Hatred In Your Heart?

[00:00:16] Was written in 2009 we are gathered today not in triumph, but tears. [00:00:26] Nothing that happened in Gaza needed to happen. All it took to avoid all the suffering was for Hamas to end firing rockets on innocent Israeli civilians. That's all. Let a voice go out from here today and all other gatherings all over, as it has gone out from Israel since the day it was born 60 years ago. We want peace. [00:00:51] Israel wants peace. We who love Israel want peace. No to terror, yes to peace. Let there be an end to bloodshed and hate. Let there be peace. We say to those who criticize Israel, you want Palestinian children to grow and prosper? So do we. [00:01:16] You want Palestinian parents to have work, income, a life for their families? So do we. [00:01:24] When a great British Zionist, the late Dr. David Baum, president of the Royal College of Pediatrics, a man who lived in England but asked to be buried as he was in Israel, in Rosh Pinah, when he sought to give expression to his hopes for Israel, he created a state of the art children's medical facility in Gaza. He died on a sponsored cycle ride, raising money for pediatric facilities in Gaza. When one of the finest young men of this community, Yoni Jesner, was killed in a suicide attack in a Tel Aviv bus, his parents donated his organs, some of which went to a seven year old Palestinian girl, Yasmin Abu Ramila, who had been waiting two years for a transplant. [00:02:17] We care about the Palestinian future. [00:02:21] We care for Palestinian children. We care about life. And that is why we say to Hamas, who for years, day after day, have been endangering the lives of innocent people, stop killing the Palestinian future. [00:02:41] In 2005, Israel withdrew from Gaza. It said to the people of Gaza, the land is yours. [00:02:48] The buildings, the factories, the farms that our people built are yours. [00:02:56] The aid you seek in building an economy is yours. That is when terror should have stopped. [00:03:05] Instead, that is when a current wave in 2005 of terror began. [00:03:12] The living nightmare for people living in Sterot ashdad. Ashkelon. A ceaseless rain of rockets, killing young and old, injuring the vulnerable, the innocent, who wanted nothing except peace. There are young children in Sterot who have known nothing but living a life, running to bomb shelters. Who can live like that? [00:03:37] When Jews built the land and state of Israel, the land where our ancestors lived for 4000 years, they didn't want to fight with their neighbors. [00:03:47] They didn't want to spend a lifetime fighting war and fearing terror. All they wanted to do was live. [00:03:54] And so we ask Hamas, and we ask Hezbollah and the countries that give them aid and arms, what do you want Israel to do? [00:04:08] Why do you want Israel to die? Stop wanting Israeli children to die. Stop wanting Israeli children to die. Start wanting your children to live. [00:04:25] There is one question that cries out for an answer. Why, Hamas, do you hold in such contempt not just Israeli lives, but Palestinian ones? [00:04:37] In the words of Colonel Richard Kemp, senior military advisor to the British Cabinet, hamas deploys suicide attackers, including women and children, and rigs up schools and houses with booby trap explosives. Virtually every operation is illegal under international humanitarian law. The Palestinian future will begin. [00:05:01] The minute Hamas stops firing rockets on innocent Israelis realize this was said in 2009. [00:05:09] The minute they try to stop killing the people whom they see as enemies, but who want to live as friends, the minute they stop endangering the Palestinian people by pursuing a policy that is destroying the Palestinian future just say three words yes to peace. [00:05:33] And a day will come when Israelis and Palestinians, jews, Muslims, Christians, the people of Sterot, the people of Gaza, will live together in peace, no longer fighting one another, but helping one another to live in freedom and in dignity. That day will come. It could be a hundred years away, or it could be today. [00:05:55] It's up to Hamas and the countries that give it arms. [00:05:59] And for the sake of Palestinian children, Israeli children, let it be today. [00:06:05] But meanwhile, we say, believe, beloved God, the God we worship, the God of life, who told us to sanctify life, al Rahman in Arabic, the God of compassion, the God of Avraham Ibrahim, the father of the three faiths. [00:06:34] Show us the way to live, your way, the way of salam, the way of Shalom, the way of peace. [00:06:49] That was from Rabbi Jonathan Sachs in 2009. Stand for Israel at a rally in England after the last Gaza war of 2008 2009. [00:07:00] I have never missed Rabbi Sachs more than I do now, because what I know is he would have words. [00:07:10] He would bring comfort in his way to millions. I read many of his words this week, and they did indeed bring the gentle peace that he brought so often to me. And yet, I imagined, how would even he respond to what's happened? [00:07:30] I don't need to remind anyone of the dismembered babies and the soldiers raped women, tortured and burned bodies of innocent civilians, prisoners, orphans, hostages, traumatized children's who may never recover from what their eyes have witnessed. [00:07:54] What would his reaction be, I wondered, rabbi Sachs, to such a tragic loss of life? He devoted the majority of his post rabbinic chief Rabbi of England he devoted the majority of his later life to ecumenical discussion, to having people of different faiths getting along, promoting peace, to building Takun alum, repairing the world by removing religious hatred and bloodshed. He was an advocate for everything diametrically opposed to what happened on Simchat Torah last Saturday. We had no idea last Saturday what had happened. We continued to celebrate with joy, and that was incumbent upon us to do. Since then, much has been realized. [00:08:40] I asked, what would he say? How would he feel? Which is part of a deeper question I have been asking myself, what should I feel as a leader of a community? How should I be leading? How should I be encouraging? How can we as a community feel about this? [00:09:06] I attended events to find answers. I went to Atlanta last Tuesday night. 3500 people, primarily Jews, as you might expect, in a large Jewish community, celebrating, shouting. It was sad, but it was, we're not taking any crap. Am yisrael high and yelling in flags and wonderful and, like, celebratory, right, we're going to win. That felt good. But then I asked, well, what will we win? [00:09:42] And Wednesday night, I was in Macon for another rally at the temple downtown between the three Jewish traditional Jewish communities here. It was a very different feel, prayer mixed with sort of sadness stories from people I knew. The rabbi downtown lived and worked in Steroid as a teenager and had lived in the south and been in Kibutzim there, and was recalling what it once was and now what it was. And it was sad and tragic, and he was wondering, how could it ever have gotten to this? And yet we must hope that God will once again rescue us. And I understood that. But is it enough to pray and mourn? What are we supposed to do? What are we supposed to feel? Even in those events, I still didn't know how to feel. [00:10:35] I knew what I feel. Do I hate them for what they've done to my brothers and sisters? [00:10:45] Do I wish to see these Palestinians dead because they killed us? My people, my future generations died that day. Children, babies, generations died. [00:11:01] There's a part of me that does hate them for this and everything that they stand for. What do I do with that? [00:11:14] And I read a post on Shalom at Home from a young woman I perceive named Rayel Binani. [00:11:23] I don't know where Rayal is from, but she wrote, hi, everyone. I hope that you're all well and your family are safe. Shalom at Home, for those who don't know, is our online community, where the worldwide family of Shalom making gathers and talks and supports. And I'll tell you something else about it later. But Rael wrote, hi, everyone. I hope that you're well and your family are safe. I want to share with you all that since Saturday news about Israel, I started kind of, like, having some anger. I was very disturbed. [00:11:56] I couldn't pray properly. I didn't feel sorry for any Gaza residents. But yesterday, I realized that Arabs are in real distress because of what these Hamas people cause. To both, however, I don't care if any of these Hamas people die. I don't feel love or sorry for their wrongs in result of their blindness. I don't know. It's just me, she said. [00:12:21] Kelly responded and told her it's normal these feelings are unavoidable. When we see the brutality, the evil that humanity is capable of. You know, something started to click for me. It's normal, she said. Is that true? [00:12:38] That is true. Have you read Ecclesiastes Three recently? We were reading it during Sukote. It's the book that we read during Sukote which says we had actually, like, just finished Sukote when this happened and had been reading Ecclesiastes. You know what chapter three says, right? The famous song of the Birds. [00:12:58] There is a season, time, whatever. I can't remember the tune. [00:13:04] A time to love, a time to hate, a time for war, a time for peace. [00:13:14] In this verse, that word hate, it's metaphorical. It's not necessarily a call for personal animosity or hatred. The Jewish perspective on this emphasizes the balance of life. [00:13:33] These times happen. Balancing love and hate highlights the duality of emotions and experiences that we naturally have. [00:13:42] It recognizes there are moments in your life when you may experience such negative emotion, such disapproval, opposition, even anger, even boiling hatred that you might feel in this context. It doesn't, as I said, mean personal animosity, but I don't even know moments of conflict. The prior verses to that there's a time for Everything, right? Presents these dichotomies contrasting times in various aspects. Life has seasons. Hate is a part of life's larger ebb and flow. But we can't say that we can't feel that there is a time for hate. [00:14:38] And it has been with us this week. [00:14:42] To hate the depraved minds that would plan and perpetrate such atrocities, to despise the hatred of the haters themselves, to rage against the injustice, to hate the pain of death that so many are feeling, husbands, wives, parents, mothers and fathers. To hate, hate the ignorance of a world that could ever attempt to justify this kind of behavior, to justify that the brutality and evil that Israel deserved this somehow. [00:15:39] To loathe a world where millions of human beings hate Jews simply because they are to abhor an ideology that was supposed to have died in 1995, that sees an entire group of human being 1945 with the Nazis, that sees an entire group of human beings lower than rats, cockroaches, vermin, no right to breathe, that was supposed to die. You should hate the fact that it lives you to know with disdain in your heart that this statement from an author in Israel, Amos Oz, that that it still rings true today. In the 1930s, they shouted Jews to Palestine. Now they shout Jews out of Palestine. They don't want us to be there. They don't want us to be here. They don't want us to be and something else to hate apathy. [00:17:03] You know, apathy was one of the sins of the golden calf. You don't talk about it, but the rabbis, the sages teach us that one of the great sins of the golden calf was that all these people are around and no one stopped it. No one rose to the occasion to stop it. It was a great sin, apathy. [00:17:24] But you see, here's what I realize about this. [00:17:30] What happened in Israel for so many people here and around the world, it's not real. [00:17:40] It's something that happened across the world with those people who are always fighting it's just the Arabs and the Jews. [00:17:54] There was a prayer vigil downtown. I told you Wednesday night. It was not empty, but it was not in any way what I expected. When eitzhayam when the synagogue shooting occurred in Pittsburgh, the place was packed out the doors. There was standing room only. The whole community, everyone was there. [00:18:13] When recently antisemites burned an effigy outside the temple and put antisemitic literature in people's neighborhoods. The community was in an uproar. They were mad about it. They were supporting the you know, this vigil was lightly attended. [00:18:36] There were a lot of that Jewish community there. And thank God for shalom mechan. There were some gentiles there who stood with Israel, but it was relatively light. [00:18:52] It's something that happened over there, but we don't have that luxury. [00:18:59] You are the people who consider yourselves grafted in. [00:19:06] This is, in a sense, your land, too. [00:19:10] It is the land and the people of your Messiah. [00:19:23] And, you know, we should hate above all things apathy combined with ignorance. [00:19:30] I remember a bumper sticker. It's not so widely circulated anymore, but it said, Middle East Peace Solution. You may remember this middle East Peace solution. Colon, nuke them all. Let God sort it out. [00:19:50] For many people, I'm afraid that is the underlying feeling. These people are savages. They're barbarians. [00:19:58] Just let them kill each other. [00:20:03] I do realize that the world has been in an uproar about this. I'm not negating that it's been incredible for one week, one week to see the world stand with Israel. It was such a strong feeling. [00:20:26] But by yesterday, I'm beginning to see it. It will be the shift. [00:20:33] Israel are the barbarians killing all these innocent people, young people you should hate. Ignorance. [00:20:51] The future of our world. [00:20:53] Daniel Lancaster wrote a piece. He said, it's disheartening to see so many of the young people of the world rushing headlong, ignorant and unthinking, down old roads of anti Semitism and baseless hatred while congratulating themselves for their progressive values. [00:21:12] In the coming day, they will be called to give an account before God, who judges hearts and motives and weighs everything in the scales of justice. But you see, that's not the worst of it. You know about the Harvard letter, right? [00:21:25] 33, I think student organizations in Harvard who we, the undersigned student organizations, hold the Israeli regime entirely responsible for all unfolding violence. [00:21:39] I was at the gym. I couldn't even believe it. [00:21:46] I was at the gym and someone came up to me and said, wow, Rabbi, this Israel thing. I said, yeah, I know. [00:21:54] And then they said, have you heard what do you know about the Rothschilds and the Rockefellers and the conspiracy behind this. [00:22:06] Are you aware of this? [00:22:08] There is a far right radical I don't even know what you call these idiots. [00:22:14] Far right conspiracy theory. That the Rothschilds, an influential Jewish family who supposedly owns the world from every back room working with the Rockefellers, another family full of money who owns who's working within the deep state, organized this and Israel went along with it. So it's a big conspiracy for money. [00:22:40] And somebody came up to me and asked me about it in the gym, and I was like, Unbelievable, man. [00:22:55] If I had had a dumbbell dumbbell I'm just kidding. [00:23:07] It hurt. It hurt my heart. [00:23:11] You see, in this Harvard thing, I hate that. [00:23:15] I hate it all. [00:23:19] I hate it all. [00:23:22] And take comfort. I'm not going to turn this into a message about loving your enemies, but the question I've asked, though, that is an instruction clearly from our master. [00:23:36] The question I've asked, we do have hate. [00:23:43] Apparently an appropriate and even biblically condoned hatred resides in my heart at this moment. What do we do with these feelings, though? How can I be a disciple of Yeshua with these unresolved feelings in my chest, in my core when Leviticus, 1917, clearly says, don't hate a brother in your heart. Now, that's talking about your fellow brother, not the one who cut off your kid's head, but it still says I understand what the verse means, but I want to point something out. There is a time to hate. There is a time for battle. There is a time for war, for anger. And while many of us are there, I hope you're there on some level. [00:24:34] I hope that everyone who is hearing this, who has seen this, who is a part of it, I know the rest of the world is apathetic and maybe ignorant, not by their own fault, even, but I hope this has taken up some residence in your heart of a feeling. [00:24:58] We have been there. We are there. We may stay there. And I realized after much reading and thought and discussion with God about what I think Rabbi Sachs would say, here's what I heard. [00:25:15] There is a time for hate, for battle, for war, for anger, but do not let it take up permanent residence in your heart. [00:25:29] Do not let it permanently destroy part of your purpose and mission here. I told God, I don't even want to be here. [00:25:38] I don't even want to do this. I don't want to talk. [00:25:43] What am I supposed to say? [00:25:47] I had big plans. You know, it's Simchat Torah last week, and this is the first week of the Torah portion. We should be talking about the creation of the world and the new Torah. I don't even want to talk about it. [00:26:03] How do I communicate anything of value when I feel all these emotions? And this is what I think I believe I heard I was talking to Kelly. She said something and I said this out loud and I'm going to give credit to the Holy Spirit. [00:26:22] When you give into the darkness because of darkness, you will empower the darkness. [00:26:30] Because your heart will become dark. [00:26:37] When you give into the darkness because of the darkness, you empower the darkness because your light will become dark. [00:26:46] There was actually speaking of bereshit chaos in the beginning tovu V'avohu, there was chaos. [00:26:57] And what calmed it? [00:27:00] The word of God. [00:27:03] God spoke and began to create and take what was chaotic and dark and form it into something that ended up being very good. [00:27:14] That's what it says. He spoke and it was good. When you give in to feelings of hatred because of the hate of the others, you empower the others and you dim your light. [00:27:32] This is the time to answer my question. What do we do? This is the time when you must speak at some point and say the very same words God said in that Torah portion we should be reading Let there be light. [00:27:59] Which takes me back to Rail Benani's post on Shalom at home and thankfully to my wife's perspective and others who posted there, who helped me see Kelly wrote rail, you are completely normal for having those feelings. It's like a roller coaster of emotions from day to day. I too go back and forth because of how I feel about the hurt and the sadness and the anger are so intensely deep. But for me personally, I've stopped trying to see the horrific videos and I know it's hard because they're all over social media at this point. We know so many of the evil acts perpetrated against the Israelis, the Jewish people, and we don't need to continue fillering our minds with that. What good can it do? [00:28:51] The Antidote, she said, is reading the Psalms, praying as often as possible and being a light in the darkness, whatever that might look like for you. And these are the words that I cherish from what she said that day love harder than you normally love. [00:29:12] Give more than you normally give. [00:29:16] Make peace with everyone as far as it depends on you and trust Hashem more than you have ever trusted Hashem. [00:29:26] Thank you, Kelly. [00:29:28] Out of the darkness, chaos, confusion and even hatred, she's saying, let there be light that comes from within you. [00:29:39] And Rael, her response, which said this I told you, I'm not sure where she's from. I can tell from the way she writes she's from somewhere else. Her English is much better than how I would speak her language, let me just say that. But Rael wrote yes. [00:29:56] That's what I try to do. I just needed to take it out of my chest. [00:30:03] Thank you. [00:30:05] We all know what idiom she's referencing. I needed to get it off my chest. [00:30:12] But her version speaks to our situation here today. [00:30:17] It's perfect. [00:30:19] I just need to take this out of my chest to confront the reality of tragedy, of loss, of despicable, wicked and evil. And we hate it. But it is not our fate to hold it there forever. Instead, I need to get it out of my chest. [00:30:45] It is not our fate to accept what this is permanent. That is not the Jewish way. We have to take it out of our chest. Here is something else that Rabbi Sachs wrote. And I have so much to say, and I want to condense some things down, but these words, I want you to just hear them. [00:31:10] Tragedy belongs to a world in which there is no such thing as an inexorable fate. That means a fate that is impossible to stop. [00:31:22] Tragedy belongs to a world in which there is no such thing as an inexorable fate, what the Greeks called moira. That is a mindset wholly alien to the Hebrew Bible. In Judaism, there is no prescripted ending, no inexorable fate, because we are not merely actors, we are co authors of the script. We do not know in advance what the next scene will be because it depends on us. We can choose. An opera can be tragic, but life itself cannot. If you believe that there is human freedom that we can change, that we can act differently from the way we did last time. And as agents, not merely actors, we face a constitutively, unknowable future. [00:32:06] Unknowable. Because it depends on us. That's why in Judaism, there is no word for tragedy, because the story has not ended. [00:32:19] Life is life. It is not art. [00:32:24] Am yisrael chai we feel darkness. We recognize it. We confront it with light. [00:32:34] The rebbe. Another rebbe. I greatly admire Rabbi Menacha mendel Schneerson before the Yom Kippur war in 1973. He was begging them, don't give away Egypt. Don't do that, don't do that. And they did. And they moved the weapons closer. And that was the start of the Yom Kippur war. [00:32:56] And he had for months, been trying to get people to pray. And he asked that all the children in Israel would come a month before the Yom Kippur War broke out, that they would come to the Wailing Wall and that all the kids would pray. Because he sensed that something was happening and it happened. [00:33:16] And you know what he did? [00:33:19] He didn't say, I told you this was going to happen. I can't believe it. All these people died because of you. I can't believe it. You know what he did? He went and encouraged them and said, we must have joy. [00:33:33] A defeated army can never win. [00:33:36] And he spoke and preached and taught them about joy. [00:33:41] A battle cannot be won with tears. He said, you go in strong, courageous, positive, despite everything that happened up to that point. You be filled with the faith that God will be with you. And I look to my other, my ultimate favorite, Rabi, for answers. [00:34:03] He is the one who also said, don't hate your enemy. And he also said, Turn the other cheek. But he said this how blessed are those who make peace, for they will be called sons of God. [00:34:14] How blessed are those who are persecuted because they pursue righteousness. How blessed are you when people insult and persecute you. You are the light for the world. [00:34:26] The light for the world. [00:34:29] A town built on a hill cannot be hidden. Likewise, when people light a lamp, they don't hide it. They don't cover it with a bowl, put it on a lampstand so that it shines for everyone. In the same way, let your light shine before people so that they may see the good things you do. And praise your Father in heaven. Here's the instruction, and I'm taking it right from Daniel Lancaster, from the little piece he wrote, because I appreciated it. Show yourself to be a disciple of Yeshua by adding an additional mitzvah of chesed, an act of loving kindness to your daily routine. Show kindness to strangers. Treat everyone with dignity. Encourage one another to persevere in faith, and pray also for your enemies. Bless and do not curse. In this manner, we too go to war on behalf of Israel. [00:35:30] That's the Jewish perspective. [00:35:35] We fight for them from a distance by doing good from here. It's hard, actually, to think about that, but I assure you, probably not one of you is going to encounter a Hamas terrorist. You're not going to be confronted with that challenge. [00:35:52] But you have the opportunity. [00:35:55] You have the opportunity. Now, unless you're listening to this from Israel, you're not going to see anyone from Hamas. But this proverb has always been such a difficulty, and it's even more difficult now. If your enemy is hungry, give him bread to eat. If he's thirsty, give him water to drink, for you will heap burning coals on his head, and the Lord will reward you. But you see, the Lord rewards the world. Actually, when you choose to do good, it is. I'm not going to get too weird on you here, but let's talk just about positive energy. The world is consumed right now with just such a heavy, negative weight of energy. [00:36:43] Every good deed you do is a light shooting through the darkness and out of this smothering, cloud covered evil. [00:36:53] Everything you do is a light, its own rocket, if you will, of good. [00:37:04] So I want to encourage you to do good. [00:37:08] The feelings you feel are normal. [00:37:13] Don't let it take up residence in your heart permanently. That's what you cannot do. [00:37:20] We must, as my wife said, love harder than you normally love. Give more than you normally give. Make peace with everyone as far as it depends on you. And trust hashem more than you have ever trusted. Let me close with this. I want to be very, very clear about something. [00:37:41] For those who have lost loved ones, spouse, children, parents, if you're hearing this, please know that I am not dismissing in any way the hatred that you feel in your heart and that I have no right to speak to you about this. [00:38:08] But I am speaking to you also, I think the most. And I promise I'll wrap up. But I saw a video when I was in Atlanta. They showed a girl at the concert or just a picture of the young girl, happy Israeli classic, classic HEB hair we used to call it in religious school. Big, fluffy afro, curly Jewish head of hair, smiling. [00:38:46] And then the next picture was a video god. [00:38:51] A video of her being driven away on a motorcycle behind people screaming for someone to help her. [00:39:13] And I thought, selfishly, if that was my daughter, if I got what would I do? [00:39:24] What would I do? [00:39:28] And there's nothing. [00:39:30] There's nothing except for what we can do to bring some good into the darkness and to pray and to give charity and do a little more than you usually do to combat the dark. [00:40:03] This is a message for those who stand beside and behind. [00:40:09] Am. Yisrael. [00:40:11] Beyond the prayers and the donations shalom Mekan is donating. I told you shalom Makin is praying to heal him. There's a prayer vigil that's going on Shalom at home all the time where community from around the world are sharing what psalms they're praying for Israel. Some to pray psalm 20, Psalm 22, Psalm 69, Psalm 150. Traditionally said in times of distress. [00:40:33] I just found a website today called Sharejustone.com. [00:40:40] I even hesitated to say it because it's an Orthodox Jewish website. It's pointed toward Orthodox Jews who will agree to do one more commandment. And when you sign up, they send you confidentially the name of an Israeli soldier that's yours to pray for and to be insincere about doing more mitzvot and doing more good. [00:41:03] Just say yes, I'm going to do more MitzVote. I understand it. I'm a messianic gentile. I understand Torah. I understand what it means to say the shama. I understand what it means to celebrate with intensity a Shabbat this week to study, 20 minutes to do some good. [00:41:23] So I tell you about it and it's in your court what you want to do. But I guarantee you, when I'm out of here, there will be in my inbox an Israeli soldier's name who comes before my mind. We have a list of our people, our friends on Shalom at home who have kids and their names are there to pray for. These are all the good things. But we must love harder. [00:41:52] And here's the last thing I promise you. I've heard this question, another person at the gym should I pack my bags? [00:42:04] Is this it? Is this when Jesus is coming back? [00:42:09] It looks like all the pieces are coming together. The timepiece of Israel. I'm waiting to hear the final chauffeur. Is this it? Is Jesus coming back? [00:42:25] It's the wrong question. [00:42:31] Work with all your heart, your soul, your mind and your strength while you're here. You're here now. [00:42:41] Do good. Yeshua will take care of the rest. We read it today no one knows the time, not even the sun. Don't worry about the end times time clock and what's going on in Israel. Do good for the people of Israel by doing good to everyone around you. That is how we fight the evil. Let your light shine am yisrael High the people of Israel lift. [00:43:16] Shabbat. Shalom.