There is often a debate about whether being Jewish is a religion or a people. My friend, Avraham Infeld, has publicly spoken about this. He says, “We are a family, a people, with a common religion.” It’s the best description I have heard.
Rabbi Harold Kushner (z’l) has written about this as well. In his book, To Life, he asks, “What do you have to believe to be Jewish?”. The answer, is nothing. You don’t have to believe in God. You don’t have to believe in the Torah. In fact, you don’t have to do anything to be Jewish. You are Jewish if your mother is Jewish. That’s it. Many people in today’s world will say you are Jewish if either parent is Jewish. That is the proof that we are a people, a family, a mishpacha, that share a common religion.
This gets proven all the time with Jewish geography. In the Jewish world, it isn’t the 6 degrees of Kevin Bacon. Usually it is 2-3 degrees of connection. Hersh Goldberg-Polin (z’l) is a great example of this. I didn’t know him or his family. Yet I have friends who knew him at Camp Ramah Darom. 2 degrees of separation. The picture below is from a fraternity brother of mine who’s son was friends with Hersh. Another 2 degrees of separation.
You may have seen the memes and comments about family in Israel.
I told someone I was traveling to Israel.
He asked, “do you have family there?”
“Yes I do. 8 million brothers and sisters.”
That’s who we are. Brothers and sisters. Family. Mishpacha.
As I think about family, I think about the hostages. There remain 101 of them in captivity and we don’t know how many of them are still alive. At Passover Seder, I set up chairs and put pictures of the Bibas family on the chairs so they could be at our Seder in spirit. After Seder, I couldn’t take them off the chairs so they remained there for a few months.
Mia Schem inspired me with her words, “We will dance again” and I got the same tattoo she did on my forearm. It inspires me to work hard every day to build a better future. To never forget the hostages that remain or the horrific violence that occurred on October 7th, I’ll never forget the look on Rami Davidian’s face as he talked about the morning of October 8th, when he went back to the Nova site to help clean up and provide dignity to those murdered. He looked at the trees right near us as he told us of the women tied to them that he had to cut down, cover them, give them some final dignity, and say the Shema for them. Unsaid was the condition of their bodies and the obvious rapes that had occurred. The tears in his eyes said more than his words ever could.
When Rachel Goldberg-Polin described the condition of her son Hersh’s (z’l) body, I cringed. Not just at the weight loss, the loss of part of his arm, and the obvious torture he had endured, but also how he was murdered. These aren’t the acts of freedom fighters or resistance. These are the acts of barbarians. As I listened to John Spencer, the pre-eminent expert on Urban warfare, talk about what he saw and how it doesn’t compare to any other barbarism he has seen throughout his career in studying warfare, it really hit home. People don’t want to believe other people can be this inhuman. People don’t want to believe this type of evil exists So they make excuses. They create lies to protect themselves from seeing that the evil exists.
The quote from Mia Schem below is powerful. “Each with her own horrific abduction story.” Yet the women’s rights groups couldn’t speak out. The ‘believe all women’ organizations denied that sexual violence occurred. The celebrities who spoke out in defense of every other group that faced sexual violence stayed silent. There was no ‘bring back our girls’ from Michelle Obama, Angelina Jolie, Pope Francis, Kim Kardashian, Ellen DeGeneres, Hillary Clinton, Anne Hathaway, Alicia Keys, Cara Delevingne, Jessica Alba, Khloé Kardashian, Sophia Bush, or Amy Poehler, who all spoke out when 276 girls from a school in Chibok, Nigeria were kidnapped by the Islamist militia group Boko Haram in 2014. Jewish women didn’t count.
Talking about Jewish women, my friend Yocheved Ruttenberg recently was announced as the Z3 Bridge Builder award winner. What did she do that won her the award? On October 8th, with her older brother serving in the IDF as a lone soldier, she realized that she could not stay in the United States in her Dallas construction sales position. This then 23 year old spent a week raising $17,000 to buy things for her brothers unit, booked a ticket to Israel, and began her journey. A month into her 2 week trip to Israel, she met another young woman and together they created the Sword of Iron Facebook group, creating a place for those wanting to come to Israel and volunteer to meet each other, learn where they could volunteer, and build a community. Today, almost a year later, the group has nearly 40,000 members. Yocheved is a star. The number of people excited to see her in Israel, who want to take a selfie, who thank her for creating this community which enables them to make a difference, is immense. People come back time after time to volunteer, using the Sword of Iron group to figure out where to stay that is affordable, where to volunteer, who else is going to be there, and how to connect to their community. Thanks to Yocheved, there is no ‘lone volunteer’. Everybody, Jewish or not, is part of a community.
Yocheved was 23 when she started Swords of Iron. She turned her passion into something that has changed the lives of more than the 40,000 members of the Facebook group. Every time somebody comes to Israel and volunteers, she is changing not only their lives but the lives of those who benefit from the volunteer work. She is changing the lives of the volunteers’ friends wherever they live, who hear that their friends are coming to Israel to volunteer, see the pictures, and hear from them upon their return.
If Yocheved can do it, what is your excuse for not following your heart and your dream to change the world? Yocheved isn’t done. There is far more she is planning. Let her be your inspiration to do something.
Doing something is what Dror Israel (Dror) is all about. After October 7th, they were first responders when it comes to the needs of children and families. They created pop-up schools at the Dead Sea for families that had been displaced. They created schools all over the country as people were displaced from the south and the north. They had afterschool programs, youth groups, and brought in counselors to help those dealing with stress and PTSD.
In September I had the opportunity to visit Dror while in Israel. Seeing their work in person was powerful. Hearing the impact directly from the children in school was incredible. Seeing the inpact of the youth movement in an Arab village was inspiring. Watching both the excitement learning and the gratitude the students had for Dror and their educators was impactful. In the middle of an ongoing war that is over a year long, with rockets being launched at them daily and sirens going off multiple times a day, the resilience of the children and the Dror educators was inspiring.
As the war continues into its second year, Dror educators continue to innovate. In order to help children deal with the stress and challenges just being children, they began restorative 3 day trips for them to Mitzpe Ramon where they can act like children without the rockets and sirens. They can play outside, sleep without worrying about having to go to the safe room in the middle of the night, and experience joy. As Dror began these trips, they quickly learned that the entire family had a need to participate. So as Dror does, they pivoted and innovated even more. Last week, 100 children and parents from the Nitzanim elementary school in Carmiel embarked on a three-day retreat in Mitzpe Ramon. “It was such great fun, far from the noise of the war. We had a chance to connect with other families from the school and our neighborhood—just what we all needed,” said Irena, mother of Michael and Vasily, both students at the school.
Israel is known as the start up nation but it is more than just technology. Israel innovates in so many different ways including education and how they value human life. This is seen through the work of Dror Israel, who is dedicated to supporting these children until they can safely return to their homes and to helping them rebuild their communities and restore a sense of trust, resilience, and hope. Imagine if we had that in the United States.
Earlier I wrote about how we are a family with a common religion. The great thing about being a family is that we have traditions. Many of them are based on our common religion such as the Passover Seder, shaking the lulov and etrog on Sukkot, and putting on tefillin. One of my favorites is something that I just learned and began this summer.
The prayer Acheinu is not an ancient one. It tracks back to the 9th century, 800 years after the destruction of the second Temple. The song “Acheinu” however, was only written in 1990. I sing it every day for the hostages. It’s short, simple, and easy to learn. It’s something tangible that I can do while I lie in bed, am in the shower, or sitting at my desk. I have the words on my phone and I get them in an email every day as well. As Jews, we have these type of regular things to remind us. As I said before, Tefillin is one (and I must admit that while I occassionaly put them on, I don’t do it regularly). Tefillin takes a few minutes and is a physical reminder. Singing Acheinu is a spiritual reminder that takes a minute or two with practice.
As Jews, we can find what are the things that resonate for us. What keeps us grounded? What connects us to God? What do we do to stay grounded, connected to God, connected to the world and to humanity. I pray and meditate every morning and have for more than three decades. For the past 5 months, I also sing Acheinu. It’s the one thing that I do daily that I look forward to NOT doing any longer. When the hostages are released, the need for me to sing Acheinu will be removed. Every day when I sing it, it has meaning. And every day that I sing it, I hope it is the last day that I will have to do so.
It’s 395 days today. 395 days of captivity. 395 days of terror and abuse. 395 days that American hostages have been ignored by our government. 395 days that the world has tried to excuse their being kidnapped and abused. We will not forget. We will not rest until they are returned. We will not stop until Hamas and Hezbollah are removed from power, until the threat that is Iran is no longer a threat.
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