Rosh Hashanah Reflections on Israel and Torah

September 2, 2025 in Israel, Scroll

Larry Sidman

In our Jewish tradition, the month of Elul, preceding Rosh Hashanah, is a time for preparation for the High Holidays. We listen each day to the sound of the shofar, the call to our faith. We reflect upon our thoughts and actions during the past year. We ponder how we can improve our lot, the lives of those whom we love, and our communal life, including all Americans and global Jewry. We make resolutions to translate those aspirations into deeds. We seek renewal.

This year, that preparation is particularly difficult. The common denominator among Israeli and American Jews, regardless of whether we support or oppose the Netanyahu government’s policies, is heartbreaking sorrow and rage caused by Hamas’ barbaric invasion of Eretz Yisrael nearly two years ago during which more than 1,250 innocent civilians were massacred and 250 taken hostage, 50 of whom still are in Gaza, perhaps 20 remaining alive. Until all of the hostages are returned, we are condemned to endure searing pain. We are distraught by the continuing war’s terrible toll on Israeli family and economic life. And, yes, we are shocked and saddened by the human suffering experienced by innocent Palestinians in Gaza.

For supporters of the current government’s policies, the anguish is compounded by the need to respond to international condemnation for what they consider essential and legitimate self-defense against a reconstituted Hamas retaining genocidal intentions, and Iran and Hezbollah, though weakened but by no means destroyed, equally committed to Israel’s destruction. For opponents of the Netanyahu government’s policies, the cognitive dissonance created by the clash between those policies and what they consider core Jewish values of compassion, tolerance and human equality, makes pre-Rosh Hashanah reflections dispiriting.

American Jews must grapple with a new challenge: the dramatic surge in antisemitism in the United States and the companion increase in violent hate crimes against Jews, exemplified in horrifying fashion by the recent murders of Sarah Milgrim z”l and Yaron Laschinsky z”l, two young members of the Israeli diplomatic corps, after an American Jewish Committee event in Washington, D.C. Antisemitism had been largely dormant in the United States since the 1930s, only to ratchet up over the past decade. The rise in both reported antisemitic hate crimes and broader antisemitic incidents jumped in 2021, and have hit records in 2023 and 2024, according to statistics from the FBI and ADL. Today, antizionism, the latest manifestation of antisemitism, has permeated social media, infected mainstream media, and penetrated America’s educational system. It is being fueled by radical Islamic Jew hatred and related ideological doctrines on the far left and traditional antisemitic conspiracy theories on the far right.

Faced with these heavy burdens on our spirits, how do we seek renewal? The Torah and more broadly the Tanach, as well as the sweep of Jewish history, suggest a pathway.

A dominant theme of the Torah is the cyclical nature of the fate of the Jewish people, oscillating between great power and affluence and suffering and destruction. Our patriarchs accumulated great wealth, perceived as a threat by a new pharaoh, ultimately leading to enslavement of the Jews in Egypt. The joy of liberation from slavery was followed by 40 years of wandering in the desert. Along the way, our ancestors in the Torah enjoyed multiple victories over regional foes but suffered huge death tolls in plagues inflicted by God. The same cycle of triumph and tragedy continues throughout the Tanach in the reigns of the Judges and Kings Saul, David and Solomon and their far less worthy successors. The remarkable prophesies of Isaiah and Jeremiah speak to the period of the destruction of the First Temple and the Babylonian exile.

This cycle of remarkable success and catastrophic failure also is a recurring feature of subsequent Jewish history. Jews returned to Eretz Yisrael only 50 years following the destruction of the First Temple, liberated by Persian King Cyrus the Great, and began the construction of the Second Temple. On Hanukkah, we celebrate the Maccabees’ defeat of Antiochus Epiphanes, the king of the Seleucid Empire. Approximately 250 years later, the Romans conquered ancient Israel and destroyed the Second Temple. The important role that Jews played in the economic, cultural and scientific life of Spain is well documented and ended with the Spanish Inquisition and expulsion. We are all too familiar with the prominence of Jews in Austrian and German society in the first part of the 20th century and the Shoah that ensued.

This cycle, however, arguably leaves out the most important part of the narrative of Jewish history: we have survived for roughly 4,000 years and are actively practicing our religion today. No matter how daunting the forces arrayed against us, we have regrouped and rebuilt. We have done so through faith, resilience, reinvention and relentless courage. The most dramatic example is the reestablishment of the State of Israel in our homeland, Eretz Yisrael, only three years following the Holocaust. The same combination of character traits has marked Israel’s response to October 7. Although many of us may be critical of the current government’s Gaza policy, the ring of fire, orchestrated by Iran, that had encircled Israel and threatened its very existence before the current war, has been at least temporarily doused.

Viewing the challenges American and Israeli Jews face today through the long lens of Jewish religious thought and history instead of the instantaneous lens of the daily news cycle should give us hope. There is a compelling reason why Hatikvah, “Hope,” is the national anthem of the modern State of Israel. Strengthened by hope, may we be empowered to embark on our journeys of renewal in the new year.

Shana Tova u’Metuka B’Shalom.