A Prayer for This Time of War

Since the High-Holidays of this year we have been saying three prayers in our synagogue (Temple Beth Zion Brookline, Rabbi Claudia Kreiman). A prayer for the hostages, a prayer for the people of Israel and the soldiers of the IDF, and a prayer for the people of Gaza. I was recently asked to synthesize those three prayer into one, and the text below is what we have begun saying.

I know that seeing us pray for Palestinians is difficult for some American Jews, and for some friends in Israel. Still I decided to publish this in the aftermath of Yom HaZikaron and Yom HaAtzmaut as a prayer of support for the synagogue in Ra’anana whose members (including people I know personally) gathered to watch a broadcast of the joint Israeli-Palestinian memorial service, and had their synagogue attacked by a mob, glass shattered and people injured. For the Israelis carrying pictures of Palestinian babies despite the ongoing attempts by the police to prohibit that. I grew up in Israel until the age of 30, but for the past 25 years I have lived in North America, and with God’s help, the lives of my children are not under constant threat from Palestinian terrorists. I can only say what I see with the perspective of that distance, which is that human empathy cannot be shut down selectively. At this point, almost 19 months after the beginning of this round of the war on October 7th, faced with the violence of the internal Israeli discourse, acknowledging the pain of the deaths of Palestinian babies and family members is no longer “only” about peace, it is about Israeli survival.

But I do not assume to make a claim within the Israeli discourse. I am writing, in English, to the North-American Jewish community in which I live. And for our community, I offer this teaching from Rabbi Claudia Kreiman (my spouse).

Many synagogue goers are familiar with the rabbinic story about the angels singing when the waters split for the Israelites, and the Egyptian soldiers drowned in the Reed Sea. It is told, that when the ministering angels began to celebrate, the holy One rebuked them, and said: How can you sing when my creations are drowning in the sea? (Bavli Megilah 10b and elsewhere. I have presented the story as it is usually taught in our synagogues. The historical meaning of this rabbinic teaching is debated)

Rabbi Kreiman pointed out that in the story, God does not make the same demand (to stop singing) of the Israelites. She offered the possibility that this is not because the angels are more perfect beings, or less susceptible to human weaknesses. God does not ask the Israelites to refrain from celebrating the downfall of their enemies because for the people immersed in the suffering and in the risk to their lives, that may be the wrong request. But the angels live up in the sky… They obviously have deep empathy and a deep sense of connection to the Israelite people, but to them the holy One says - you were not slaves in Egypt. Your role is to hold a broader moral sensitivity which can include even the oppressors and see the suffering involved in their downfall. From a distance, it is your role to uphold the aspects of life and truth that those engulfed by the occurrences may not be able to. For their sake.

Distance creates another kind of responsibility.