5784 was a year filled with joy. We celebrated b’nei mitzvah, including three in our renovated building. We welcomed new babies. We danced at weddings. We marked anniversaries and birthdays and long-awaited retirements. We sang on rooftops–or at least I did–and laughed at  jokes. We hugged old friends and smiled at new ones. 5784 was a year filled with joy.

5784 was also a year filled with tremendous pain. We lost people we love. Thousands of civilians were killed in Israel, in Gaza, in the West Bank, and in Lebanon. Reactions to that war were voiced loudly on college campuses and in the streets and students were attacked simply for being Jews. 

Just this week Hamas has continued to keep the hostages captive for almost a year, Israeli ground troops entered Lebanon, and Iran bombed Israel. In our country and beyond people’s lives were upended by the climate crisis, including a disastrous hurricane. 

5784 was a year of both joy and pain. It was both at the same time. And here we stand on the threshold of a new year and perhaps we wonder: What do we do now?

On Rosh Hashanah, we are taught that the first step is to listen.  In the Torah, Rosh Hashanah is not about the creation of the world or the celebration of a new year. It is about taking a break from our daily lives to listen to the shofar. In Numbers 29:1 we read 

וּבַחֹ֨דֶשׁ הַשְּׁבִיעִ֜י בְּאֶחָ֣ד לַחֹ֗דֶשׁ מִֽקְרָא־קֹ֙דֶשׁ֙ יִהְיֶ֣ה לָכֶ֔ם כׇּל־מְלֶ֥אכֶת עֲבֹדָ֖ה לֹ֣א תַעֲשׂ֑וּ י֥וֹם תְּרוּעָ֖ה יִהְיֶ֥ה לָכֶֽם׃

“In the seventh month, on the first day of the month, you shall observe a sacred occasion: you shall not work at your occupations. You shall observe it as a day when the horn is sounded.” Rosh Hashanah is about listening to the cries of the shofar. And they are cries. In fact, in the Talmud there is a suggestion that the cries of the shofar are specifically the cries of the mother of an enemy. In the book of Judges, Deborah the judge sings a song after the Israelites’ victory over the army of their enemy Sisera. Sisera has been killed by Yael and Deborah lauds Yael’s courage and cunning. However Deborah also imagines the cries of Sisera’s mother awaiting the return of a son who will never come.  In Judges 5, Deborah sings, “through the window peered Sisera’s mother, Behind the lattice she wailed: “Why is his chariot so long in coming? Why so late the clatter of his wheels?”

In the Talmud, the word tru’ah, used to describe the sound of the shofar, is translated in Aramaic as yevava.  And to define a yevava, the Gemara quotes the verse that is written about the mother of Sisera: “Through the window she looked forth and [vateyabev] wailed, the mother of Sisera” (Judges 5:28). One Sage holds that this means moanings, broken sighs, as in the blasts called shevarim. And one Sage, holds that it means whimpers, as in the short blasts called teruot. 

Perhaps when we hear the shofar we are listening to the moanings, the whimpers, of a mother in pain.  

Our Torah portion this morning includes the story of God listening. Hagar and Ishmael have been sent into the wilderness at Sarah’s insistence. Hagar is afraid that Ishmael is about to die and starts to cry. But then in Genesis 21:17, “וַיִּשְׁמַ֣ע אֱלֹהִים֮ אֶת־ק֣וֹל הַנַּ֒עַר֒,” God heard the voice of the boy. Perhaps we should not be surprised that God listened to Ishmael. After all, Ishmael’s name is the one God assigned to him in Genesis 16, Yishma-el, God will hear. God listens to Ishmael’s cry and assures Hagar that Ishmael will not die. God helps Hagar to see a well of water and they live.

There is another midrashic tradition that the cries of the shofar are the cries of Sarah upon hearing about the binding of her son Isaac, our Torah portion for tomorrow. Can we hear these mothers’ cries? The cries of Sisera’s mother peering through the window, and Hagar in the wilderness, and Sarah terrified for her son? Can we, like God, hear Ishmael’s cry?  

Sadly this year we have heard the modern cries of parents scared for, or mourning their children. Far too many parents have cried this past year. 

Perhaps we have cried ourselves.  We have cried ourselves, perhaps wordlessly like the shofar. And in our own pain and silence, perhaps we have shut out the voices of others. Because there is another kind of listening we need to do. There is a war in the Middle East, and there is conflict within the Jewish community about how to talk about the war in the Middle East. In addition to the suffering and lives lost on the other side of the world, the American Jewish community has been filled with animosity and division, often across generational lines, about what is occurring in the Middle East and what should be done about it. 

If we listen carefully, we discover there are elements of truth in these various perspectives. It is possible for there to be nuance in this conversation and it is critical to our community and to our own understanding. 

Emanuel Levinas, a 20th century Jewish philosopher, taught that it requires a multiplicity of persons to reach the whole truth. We each reveal a unique aspect of truth and so the totality of truth can only be achieved through listening to many people.

We need each other. And so I invite you to listen to one another.  To listen without wrong-spotting–without waiting for the one thing with which you disagree so you can pounce on that and discount anything else that has been said. Please listen for points of agreement instead. Or we can allow ourselves to sit with the discomfort of being unsure. 

I will start by asking you to listen to me. There is no doubt in my mind that no matter what I say it will upset some of you. Please listen for where we agree, not where we disagree. I believe in Israel’s right to exist as a Jewish state and to defend herself. I believe that what happened on October 7 was horrific and perpetrated by a terrorist organization that needs to be defeated. I have spent about two years of my life in Israel and love being there. I have colleagues and friends there, some of whom have lost loved ones, been uprooted from their homes, or called to serve. I want Israel to survive and thrive. 

I also believe that the loss of life of civilians in Gaza and the West Bank and Lebanon is horrific and as Jews we should be horrified. We are a people that prays for peace multiple times a day in our liturgy, we believe in the infinite value of a single life, we hold that if given the choice, it is better to die than to murder. I understand that in a war people die. I understand that Hamas is responsible for placing civilians in harm’s way. I understand that Israel sends messages for civilians to evacuate in order to reduce civilian casualties. I also believe that the Netanyahu government is not prioritizing saving innocent lives and I believe that it should. I believe the Netanyahu government is not working toward a sustainable future for Israel and I believe it should. Netanyahu has not articulated a plan other than war, war, and more war. I can love Israel and not love the politics and policies of Israel’s government.

It can be true that there needs to be a response to the brutalities of Oct 7 and that the response must be decisive. It can also be true that far too many innocent civilians have died. As I have said before, it is possible for Israel to be vulnerable and powerful at the same time. How we wield that power matters.

I also believe that the relationship between Israelis and Palestinians does not need to be a zero sum game. It can be true that Palestinians have a right to self-determination. It can also be true that a Palestinian state from the river to the sea is impossible. There are now close to 8 million Jews living in Israel. As Michael Koplow from the Israel Policy Forum put it,  “People who think there can be Palestinian liberation without the state of Israel aren't living in reality…you can’t slogan [Israel] out of existence. There’s a huge power imbalance in Israel’s favor. Neither side will benefit if the other side doesn’t benefit.” 

We also need to listen to those with whom we disagree. I am not talking about unrepentant antisemites. I am talking about people who believe that there should be a ceasefire now and people who believe that Israel should keep fighting, no matter the cost, until Hamas and Hezbollah have  been rendered powerless. I know having these conversations can be difficult, but we must not be afraid to talk to each other. Rather than writing each other off, let us give each other the benefit of the doubt.

People who prioritize the return of the hostages tell stories like that of Sharon Sharabi, whose brother Yossi was killed by Hamas while in captivity and whose other brother Eli remains a hostage. Sharon’s family has already buried Eli’s wife and two daughters. As Sharon put it, “My life’s mission is to bring Eli back alive, and I don’t know how he’ll be able to live when he finds out he has no family. How do you help someone recover from something like that? But the chance that my mother will embrace him–I feel like I owe that to her. I'm doing everything, moving mountains, to make that dream come true. It’s a personal dream, but also a national one.”

People who believe Israel must have a ceasefire in Gaza will remind us that just two days ago, Israeli military strikes killed at least 60 Palestinians overnight, including in a school sheltering displaced families. Or that a Palestinian poet, Reem Ghanayem, asked 18 Gazan writers to write a last will and testament for a collection to be published. As he put it, “Through the book, I wanted to compile from the wails, the mourning and the crying out, the voices of those who were capable of documenting their last moments.” 

One author, Gazan Noor Aldeen Hajjaj wrote “I am not a number and I do not consent to my death being passing news. Say, too, that I love life, happiness, freedom, children’s laughter, the sea, coffee, writing, Fairouz, everything that is joyful–though these things will all disappear in the space of a moment.” He wrote that a month before he was killed on December 3, 2023, at the age of 27.

Michael Oren, formerly Israel’s ambassador to the United States, Knesset Member and Deputy Minister for Diplomacy in the Prime Minister’s Office, believes strongly that Israel must prove that after the Hamas attacks on October 7 and nearly a year of fighting in Gaza, Israel’s deterrence power can still be restored. “Accomplishing that, though,” he says “will require Israel to continue the fight and resist international, and especially US, calls for a ceasefire.”

These are all voices to be heard, whether or not we agree. And although they may make us sad, I still believe we can live in the uncertainty of hope. Not knowing what will happen allows for the possibility of a better outcome than we imagine. I return to the story of Hagar and Ishmael. Hagar assumed Ishmael was going to die. When God helped her to see the well, had it been there all along? What if there are good outcomes we just cannot yet see?

The conflicts of this past year will probably not resolve overnight. Unfortunately 5785 will be a year in which we will experience pain–both in the anniversaries of loss and in new heartbreak, in dreams unfulfilled and justice delayed. But it will also be a year in which we experience joy. New babies will be born, some dreams will come true, and maybe, just maybe, the war in the Middle East will end. I wish you a year of more joy than pain. And may the one who makes peace in the heavens, make peace for us, for all of Israel, and for all who dwell on Earth. V’imru Amen.