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Has Israel Let You Down? Its Minister of Diaspora Affairs
Wants You to Talk About It Over The High Holidays
BY NACHMAN SHAI
TO THE RABBIS and
religious leaders putting the
finishing touches to your High
Holiday sermons, I’d like to
make a suggestion: Use this
Jewish New Year to talk about
Israel from the pulpit.

And not just Israel. Talk
about the bonds between us, as a
Jewish people, about our shared
past and imagined future. Talk
about the challenges, but also
the opportunities.

Share with your congregants
that we in Israel are slowly
but surely taking responsibility
for our side of the relationship
in a way that you have never
seen, that we realize we have
disappointed you and are doing
teshuvah, repentance, with a
sincere desire to make things
right in the future. Share with
them that this new government
is committed to bringing back
a Kotel Compromise — that
is, formalizing an egalitarian
prayer section at the Western
Wall. It is committed to
learning and understanding
how our actions impact your
communities. Tell them that
we believe in you and that we
are ready for both your critique
and your ideas.

Most importantly, share
with your communities that
Israel desires to be your
partner, to not let our politics
or diverse identities serve as
barriers to our fundamental
belief that we are a people with
a common fate and destiny.

I know this message might
not be easy to convey. I’ve
lived long enough to see how
Israel has turned from a point
of pride to tension. And it’s
understandable. Generations
built their Judaism around
the ideal of Israel and the
promise of peace as the focal
point of Jewish identity and
Zionist hope. So when Israel
disappoints, organized Jewish
frameworks can also disap-
point, intensifying political
divides within communities,
especially among the rising
generation. So why would a
rabbi waste his or her precious
annual moment with a quiet
audience on a subject that
increasingly causes more
controversy than connection?
I believe the answer is
simple. Despite the very signif-
icant challenges that stand
between us, the truth is that
we need each other, and I am
convinced ultimately want to be
in relationship with each other.

The last year highlighted
just how intertwined we are as
a people, when Israel’s summer
military operation in Gaza led
not only to a frightening rise
in antisemitism, but significant
stress and frustration within
communities. It is becoming
increasingly imperative for
us to work together to ensure
ongoing safety, security and
communal cohesion.

We also still have the ability
to bring out the best in each
other. Israel needs your clarity
and backbone to empower us to
make the bold decisions that will
ensure our continuity as both a
Jewish and democratic state. We
need your justice-minded values
to assure Israelis that moving
toward two states for two peoples
is the only solution, both for
our security and our soul. We
have room to be inspired by your
models of pluralism and diver-
sity, and of organized Jewish
communal life within our own
religious practice.

On the other end, Israel
continues to be the proud
manifestation of the Jewish
people’s 2,000-year-old-dream.

Israel — the state, the land
and its people — with all of
its complexities, deserves to
remain a central component
of Jewish identity-building and
experiences around the world.

Finally, you and I have
a mutual mission to elevate
not only our own people, but
the entire world through the
development of shared projects
on climate change, as well as
biomedical and technological
innovation. But before we can make
progress toward true peace,
revitalized pluralism in Israel
and the next great global initia-
tive, we must begin with a basic
conversation about peoplehood
— who we are, what are our
common values and language.

You have the opportunity to
lead your communities with
these questions.

As Rabbi Mordechai Kaplan
wrote, “The individual Jew
who regards this world as the
scene of salvation depends
upon the Jewish people to
help [them] achieve it. For that
reason, [they] must be able
to feel that in investing the
best part of [themselves] in
the Jewish people, [they are]
investing in something that
has a worthwhile future, and
thereby achieving an earthly
immortality.” From the pulpit, let us
wrestle with these ideas and
imagine this worthwhile future
together. l
Nachman Shai is Israel’s Minister of
Diaspora Affairs.

The Real Danger of That Atheist Harvard Chaplain
BY MOSHE PHILLIPS
THE NEWS MEDIA had
a field day recently with the
man-bites-dog story of the
self-proclaimed atheist who
was recently named chief
20 SEPTEMBER 9, 2021
chaplain at Harvard University.

After nearly 400 years of
having chief chaplains who
believe in God, Harvard has
gone in a surprising new direc-
tion. Not only that, but the new
head chaplain, Greg Epstein,
is Jewish and a graduate of
the rabbinical ordination
program at something called
the International Institute for
Secular Humanistic Judaism.

Undoubtedly, some parents
of Jewish students at Harvard
will be troubled at the prospect
of their sons or daughters
coming under the influence
of a passionate advocate of
atheism. Active rejection of the
most basic concept in Judaism
— belief in God — is pretty
fringe stuff in the eyes of most
American Jews.

The problem is not that Greg
Epstein is an atheist; that’s
his business. The problem is
that he presents himself as a
rabbi, even though his core
belief system is rejected by
every Jewish religious denom-
ination of note — Orthodox,
Conservative, Reform and
Reconstructionist. The power of the “rabbi”
title is that it confers Jewish
legitimacy and respectability
on whatever the rabbi, even
a self-proclaimed one, says.

JEWISH EXPONENT
Jewish students at Harvard who
don’t know better will hear that
“the rabbi” said something,
and assume that what he said
represents Judaism, not just
a tiny fringe element on the
Jewish spectrum.

Whether Greg Epstein will
influence Jewish students’
religious beliefs remains to
be seen. It could be argued
that these students are more
likely to be influenced by
their professors, whom they
often perceive as experts and
authority figures.

But where Epstein’s influ-
ence may well be felt even
more strongly, I fear, is on
Jewish students’ perceptions
of Israel, the Holocaust and
antisemitism. Because he is Jewish, and
because of the power of his
new position, Epstein will have
significant new platforms from
which to share his views on
Jewish issues — at campus
events, in the news media and
well beyond. And Epstein’s
views on Jewish issues are
disturbingly extreme.

A Tweet from Epstein on
April 28 employed the ugly term
“Jewish supremacists” to demean
Jewish nationalists who were
marching in Jerusalem. That slur
was coined by neo-Nazis and
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then more recently adopted by
the radical left.

One indication of Epstein’s
shallow understanding of the
Holocaust was his 2019 tweet
calling American detention
facilities for illegal migrants
“concentration camps.”
If you think I am exagger-
ating and that Epstein could
not possibly have meant
literally that those facilities
are similar to concentration
camps, note that he wrote they
“can LITERALLY [caps his], in
a historically accurate way, be
called concentration camps.”
No, they cannot, which
is why the U.S. Holocaust
Memorial Museum and other
scholarly Holocaust institu-
tions strongly denounced those
comparisons. As for Israel — when
Hamas won the 2006
Pa lest i nia n
leg islat ive
elections, Epstein was part
of a group of left-wing
rabbis who rushed to urge
President George W. Bush
to refrain from rejecting the
terrorist victors: “We urge
you to maintain a cautious
approach” toward Hamas, in
order to advance the goal of a
Palestinian state, they wrote.

I guess since Epstein is a
member of the J Street Rabbinic
and Cantorial Cabinet, that’s
pretty much what we should
expect. J Street, the contro-
versial Jewish pressure group
that was created to lobby for a
Palestinian state, consistently
supports Palestinian demands
against Israel. The leaders of
J Street always seem to blame
Israel for what goes wrong, no
matter how extreme or violent
the Palestinians act.

Is this the kind of person
whom Jewish parents want
influencing their college-age
children? It doesn’t seem like
a very attractive return on
their $51,925 in annual tuition
payments. l
Moshe Phillips is a commentator
on Jewish affairs whose writings
appear regularly in the American
and Israeli press.

JEWISHEXPONENT.COM Rabbis are Struggling to Protect Jews’ Physical and
Spiritual Health. They Deserve Support, Not Shame
BY RABBI SHIRA KOCH EPSTEIN
OVER THE PAST year, I have
led efforts to teach, guide and
coach rabbis and other clergy
of every Jewish denomination.

We have worked with over
500 individual members of the
clergy, serving hundreds of
thousands of people since the
COVID-19 pandemic began.

So let me say this to my
dear clergy colleagues: As we
celebrate another High Holiday
season under the shadow of the
pandemic, I know that there
is nothing you need more
than support in making (or
when prevented from making)
impossible decisions about
vaccinations, masks, social
distancing and the integrity of
worship. Which is why I am baffled
as to why some would add to
your burden with irrespon-
sible, pain-inducing criticism
that could only worsen the
challenge, trauma and moral
injury that you are experi-
encing at this moment, and
which I spend all of my profes-
sional time trying to lessen.

I agree that mitigating all
risk at the expense of our Jewish
way of life is untenable, and
there are certainly appropriate
ways to debate safety measures
during a public health crisis.

Yet second-guessing rabbis
like you, as you work overtime
to protect the physical safety
while meeting the spiritual
and communal needs of your
communities in ever-changing
ways, is not one of them.

Those of us actually paying
attention have seen your tremen-
dous creativity and labor to ensure
that our people have meaningful
spiritual and communal ways
to learn, to observe and to be
connected to Torah and each
other, even as COVID has
precluded or restricted large
in-person gatherings. I see you
toiling to create innovative
outdoor or remote opportunities
for our unvaccinated children
to engage in Jewish learning
and living, and to feel a sense
of belonging. I see you teaching
congregants to lead backyard
minyans; managing complicated
technology to lead interactive
remote services and study groups;
introducing walking meditations
and Torah treks and prayerful
hikes; and countless other new
ways of helping our people to
engage with each other and
practice our traditions while
reducing health risks.

I hear your trauma at
having buried the many older
members of your shul who have
died miserably alone this year.

I know that when you gather
again, the seats of so many
“regulars” will be tragically
empty. I understand your fear
that the immunocompromised
and younger, unvaccinated
members may be endangered
by the high risk that in-person
gatherings can pose this year.

I know that this informs your
decisions as the delta variant
wreaks havoc, especially, but
not only, when unvaccinated
people gather.

I listen to you agonize
as you balance the calls for
individual choice and/or trust
from some in your commu-
nity with your desire to have
proof of vaccine and/or testing
and mask mandates to protect
the vulnerable, especially
in locations where this is
culturally unacceptable (and
often the same places where
JEWISH EXPONENT
hospitals are now failing under
the burden of illness).

You tell me about working
with your
professional colleagues, lay leaders and
local experts as you carefully
enact decision trees informed
by Jewish values, COVID-era
rabbinic opinions and public
health experts. Many of your
communities model remark-
able shared leadership, as
clergy, boards and medical
advisors together
make decisions carefully. Others
of you suffer, having to carry
out, and even be blamed, for
decisions that you fear are
dangerous. With every change,
we see you creating backups
to backups, even as it means
having to do twice the work,
ignoring your exhaustion and
pastoring to flocks who require
your help as they, too, deal
with their justified angst.

And I know that you are
experiencing moral injury and
burnout from this reality, and
that you also fear for your own
and your family’s health while
also feeling a loss of spiritual
connection as a result of your
inability to pray in groups, to
sing with full voice or to facil-
itate the mitzvah observances,
simcha celebrations, prayer
obligations and mourning
rituals that give your own life
meaning. Life under COVID is full
of difficult calls, weighing
physical well-being against
mental health; our children’s
education against the threat
of an insidious virus; the
risks of gathering or singing
in our beloved sanctuaries
versus the atrophying of our
communities and our souls.

No one wants to needlessly
undermine centuries of tradi-
tion and our religious choices
and obligations.

But you, our clergy, know
that preserving life is the
paramount value of the Torah,
and that our tradition is rife
with examples of moderating
our observances to protect our
well-being. You have contrib-
uted to and read the myriad
rabbinic opinions offering
halachic and ethical ways to
adapt beloved customs for
this emergency situation. You
do not need to be cut off at
the knees while you run this
ultra-marathon, all the while
carrying the heavy weight of
existential Jewish decisions.

Your detractors may be loud,
but I hear the quiet cheers of
the many who want only to
offer you water as you continue
the race.

My dear colleagues, please
know: You are enough. You
are doing enough. You can
and you must make decisions
that are the best and safest you
can make, to preserve the lives
and the health of your beloved
members (and yourselves).

Ignore the naysayers, especially
those simply looking for click-
bait who care not for your
health or well-being. I pray that
those who see how hard you are
working will raise their voices
and bolster you with love. With
all of the hugs, love and hope
for your spiritual renewal. l
Rabbi Shira Koch Epstein is
executive director of the Center for
Rabbinic Innovation, a project of
the Office of Innovation.

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