan ben Torta said: ‘Akiba, grass will rise from your cheeks and the messiah son of David still will not have come’” (JT Taanit 4:5).
If this sounds to you like obscure ancient history, you may be surprised at how Bar Kokhva figures prominently today in one version of the Israeli national story. So much so that the bones believed to have belonged to 25 Jewish warriors of the Bar Kochva revolt, and found by archeologists in the 1960’s, were buried with full military honors in the Judean desert in May of 1982, as if they had died just the day before.[3] Prime Minister Menachem Begin and the Chief Rabbi of Israel Shlomo Goren along with other politicians were helicoptered in to a remote site near the Dead Sea to preside over the burial, evoking much criticism from more liberal Israelis for the enormous cost both financially and environmentally.
The argument among Israelis was symbolic of an emerging internal political debate about what is heroism and what is the kind of strength that leads to peace. For the right in Israel, Bar Kokhba was a hero, who could have won if the diaspora communities joined the revolt, as he had wished, gaining freedom for Jews against a brutal enemy. For Israelis on the left, such as the scholar Yehoshafat Harkabi, former head of military intelligence, “’admiring the Bar Kokhba revolt, we are forced into the straits of admiring our destruction, of cheering for a national suicide.’”[4] This view could develop, he argues, only from admiring ‘rebelliousness and heroism, detached from responsibility for their consequences….We exist thanks to the Jews of Galilee and the Diaspora who did not take part in the revolt.”
So who is a hero? The word “hero” in Hebrew, gibor, comes from the Hebrew word for strength, gevurah. The only character in the Bible for whom “hero” is attached to his name is Samson. Samson is known in Jewish tradition as Shimshon HaGibor—Samson the Hero. Samson is known for his superpower strength. And at a time of war with the Philistines, it was great to have him around. Or was it? The biblical story is far from complimentary to Samson. He was engaged in a bloody cycle of revenge with the Philistines, each outdoing the other, where everyone suffered. at the end of the story, Samson is in captivity, blinded (which carries its own symbolism), and says “Let me die with the Philistines!” He pulled with all his might the pillars of the Philistine Temple, and the temple came crashing down on the lords and on all the people in it. The bible says that “those who were slain by him as he died outnumbered those who had been slain by him when he lived.” (Judges 16:29-30).
Is Samson a hero? The early rabbis of the Mishna and Talmud, in their characteristically radical but understated way, ask “Who is a hero? Eizehu gibor? They answer, “the one who has control of his impulses.”[5]
For most of the last 2,000 years of the diaspora, the rabbis were skeptical about trusting military power to bring security and strength. There were too many examples of strategic disasters and abuses of power. The rabbis embraced a different view of strength that was reflected most clearly in their choice of the haftarah for Hanukkah from the book of Zechariah which included the verse, “not by might nor by power but by spirit” (Zech. 4:6).
This skepticism equating strength with military power was dominant until the 20th century. At that point, our people had suffered so much violence. Accommodation seemed to have run its course, and the Shoah only affirmed in the strongest way the failure of accommodation to lead to security. In a context of growing nationalisms, Zionism believed that peace and safety could only be gained by sovereignty, independence and military power, a power they believed would save lives, and, if not lives, then at least dignity, by fighting back. They lifted up those fighters the Talmud had rejected and made them heroes—the Maccabees, Masada, and Bar Kokhba, creating a new founding myth.
Yet even within the circles of Zionist leaders, the argument about strength and peace continued. In the 1930’s, while the pre-state Jewish militant group the Irgun responded to Arab terrorism with Jewish terrorism, Ben Gurion and the leaders of the Haganah, on the other hand, largely adopted a policy of restraint, called in Hebrew havlaga.[6] “This is a limitation of one’s own behavior not as being unable to respond, to pay back an attacker double in kind, but rather as choosing not to.” As Ben Gurion said, “’We have to realize that there are limits to our force, and we must also realize that we need our power—not only for resistance.’“[7] Against the Irgun’s slogan, “Only this way,” the activist leadership of the Jewish community advanced the slogan “Also this way.”[8]
The state of Israel is the first time that we Jews have had sovereignty since the Roman Empire, about 2,000 years ago. Today in Israel, there is broad disagreement about the use of power, sometimes reflective in names of organizations. On the far right, and part of the current governing coalition, is Itamar Ben-Gvir’s “Jewish Power Party,” Otzma Yehudit. On the left has been a religious peace organization called Oz V’Shalom, strength and peace. Both use the words for power or strength, but have very different understandings of them.
What is strength and what leads to peace? The powerlessness of our people in the Shoah is seared into our consciousness. At the same time, the inability of military might alone to provide security has many examples in our history. As historian David Biale wrote: “If Jewish sovereignty is to endure, Jews must find a way of navigating a middle course between dreams of boundless power and nightmares of historical powerlessness.”[9]
I understand the nightmare of powerlessness. One doesn’t have to look hard in Jewish history to be overwhelmed by it. But with more military power now than perhaps a Jewish Commonwealth or state has ever had in our entire 3,000-year history, this is also, truly, a nightmare.
The messianic promise of great military strength regardless of consequences for ourselves or for others is seductive for people that have been victims of atrocities and horrific violence for millennia. But we have to ask ourselves whether that fantasy is serving us in the way we so desperately need. Is it creating a future for us? Can we forge for ourselves a middle way? Can we commit to the strength needed to save our lives and our freedom as a nation, while still living according to the value that all life is sacred. Can we honor the might of our defenders while rejecting the suicidal vengeance of Samson? Can we continue to commit to the strength of body while also committing to the strength of spirit. Can we answer the voices that say “we have no choice, only this way” with the rejoinder that says, “also this way.”
Eizehu gibor? Who is a hero, the Rabbis of the Talmud ask. I have many heroes. In Israel, I think of young people I know who have health issues themselves yet insist on serving in the IDF because their friends are captive in the tunnels and they think only of them. I think of IDF soldiers in “Breaking the Silence,” testifying to their country at great risk, of the human rights abuses they have witnessed during their service. I think of retired and active teachers in Israel volunteering to tutor children who are internal Jewish refugees and whose homes were destroyed by Hamas or Hezbollah. I think of people on the streets marching for the release of hostages and for democracy, even as water cannons are pointed at them. I think of Jews and Palestinians who strengthen each other by working together, embracing moderation and refusing to be enemies. These are just some of the heroes for me who are working for survival, strength and peace in the last year. They have sought strength while rejecting a dangerous messianic fantasy too reminiscent of the Bar Kochva revolt of 1,900 years ago. We have waited since then for a state, and I cannot watch the destruction from the outside, as well as the self-destruction from within, without saying a word. It means too much to me.
What is the strength that we need? Martin Luther King, Jr., said: “there is nothing wrong with power if power is used correctly…. power properly understood is nothing but the ability to achieve purpose. It is the strength required to bring about social, political, and economic change….What is needed is a realization that power without love is reckless and abusive and love without power is sentimental and anemic. Power at its best is love implementing the demands of justice, and justice at its best is power correcting everything that stands against love.”[10]
Today, Israelis have far more power than the Jews who 2,000 years ago fought an impossible battle against the Roman Empire. In fact, we have an unprecedented opportunity not only to maintain sovereignty, but to build a future. That is the purpose of power. What would that look future look like? My own sense is that it needs to be a middle way that includes strength and spirit, self-determination and partnership–a way that leads to freedom and dignity for all peoples on the land—Jews and Palestinians. Do we have the strength to build that future? Ani ma’amin be’emunah shleyma– I believe with complete faith that we do. And I believe with complete faith that our Jewish future depends on it.
H’ oz le-amo yiten H’ yevarech et amo vashalom.
May God give us strength and bless us with peace.
[1] Taught by Melila Hellner, https://www.hartman.org.il/responding-to-devastation/.
[2] “For Israelis, Bar Kochba Isn’t Ancient History, NYT, Jan. 31, 1982.
[3] David Shipler, “Israel Buries Bones of Ancient Warriors,” The New York Times, May 12, 1982.
[4] Yael Zerubavel, Recovered Roots: Collective Memory and the Making of Israeli National Tradition (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1995), p. 180.
[5] Pirkei Avot 4:1.
[6] Anita Shapira, Land and Power: The Zionist Resort to Force, 1881-1948 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1992), p. 234.
[7] Shapira, Land and Power, p. 349.
[8] Shapira, p. 349.
[9] David Biale, Power and Powerlessness in Jewish History (New York: Schocken Books, 1986), p. 176.
[10] Martin Luther King, Jr., “Where Do We Go From Here,” August 16, 1967. https://kinginstitute.stanford.edu/where-do-we-go-here