What we have learnt [on Parashat Vayeira]

Jewish tradition marks the first month after a loss with a special ceremony — the Shloshim. After the Shloshim, one begins to return to the usual habits. One is still an avel, a mourner, but gradually returns to life as it was before the loss. One is allowed to join simchas, for example.

Of course, life will not be the same. Jewish tradition teaches us to resume life with graduality, one thing at a time, to give ourselves time and mental space to come to terms with the loss.

But how can we come to terms with the tragedy that befell the Jewish people one month ago, the pogrom, the massacre for which we observe shloshim today?

One way which I suggest today is to pause, take stock, and look at what we have learned during the last month in the aftermath of the largest massacre of Jews ever happened since WWI.

So, what have we learned during the last month?

We have learnt that we have ferocious enemies. People tear down the posters with the portraits and the names of the hostages. They film the enterprise and post it on social media. Where other haters have fun and mock our pain, our anguish. Not only do they cheer terrorists who kill children and rape young women. In a perverse variation, they do not tear down the posters. They deface them with the usual “Palestine Free” or “From the river to the sea”. Whatever way they choose, the message is the same: they shut us up when we cry. They laugh at us when we ask for help.

We have learnt that there are people who believe that the October 7 pogrom was “beautiful”, “exhilarating”, “energising”, or “an act of liberation”. They would love to see another one very soon. They shout out loud these atrocities in front of cheering crowds of hundreds of people who celebrate their hate for the Jewish people, for us.

Tomorrow, the “Palestinian Solidarity Campaign” will hold a rally in Hove with plenty of Palestinian flags and similar paraphernalia. And where will they meet? In Palmeira Square, at a stone’s throw, not from one, not from two, but from three synagogues, ours included.

Make no mistake, their intention is to intimidate, not the Israeli Army, which, as far as I know, is not stationed in Hove. They only want to frighten the Jews. They don’t care about the Palestinians; everybody knows that the Brighton City Council can’t intervene in international politics. They meet in Palmeira Square to intimidate the Jews, to bully us.

But over the last month, we have also discovered that we have friends. We are not alone. We have found flowers on the doorstep of our synagogue.

We have received countless phone calls expressing support. People we don’t know check in regularly to ask how we are doing, to ask about our family and friends, to show their support for the Jewish people, for us.

This is so precious. Don’t take it for granted. In 1948, because of the Israeli War of Independence, there were pogrom in this Country. When this synagogue was founded, our stained glass windows were broken. And now? Look, English people do not throw stones at us anymore. They bring flowers. Now, the average English person understands the need for a Jewish State. They are on our side. They empathise with us. They want us to know that we are not alone.

We have more friends and allies now than ever before.

Last Sunday at the vigil, we heard the powerful speech of an Iranian refugee. That is a community that is on our side, on the side of the Jews, on the side of Israel. The incredible, brave Iranian opposition. In this very moment, young Iranian women, those who challenge the Muslim theocracy uncovering their heads at the risk of their lives, refuse to step on the Israeli flag -as the morality police command them to do.

At football matches, defiantly, the crowd shout, “Long life, Israel. We are fed up with the mullahs.” They are so many that the police cannot prosecute them anymore. They know the horrors of a Muslim theocracy, of the insane and murderous ideology of Hamas. They proudly support Israel. They expect Israel to continue the fight till the defeat of Hamas. Barak Obama has betrayed them, and they hope -more, they are sure- that Israel will not.

Something else we have learnt in the past four weeks. And this is painful.

Among our people, in our community, even in this city, there are Jews who hate Israel. Jews who even now refuse to pray for the victory of the Israeli Army. Even when Israel is under attack, and Israeli children have been kidnapped and murdered (one was literally put in the oven), even now… they babble their nonsense about apartheid.

They claim that Palestinians live under an apartheid regime. And the implication is that Israel is founded on apartheid. That Israel does not deserve to exist. Hence, Hamas has some reasons. What’s the line? “It did not happen in a vacuum.”

Isn’t it extraordinary? In front of Jewish corpses, everybody becomes a historian, an economist, an anthropologist, an expert in diplomatic negotiations and international politics. Everybody is ready to explain why Jews are slaughtered. Dead Palestinians, on the other hand, cause only rage and fury (against the Jews). Aren’t we lucky? There are always plenty of experts to explain why we are murdered.

There are, in this city, Jews who state publicly that Hamas has some reason on its side. They perhaps pay lip service to the duty of liberation of hostages -because they long to see Palestinian terrorists released from the Israeli prisons- and then sanctimoniously continue to ask for a ceasefire, pretending to pray for peace (yes, the same kind of peace the members of Hamas prays for). They refuse to call Hamas a terrorist organisation, they babble about genocide, and they draw obscene equivalences between Hamas and Israel.

I am all in favour of freedom of speech. But while hundreds of Jews are in the hands of a terrorist organisation that forbids the Red Cross to visit them, I would expect a little bit of decency.

Anyway, this also we have learnt. There are Jews who want the world to know how ferociously they hate Israel. Even now.

But other things we have learnt. We have seen the Israelis setting apart their divisions literally in one day. On October 6, 2023, the day before the beasts of Hamas launched their war, Israel was a very divided society.

Every weeks hundreds of thousands of Israelis were taking to the streets to protest against the Government. The society was fractured. Sephardi against Ashkenazi. Ultra-secular, hilonim against religious, datiim. Middle class against the working class. Russians against haredim. The populistic reforms authored by the Netanyahu Government had produced divisions and exacerbated tensions. Remember how worried we all were?

Of course, the enemies of Israel were happy to exploit these ideological divisions. They looked at the Israeli expats and triumphantly announced that the Jewish State was such a terrible place, because apartheid was so blatant. They were used to point out how many young Israelis have chosen to move permanently, of all places, to Berlin. “Zionism is over!” they were smirking. Because Israel was not “ethic” (whatever it means) but, oh the horror! “ethnic”. Populated by too many Jews.

Guess what? Hundreds of thousands of Israeli expats have rushed to defend their Country. There are so many that El Al has to schedule flights on Shabbat to bring them home. To that Country, you want them to call it horrible.

We have seen those who were fighting in the streets against the Israeli Government enrolling en masse to defend the Jewish State.

We see teenagers wearing military uniforms while still carrying on their wrists the bracelet worn at a rave party — yes, that rave party. There are thousands of haredi, who were anti-Zionists, who every day bring pizzas to the Zionist soldiers.

There are Arab soldiers and Druse officials, the jewels in the crown of the Israeli Army, who proudly and bravely embrace their weapons and smile from the photos and say to us: “Don’t worry, you in the Diaspora, the Jewish State is here to stay”. True heroes.

This unity, the yachdut of the Israeli and Diaspora with Israel, is genuinely inspiring. We hear stories of religious Jews who protect the secular. Stories of avowed atheists who turn to prayer. These are rays of light in these dark times.

They have discovered how vast and intense this thing called Judaism is that keeps us together. And by looking at them, we have discovered it too. They feel, we feel, how strong our Jewishness is, much more vigorous than any ideological divisions. They see it. We see it.

On the topic of seeing, think of this week’s Torah portion. Vayera. It literally means, “And God made himself seen.” It is a very visual Torah portion. The sense of sight is all over the text. There are lots of visions.

Abraham sees the angels who visit him and bring him the news of Sara’s pregnancy. [Gen 18:2] God promises to Abraham not to hide the plan to make a great nation out of him: to make Abraham see what God has in store for his future [Gen 18:17]. God usually wants to be heard (our most important prayer is the Shema! “Listen!”). But in this week’s Torah portion, God wants Abraham to see.

The sense of sight is prevalent in the concluding part of the Torah portion, the Binding of Isaac. At its end, Abraham lifts up his eyes and sees the ram that he will sacrifice in place of his son. And then Abraham named the place of the Akeidah “the mountain where God will be seen” [Gen 22:13–14].

This Torah portion describes Abraham as a man with a unique vision. Where other people see nothing, Abraham sees the angels, who appear from nothing to give him good news. Where others see the stars, Abraham sees the future of the Jewish people.

On The mount where God will be seen, Abraham sees the ram. The Rabbis explain that the ram was created at the beginning of the world, and God had placed it there just before the first Shabbat, many, many years before [Pirkei Avot 5:8]. It has always been there, but only Abraham, and only at a certain point in his life, was Abraham able to see it.

That is for us, for what we have learnt in these last weeks, the yachdut, the sense of unity, of common purpose that keeps us Jews together… it has always been there, but we did not see it. We were entrenched in divisions and rivalries. We focused so much on what divided us rather than on living and finding a way to live together according to the many things we have in common.

It was a continuous fight. And now that we are threatened, we discover the strength of yachdut, we see the value of standing up together. We see that we have a common destiny. It has always been there, but we did not see it. Now, we do.

It’s a powerful learning; it has the potential to transform our whole Jewish life for the better. And it will.

Am Yisrael Chai.