I don’t remember when I first heard the saying, “If you tell a lie enough, people will believe it”. I do remember asking myself why somebody would want to do that. It didn’t make sense to me. Lying wasn’t something you strove to do and growing up, I got in more trouble for telling a lie than for what I actually did. I learned early that it was much better to just tell the truth.

As I got older, I learned about the Nazi’s and how their strategy was to tell big lies often so that people would believe it. The bigger the better.

I began to understand that you could actually shape people’s minds, beliefs, and actions, if you told a big enough lie often enough. It was a lesson that had incredibly painful consequences (the Holocaust/Shoah) and one I thought the world had learned from and wouldn’t repeat. Boy was I wrong.

Since October 7, 2023, the lies about Israel and the Jewish people have been big, constant, repeated, and far too many people now believe them. Facts don’t matter. The truth doesn’t matter. All that matters is the lie that has been told and people’s belief in it. For a while, I used to try to fight and argue with people who would say these lies. It got me nowhere other than being extremely frustrated. A few months ago, I began a new tactic.

When I see, hear, or read these lies, I simply call them out as liars. “You lie!” “Why are you lying?” “Liar!!” “This isn’t true!” Simple and powerful statements. The people who believe these lies aren’t going to listen to the long argument, the history, the truth, or the explanation. They will interrupt you with the lie again and ask if you are ok with it. If you support it. The only way to fight back is to call them out as what they are, liars.

You can’t only call them liars without knowing why what they are saying is a lie. It isn’t difficult to learn why claiming Israel is involved with “Genocide”, “Colonization”, or “Apartheid” are all lies. It is easy to debunk the claim that this is “Palestinian Land” since prior to 1967 it was Jordanian (West Bank/Judea and Samaria including Jerusalem) or Egyptian (Gaza). Prior to 1948 it was the British Mandate. Prior to the British Mandate in 1917 it was the Ottomon Empire. Prior to the Ottomon Empire in 1517 it was the Muslims. Prior to the Muslims in 638 it was the Sasanians. Prior to the Sasanian’s in 614 it was the Roman Empire. Prior to the Roman Empire in 64 BCE it was the Hasmonian Kingdom (think of the Hanukkah story and Judah Maccabee). Prior to the Hasmonians in 165 BCE it was the Greeks under Alexander the Great. Prior to the Greeks in 332 BCE it was the Babylonians. Prior to the Babylonians in 722 BCE, it was the Israelites with Judea and Samaria and before that Greater Israel. Before that it was the Canaanites that Joshua (who took over for Moses) conquered.

Simple history lesson. Facts. Never controlled by the Palestinians going back over 3,000 years to the time of Moses. Yes Arabs lived there. Bedouins lived there. Just like today when Arabs and Bedouins live in Israel.

I never like using the “God promised us the land” argument. Too many people have other beliefs and I don’t want to get into a debate about the factual accuracy of the Torah/Bible. The history of control of the land and applying the same rules to it as to every other country is enough. Those who want to treat Israel differently than the rest of the world are simply being antisemitic. When they do that, I call them out on it. Without the facts, without knowing history and the truth, we are unable to do so.

I went to the monthly Sunday minyan that I previously have written about today. One of the Rabbis there always encourage us to find one or two lines in different prayers and to focus on them, what they mean and what they mean to us. I find it a beautiful way to pray and connect with God. It is a way to take the traditional and make it personal. Today was no different.

One of the words in the prayers this morning that I fixated on was Mitzrayim. We often translate it to me Egypt, but that isn’t what it really means. It means narrow or constricted. It was applied to Egypt because that was the narrow place or constricted place for Jews. Today we have many narrow places in our world. Many of them are in our own minds. As we fight antisemitism and the libel against Israel, we are once again in a narrow or constricted place. It seems as if the world is against us. We watch what happens in Europe, what is happening all around the United States, what occurs on our college campuses, and it is easy to feel isolated. It is easy to mentally go into that narrow place. We cannot afford to this.

The lies above will be treated as the truth as long as we stay in Mitzrayim. It is when we work to leave Mitzrayim, that narrow place, that our lives improve. It is not easy but we don’t have to do it alone. The reason we tell the story of the Exodus from Egypt every year, why we recall the parting of the Red Sea every day in our prayers, is to remind us that our job is to do our part and God, Hashem, will do the rest. I’m doing some work with the IDF and as I was talking to Rabbi Atlas, who is part of the IDF Rabbinic leadership, he shared with me how all the IDF soldiers, Jewish and not, want to wear the IDF tzitzit. They want the protection that they offer. The Druze soldiers. The Muslim soldiers. The Christian soldiers. And of course all of Jewish soldiers. They understand there is a power with God that is inexplainable.

I am not a super religious person. It’s a much longer list of what I don’t do than what I do. However, the one thing that I do every single day is connect with God. I thank God for the wonderful life I get to live. I appreciate that everything I have in my life is because of God. I do my part each and every day. I rely of God to do God’s part and that never fails. This is the reminder the Rabbi told us about today in the morning service. As we pray, it’s that reminder that not only do we have our own part to do in life but God has God’s part as well. And when we do our part, God will do God’s part. Our part is the easier part too!

I don’t pray the traditional way or three times a day. I do pray every morning. I do remember that my life is what it is today only by the grace of God. The formal prayers say the same things I do, just in a different way. That’s the message I took from this morning. It is about what you are doing and why you are doing it, now how you do it. When Rabbi Ehrenkranz asks us to pick one or two lines and really pay attention to them, that’s what he is teaching us. Understand what you are doing and why you are doing it. Don’t worry that it isn’t the entire group of prayers. Don’t worry that it’s in English not Hebrew. Don’t worry that I am just a person, not a Rabbi, trying to interpret what it means to me. None of that matters, only that I am doing it. Only that I am building my relationship with God, with Hashem. It makes Judaism even more relevant to me.

As part of what he teaches us in this monthly service, he talks about the times when you put your tallis over your head during prayer. It gives you that special ‘alone time’ with God while still in a group setting with God. I have done something similar in my own prayers and meditation and I found it really interesting that what I have found to work is actually also what Judaism teaches. How I pray when my tallis is over my head is likely very different than everybody else in the room but it doesn’t matter. We are all praying together and yet, at that moment, we are also all connecting privately and personally with God. Once again, Judaism becomes more relevant as I understand not only why we do things but when it also matches with what I find personally meaningful.

I started talking about the lies people are telling about Israel and the Jewish people. About how we need to stand up and fight back against these lies. And how we need to know the facts in order to do effectively. Today, Rabbi Ehrenkranz made a comment near the end of the Amidah, the main prayer of the service, that stuck with me. We were about to sing the prayer, Sim Shalom, when he said, “It all comes down to peace. Sim Shalom. Oseh Shalom.” I thought to myself, Shalom Alecheim. Shalom Rav. How many prayers do we have that use the word Shalom, peace? It really is what everything boils down to. We want peace. We value life. Our goal isn’t to conquer anybody but rather to live freely as Jews, to worship God, study Torah, and to work on repairing the world. No matter what people who hate us say, no matter how they lie, we know our core values. I’ve had other teachers tell me that the reason the world hates the Jewish people is because we are the world’s conscience. We are the world’s Jiminy Cricket.

Or as George Steiner, a literary critic, a professor of comparative literature at Oxford and Cambridge, and one of the more original intellectuals in the contemporary cultural landscape said, “The Jew represents the uncompromising demand for universal morality, the intoxicating idea that human beings can overcome their selfish impulses.” The world doesn’t understand this. The world doesn’t like this. And the world will do whatever it takes to get rid of us because of this.

Since that’s our role, let’s play it. Let’s be Jiminy Cricket and hold the world accountable. Let’s continue to fight for universal morality. We need to speak up against these lies. We need to hold those accountable who say the lies and those who invest in Jew hatred. It takes courage but being Jewish is all about having courage. From Abraham leaving his father’s home to Isaac trusting God and his father as he is about to sacrificed. From Jacob wrestling with the Angel to Joseph explaining Pharoah’s dreams. From Moses and the burning bush, demanding Pharoah ‘let my people go’, receiving the Torah and leading the people of Israel for 40 years int he desert to David fighting Goliath. From biblical times to the creation of Zionism. From the War of Independence in 1948 to the 6 day war of 1967 to the Yom Kippur War of 1973. All the way to today and October 7th and seeing 360,000 reservists report for duty, more than the 300,000 that were recalled and far greater than the 250,000 that were expected to report.

Universal Morality. That means in everything that we do. Big or small. We tell the truth. We fight the lies. We value life and do what we can to save it. Even when they try to kill us. Even when they lie about us. No matter what. Our history shows us people who had it and those who struggled with it. It’s our goal so we try to be a little bit better each day. That’s all God asks. That’s all we can do. So lets speak out against the lies. Let’s make sure we know our own history. Let us use this universal morality to be the driving force as we are a light unto the nations.