Sabbatical Return

In memory of Vivian Silver, z”l

It is now two weeks since I have returned from a wonderfully productive sabbatical. I want to thank the community for this opportunity and share with you some highlights from my time away. But first I want to thank our board leadership, especially Robert Herman, Sharon Kleinberg and Howie Bromberg, along with our rabbinic dream team, Kohenet Batya Diamond, Rabbi Giulia Fleishman, Rabbi Jonathan Lipnick, and Rabbi Lori Shaller. Together they made the last 5 months an enriching time for the Hebrew Center, and I have heard from so many people deep appreciation for all they brought, whether it was classes, holiday and Shabbat celebrations, or pastoral counseling. We are truly blessed and I thank all of you.

Going into my sabbatical, my primary focus was to have concentrated writing time for a book I have been working on. The subject of the book is about opening up the Hebrew Bible to a wider readership, including readers who may identify as “spiritual but not religious,” with the idea that the Torah speaks with urgency to the challenges all of us together face today. The working title of the book is: Radical Readings of the Jewish Bible: Transcending the Literal and Reading for Meaning. It has been a total pleasure to work on, since teaching Torah and Hebrew Bible is a passion of mine. I will continue to write over the coming year with the hope of finishing it next June.

A second focus was having more time for music study, especially Jewish music. In addition to continuing with classical guitar, I was able to take classes on music theory including Jewish musical modes and vocal studies which I hope will enrich our services.

That was what was planned. As we all know, however, so much has happened this past year that has neither been planned nor could have been imagined. So an important part of my sabbatical became processing this extraordinarily difficult time in Jewish history, in the shadow of October 7th. I wanted to go beyond journalistic accounts and have first- hand experiences and conversations in the wider Jewish world.

To do that, I knew I wanted to spend time in Israel. I wanted to be there for my friends, to hear their stories and to hear what was on their hearts. I wanted to immerse myself in the moment and try to understand as much as I could about what it means to be an Israeli at this time. In other words, I wanted to show up, and I wanted to listen.

I am fortunate in that I know enough Hebrew to be able to engage in those conversations, watch the nightly news, read the Hebrew newspapers, read the messages and billboards, and understand Hebrew speeches at demonstrations. The time there was both enlightening and heartbreaking.

During that time I had conversations with friends whose trauma, fear and grief were palpable. I was on the street with thousands of Israelis in a demonstration that called for the return of the hostages, and felt both the longing for unity and the reality of a divided country. And I visited, thanks to The New Israel Fund, what are called “unrecognized villages,” that is, Bedouin communities in the Negev which are not “recognized” by the government and therefore not given any government services. They were also victims of October 7th and yet had no bomb shelters or security (or any other) infrastructure to protect themselves. We heard from those community leaders along with Israeli Jews who work with them to bring basic justice to Israel’s minority citizens.

I was also in Israel on February 29th, when over 100 desperately hungry Palestinians in Gaza died or were killed trying to obtain food from aid trucks for themselves and their families. It was unsettling to see the huge gap in the way American and Israeli news covered the story. Watching the most popular Israeli news broadcast that evening, you could see videos of the tragic scene only from video taken from a drone, where the people could barely be made out. No faces of the desperate human beings, including children, who needed food, were visible. In order to see that, you needed to watch or read American news. It was an eerie feeling, to be so close, an hour and a half car ride from where it was taking place, yet in another sense, worlds away.

It was clear, as I watched the news each night, that Israelis and Americans see completely different reporting. Reading American news, it is hard to have a sense of the ongoing heartbreak and trauma Israelis carry day to day since October 7th. The desperate worry and suffering of hostage families, the struggles of internal refugees, and the death and injuries of Israeli soldiers. And on the other hand, in the Israeli news, it was hard to have a sense of the suffering, hunger, and grief of Palestinians from continued displacement and bombing. The Palestinian experience of the war was almost invisible.

With all that heartbreak, it was still hard for me to leave. And when I returned, it was obvious that a kind of satellite war had taken root in the U.S., and lines were hardening. It was showing itself in divisive partisan politics in Congress, in Jewish communities, and on college campuses, not to mention in families and in synagogues. It was showing itself in horrible incidences of antisemitism. And it was showing itself in the accusation of “antisemitism” to counter political opponents’ points of view.

And so here, as well, I felt that I wanted to seek situations where I could do a lot of learning and listening. I spoke with some Jewish college students from Hillel, Chabad, and Jewish Fraternities and Sororities both from the Island and off-Island. And I spoke with Jewish students at encampments at Harvard and Tufts about their commitment to a Judaism of justice. I tried to understand the pain and aspirations of all these students.

And finally, I spoke with many families, rabbis, and members of different synagogues who described the painful divisions that were tearing apart relationships in their homes or communities. The pain is widespread and deep.

I hope to share more of my experiences as time goes on. For now, however, I do want to convey two thoughts.

The first, is my love for this community. We are together facing a time of intense fear and grief, and a community like ours which is both diverse and accepting, is a real gift. It is so important to continue to prioritize staying together in community in a caring and loving way.

In order to do that, to be a healing balm in these terrible times, we must accept that our members have a variety of perspectives, and give each other the benefit of the doubt that we are acting out of our Jewish values and out of love and concern for our people. This kind of living with difference and including minority opinions reflects our Jewish tradition at its best. I am certain that what we gain by having a diverse community regarding Israel and Zionism is not only a gift, but is also critical for the Jewish people and our future.

The second thought I want to leave you with is that as hard as this time is, I was continually inspired throughout my sabbatical by the creativity and flourishing of so many Jewish spaces. In Israel I was inspired as always by the rich Jewish spirituality in alternative synagogues; by the courage of tens of thousands of Israelis on the street marching for democracy, and by the cultural life created in a Jewish homeland, such as the amazing new National Library of Israel, opened just 6 weeks before I arrived.

And I was equally inspired by creative and inspiring Jewish spaces in the American diaspora, often created by amazing young people dedicated to Jewish culture, spirit, and justice. I saw it at the sold-out Boston Workers Circle Yiddish concert and in a room packed with young people learning Iraqi Jewish Music at Lehrhaus in Somerville. I saw it at a Shabbat service with a d’var Torah and homemade Hallahs at the Harvard encampment, and in talking with students about their theses on Jewish topics within Jewish majors. And I saw it among Jews marching in the street for their values and for a vision of Tikkun Olam.

Some of these expressions of Judaism are certainly different from what most of us experienced at that age. But isn’t that what it l’dor vador, “from generation to generation,” means? We have the privilege of passing on Judaism to the next generation. We do not have the privilege of controlling it. And when I was ready to let that go, I was overwhelmed with gratitude that Judaism is alive and well, and may well take us to new heights with new ways to meet our challenges, if we let it.

May we strengthen each other in faith, kindness and love as we move forward together.

Rabbi Caryn Broitman