Gaza - Parshat D’varim/Rosh Chodesh Av Drash 2025/5785

כָּל֨וּ בַדְּמָע֤וֹת עֵינַי֙ חֳמַרְמְר֣וּ מֵעַ֔י נִשְׁפַּ֤ךְ לָאָ֙רֶץ֙ כְּבֵדִ֔י עַל־שֶׁ֖בֶר בַּת־עַמִּ֑י בֵּֽעָטֵ֤ף עוֹלֵל֙ וְיוֹנֵ֔ק בִּרְחֹב֖וֹת קִרְיָֽה׃    

לְאִמֹּתָם֙ יֹֽאמְר֔וּ אַיֵּ֖ה דָּגָ֣ן וָיָ֑יִן בְּהִֽתְעַטְּפָ֤ם כֶּֽחָלָל֙ בִּרְחֹב֣וֹת עִ֔יר בְּהִשְׁתַּפֵּ֣ךְ נַפְשָׁ֔ם אֶל־חֵ֖יק אִמֹּתָֽם׃

My eyes are spent with tears,

My heart is in tumult,

My being melts away-g

Over the ruin of my poor people,-h

As babies and toddlers languish

In the squares of the city.

They keep asking their mothers,

“Where is bread and wine?”

As they languish like battle-wounded

In the squares of the town,

As their life runs out

In their mothers’ bosoms.

This is chapter 2, verses 12 and 13 of Lamentations. Also known as Eicha, this text will be read across the Jewish world in remembrance of the destruction of the second temple, in the holiday of Tisha B’av.

Eicha, the book’s Hebrew name, means “How.” As in, how did we arrive here? How are we so broken? How will we survive this?

This text holds a different kind of resonance today. For we have seen destruction on our computer screens. I can’t speak for you, but I see this humanitarian crisis play out on my screen on an almost daily basis. Indeed, my tears are spent, and there feels like there is no end in sight.

I am not here to talk about politics of a country thousands of miles away. I would be a fool to think that the Hamas or Israeli negotiators are paying attention to this young cantor’s Saturday morning Drash thousands of miles away from the negotiation table.

No, my role is more local. My role in the congregation is to listen, to say that I see you in your pain, and to do my best to reflect a bit of that pain so you don’t feel alone. I hope to do that. And I know this community is diverse.

For some of us, that pain stems from a feeling of being beset on all sides. You have been a proud supporter of Israel your entire life, and now you are experiencing a reminder of why we need a strong country to defend us. Perhaps you have been a democrat your whole life, and are now starting to question that allegiance. Boulder feels like an unhealed scar, but the news media gave up on it mere weeks after its occurrence.

For some of us, that pain stems from the feeling of being betrayed by the Jewish community. You see what seems to you clearly an atrocity of shameful proportions. You see mass starvation and you cannot fathom how the world continues as usual. How the Jewish community continues to support such a war.

The feelings are endless. Perhaps you hold a mixture of these two poles.

My role in the congregation is to see each of these pains, and to say that the Jewish community is big enough to hold them both.

In this week’s Torah portion, Devarim, Moses starts a long monologue. We begin the book of Deuteronomy and off the bat, he starts speaking, and doesn’t seem to know how to stop. The way I see it, Moses’s goal here is to create a unifying story which will carry the Israelite people into the land of Israel even if he will not join them.

But right off the bat, he is confronted with an issue. There are two tribes, Reuven and Gad, who have chosen to stay on the other side of the river from the rest of the tribes. 

Today, too, I am witnessing a growing movement of Jews who are distancing themselves from Jewish institutions. And I’m not the only one to see it. Rabbi Sandra Lawson, who runs Carolina Jews for Justice, wrote this week that, “We are losing a generation of Jewish people and it's not because they don't care about Judaism, quite the opposite. But because legacy Jewish institutions—the very ones that claim to safeguard our tradition—have lost their moral clarity.”

This is quite the indictment. But Moses didn’t turn away, and neither should we. When the tribes of Reuven and Gad chose to settle at a distance, Moses asked them to help build this nation with him, even if from the other side of the river.

There doesn’t need to be agreement for us to build a unified story together. What we need to do, instead, is to listen to each other. Listen to each other’s pain, and speak to our own pain.

There really is no Moses today. No unifying figure who can tell us our national story. We are each tasked with making sure that our tribe is included in the national story. Be included in the larger narrative. Include the person next to you. 

And if that is too hard, take a note from the book of Lamentations. Start with the word, Eicha. How. And sit with that word. If we can sit in a room together, and not try to answer that question. Just sit together in silence. Then maybe. Just maybe, will we find a way home together.

Shabbat shalom.