It has been very hard for our Jewish family to find peace in these crazy times. Attacks on our identity have escalated to the point that we hardly blink when we hear of the latest anti-Israel or anti-Jewish assault.
The moral world feels completely upside down. Good and evil have been inverted. The media is almost entirely corrupt. Academia is deeply poisoned. Politics has become a dogmatic religion, dividing people into “good guys” and “bad guys”—and somehow, we are always cast as the villains.
The greatest symbol of our collective liberalism, the United Nations, has been hijacked. It is now the stage for the unholiest alliance between religious fundamentalists and neo-Marxist ideologues—united only by their shared goal of destroying the West and Israel by extension. One does so in the name of Allah, the other for infantile utopian fantasies.
All of this is, of course, profoundly depressing. And yet, I have recently noticed a deeply positive trend—in myself and in our wider community. It shows up in the way we interact, in the depth of every engagement within our community, in our thirst for more learning and a deeper understanding of who we are and what we stand for.
Explaining how survivors of the Shoah endured unimaginable hardship, Viktor Frankl wrote: “Those who have a ‘why’ to live, can bear almost any ‘how.’”
In other words, the stronger we feel the value of life, the easier it becomes to endure hellish experiences. If Frankl could say this in relation to the Nazi death camps, surely we can draw inspiration to face our own challenges—challenges that pale in comparison.
The solution is not to remain constantly enraged—though I admit I have been prone to that. It is hard not to be. But lately, I have found myself wanting to connect more deeply with our tradition, to learn more, and to care less about the nonsense around us. I want to be inspired, and to inspire others, through the goodness and wisdom of our tradition. And I want to remember that what we face today, in one form or another, has been faced by our ancestors throughout history.
Do I fully understand it? No. I cannot comprehend how so many modern Europeans treated Jews in ways they would not even treat animals. But they did. They tapped into powerful forces—forces of profound evil. Hamas, too, draws upon such darkness in its barbarism.
Our task is to tap into something different: the rich, spiritual, and enlightened traditions of our people. Those who hate us may find depth in evil. We will find ours in wisdom, moral clarity, and spirituality.
Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur give us no shortage of inspiration. In fact, the very notion of forgiveness—which many assume is Christian—originated in Judaism. The belief that people, individually and collectively, can grow and progress is a deeply Jewish idea.
It is inspiring to recall that the foundation of our tradition—the belief in one abstract source of everything, whom we call God—freed humanity from the grip of paganism. For the pagans, there was no good or evil, only the fickle will of the gods. Those gods were not moral beings: at best, they were like benevolent mafia bosses; at worst, monstrous bullies. Usually much closer to the latter.
It was a Jewish insight that shifted humanity from that dead-end of a worldview. It did so by equating God with morality, and demanding of us to explore and deepen our moral understanding.
That, I believe, is the silver lining of our present challenges, and the path away from rage. We now have the opportunity to feel our greatest values and our Jewish identity more profoundly, more viscerally. We can constantly challenge ourselves to answer anew the question of why our spiritual lives are worth living.
May this year bring us deeper connections—with ourselves, with our loved ones, and with the extended family we call our community. And God—if You exist and are listening—please heal those infected by the spiritual virus that has festered for decades, and which has erupted into a full pandemic since October 7.
Then, perhaps, peace will come to all. Until that day, we will gather, connect, and nourish our souls, strengthening our Jewish identity and rendering the naysayers irrelevant.
Shana Tova U’Metuka!