Rabbi Widzer's Library

Over the summer, one of my wise colleagues made a joke on a rabbi chat group about High Holy Day sermon topics this year.  He said, “I would like to stand up in the pulpit and say, ‘Just like last year, community is good, antisemitism is bad, Israel is … complicated.  Shannah tovah.’  And then go sit down.”   (At least I think he was joking!)

Over these High Holy Days, I will talk about community, I will talk about antisemitism, I will talk about the world in which we’re living, and I will talk about repentance and forgiveness and the meaning of these High Holy Days – all at other times.  This morning, we’re going to talk about that other, complicated topic:  Israel.

I want to name up front a very real possibility that some of you aren’t going to like at least some part what I am going to say.  I don’t know what part that is, which idea or proposal you will dislike.  And, in fact, it will probably be different for each one of you. Everyone might find something to disagree with.  And that’s ok.  Because my goal today isn’t to convince you of the correctness of one position or another.  It is to give you different ways to think about, or understand, or express your relationship with Israel.  I hope that you will listen to all of the sermon, the parts you agree with and, especially, the parts you don’t.

Time and again over this past year, as the war that Israel is fighting continues to unfold, I have watched and wondered, how do I live my Jewish values in relationship to Israel in light of what is going on?  How do I respond, guided by my sense of Jewish tradition, Jewish teachings, Jewish law, Jewish sensitivity, Jewish peoplehood, to all of the different events that have transpired?  How do my Zionism and my love for Israel get expressed?

I want to share a framework with you that has been helpful to me in understanding what I feel and how I express myself with regard to Israel in different contexts, circumstances, and communities.  I learned it from a rabbi friend, who learned it from an organization called Resetting the Table, which promotes the use of tools of understanding across bitter divides to create a shared future.¹

The framework proposes two different modes of relating to Israel: as a shomeir, a guardian or sentry, and as a navi, a prophet, like Jeremiah or Ezekiel.  Shomrim (that’s the plural form of shomeir) stand up for Israel, speak up for Israel, stand watch over Israel, guard and defend Israel.  Scripture tells us: Al chomotayich Yerushalayim hifkad’ti shomrim, kol hayom v’chol halailah tamid lo ye-che-shu, “Upon your walls, O Jerusalem, I have set sentries who shall never be silent by day or by night.”²  Nevi’im (that’s the plural form of navi) stand up to wrongdoing in Israel, speak up to the powers-that-be in Israel, tell truths to Israel, impart values to Israel.  Hosea proclaims, V’hakshivu Beit Yisrael … ki l’chem mishpat, “Listen O House of Israel … for right conduct is your responsibility!”³  And Isaiah says, L’maan Tzion lo e-che-sheh ul’maan Yerushalayim lo eshkot, “For the sake of Zion, I will not be silent; for the sake of Jerusalem, I will not be still.”⁴ Shomrim, out of love, are Israel’s guardians and defenders.  Nevi’im, out of love, are Israel’s truth-tellers and prophets.  Sometimes we act as one, sometimes as the other. Sometimes other people act as one or the other.  Both are modes of relationship with Israel.  Both are necessary.

We need to be shomrim, sentries or guards for Israel.  Since the destruction of the Second Temple in Jerusalem by the Romans in 70 CE and the subsequent dispersion of the majority of the Jewish population, throughout wandering and persecutions, Jews have longed to restore self-sovereignty in their homeland.  For centuries, our prayerbooks contained prayers for the return to the Land.  Our synagogues were traditionally oriented so we would pray towards Jerusalem.  With the onset of modernity and the rise of nation-states, Jewish nationalism, Zionism, sought the same right of political self-determination: lihiyot am chofshi b’artzeinu, to be a free people in our Land.  A refuge for the persecuted, a cultural centerpoint of identity, a source of spiritual renewal, a nation like any other with language and literature and politics, a modern country that reflects the rhythms of Jewish time and strives to embody Jewish values, the modern State of Israel fulfills a myriad of Jewish needs.   

We safeguard these roles when we stand as Israel’s defenders.  The only state in the world with a Jewish majority, Israel is a bulwark against the scourge of antisemitism, offering protection and a safe haven.  The modern State of Israel has never known a day of peace, as many of the countries that surround it, and around the world, and multiple terrorist groups have never accepted its existence and threaten its destruction.  And Israel is often attacked in the court of world opinion for protecting its citizens against these threats.  We who have a deep and abiding love for, connection to, and hope for Israel, have a responsibility to be shomrim, to stand up for Israel, to speak up for Israel.  As shomrim, we raise our voices in public, we march together, we support Israel financially, politically, gastronomically, with tourist visits and flags, listening to Israeli music and supporting Israeli artists.  We engage as Israel’s defenders in interpersonal conversations with people at school, at work, and online.  Israel has other friends who often support her, but Israel is more than our friend, Israel is our family.  If we do not defend Israel, who will? We must be shomrim, guardians and sentries for Israel.

As a shomeir, I seek to convey the deep trauma that still afflicts Israelis in the aftermath of the surprising and brutal attack of October 7.  If you visited the Nova Festival exhibit here in DC over the summer, you couldn’t help but be affected by the video footage, the victims’ belongings, the survivors’ stories of terror and cruelty.  No nation, suffering the barbarity of Hamas’s actions, could fail to rise up in defense of its citizens.  No country would permit a terrorist organization to prepare and launch attacks from territory on its border.  Israel continues to face the constant threat of Hamas, Hezbollah in Lebanon, the Houthis in Yemen, the fundamentalists in Iran.  I endorse Israel’s right to defend itself against all those who would see it wiped off the map, sometimes in reaction to attacks and sometimes pre-emptively.  Israel’s armed forces promote a strict code of ethics, tohar haneshek, “the purity of arms,” even in the face of Hamas’s gruesome killing of Israeli civilians and its despicable use of Palestinian civilians and civilian infrastructure as human shields.  I condemn world opinion that conveniently overlooks the asymmetry of an enemy that defies all conventional rules of war.  Israel is often judged by a double-standard, a higher standard, than any other nation.  I ask, how is it that some women’s group were so slow to express their outrage at the blatant and well-documented use by Hamas of sexual violence, just because the victims were Israeli?  Hamas fighters filmed themselves doing unspeakable things, and the Toronto Film Festival worries about copyright violations!  And I wonder, where are the moral voices around the world demanding the release of the Israeli hostages, who have been kidnapped, brutalized, and held in dire conditions for nearly two years?  I am aghast at the growing acceptance around the world of anti-Israel sentiment that often masks the vile undercurrent of antisemitism, from the chants of “Die, die, IDF” at music festivals⁵ to the “red hands” pins on award show stages,⁶ which are a reference to a horrific incident when two Israeli Jews were brutally murdered by a Palestinian mob.  I know that Israel is not always right, that it does not always fully live its values, any more than the United States or any country always fulfills its vision.  But when Israel is unfairly attacked, physically or in the media or in public opinion, on these, and other topics, I have spoken out and spoken up for Israel in the past, and I will continue to do so, as a shomeir, a guard, a sentry, a defender of Israel.

AND … 

We need to be nevi’im, standing in the tradition of the prophets of our people’s past.  As Zionism developed, most of the different forms of Zionist thought were utopian in nature.⁷ They pictured an ideal, and idealistic, society.  Embedded in Israel’s Declaration of Independence itself are Jewish values.  It proclaims that the new nation will:
be based

on freedom, justice, and peace, as envisaged by the prophets of Israel; it will ensure complete equality of social and political rights to all its inhabitants irrespective of religion, race, or sex; it will guarantee freedom of religion, conscience, language, education, and culture.⁸

The restoration of Jewish sovereignty in the Land of Israel represents an historic opportunity to put the precepts of Judaism into action: acknowledging all human beings as created b’tzelem Elohim,⁹ arranging society to ensure that the most in need are cared for,¹⁰ requiring one law for citizen and stranger alike.¹¹  Israel can be a modern nation-state, guided by the very values and teachings we see woven into the tapestries and banners that surround us in this sanctuary.  Israel, at its best, makes these values manifest.  That is my Zionist ideal, a country that truly lives by our Jewish teachings.

The prophets of old shared that vision of a society that lived by its values.  And they spoke up when it did not, in often scathing language.  They decried a social order that contradicted its foundational texts, that had gone astray from its inherited teachings.  The prophets spoke truth to power in ancient Israel, reminding the leadership of its core values.  When modern Israel seems to veer from its higher purpose, appears to engage in unjust means to achieve commendable goals, or acts in a way that may undermine the Zionist vision (or, at least, some version of the Zionist vision), we must speak up.  When the leadership of the modern state neglects or undercuts its foundational values, or seems to be more interested in maintaining its own power than in serving its populace, we must, as did our prophets, call Israel to account.  We must prompt Israel to live up to its own highest ideals, and ours.  We must act as nevi’im, prophets and goads to Israel’s conscience.

To be clear, I do not presume to say that I actually am a navi, like Amos or Micah, or that others accord to themselves that status. But I feel compelled by those role models to speak up when necessary to hold Israel to account.  I am concerned that the IDF has lowered its standards for acceptable collateral damage and raised the level of tolerable casualties among civilians and bystanders.  I worry that the understandable targeting of Hamas staging areas cynically placed in schools and hospitals has also decimated civilian infrastructure, places where people are supposed to gather for learning and healing.  I worry that the IDF’s adherence to tohar haneshek is loosened by the exigencies of this brutal war.  If Israel must fight, Jewish values demand it do so justly.  I am appalled by the arrogant and callous vigilante violence by settlers in the West Bank who intimidate and attack Palestinian villagers to drive them away, seeking to appropriate their land. When the IDF and Israeli police do nothing to stop them, it is simply unacceptable.  I am horrified that Israel has, at various points in the war, so severely restricted aid that it has exacerbated the desperate situation of Gazan civilians, compelling them to flee from safe zone to safe zone.  Limiting aid has diminished the food and water and medical care so desperately needed and widened the humanitarian crisis there.  I said from this pulpit this summer that the use of food and hunger among a civilian population as a weapon of war is simply unconscionable.  Israel might not be the original cause of the dire circumstances of civilians in Gaza, who have been long neglected by their leaders and used by them as human pawns, but Israel does bear a large measure of current responsibility, which it may not shirk.  I denounce the statements and sentiments of Israeli political figures that lump all Gazans together and refer to them in terms that dehumanize them, denying the tzelem Elohim that is reflected in each human being.  You cannot plot a premeditated and permanent forced exile of an entire population and claim to represent the Jewish people, who know the heart of the stranger for we were strangers in the land of Egypt.¹² I came of age in the era of the Oslo Accords and still believe, as distant as the dream may be, that the solution of two states for two peoples is our best hope for peace.  I find the actions and intentions of the current political administration in Israel to destroy that dream to be a betrayal of the Zionist ideal of striving for a safe, secure, democratic, Jewish State of Israel.¹³ When Israel and its government fall short, I feel the need to engage in the prophetic tradition of speaking truth to power like a navi, raising up the standards of Jewish values to hold Israel accountable for its actions.  I have spoken out and spoken up in the past, and I will continue to do so, in the tradition of the nevi’im, the prophets and truth-tellers of Israel.

These are two different voices we hear in the Jewish community today.  These are two different roles we can play: Shomrim when we defend Israel; Nevi’im when we call Israel to embody its values. Both come from a love of Israel.  Both seek Israel’s continued survival and thrival as a Jewish state.  There are important reasons to speak out as a shomeir and there are important reasons to speak up as a navi.  And sometimes, speaking as one or the other can engender fierce and unwanted reactions.  As a rabbinic colleague recently explained on Facebook, “I want to acknowledge Palestinian suffering without being called anti-Israel.  And I want to support Israel without being accused of being pro-genocide.”

When I speak as a shomeir in defense of Israel, those on the extreme right of the political spectrum will take that as my blanket acceptance of everything Israel does, making it seem that I believe Israel is always right, without allowing for a more nuanced position.  When I speak as a shomeir, the extreme left thinks that I do not care about the humanitarian crisis in Gaza and that I support every policy and action of the Israeli government, even those with which I vehemently disagree.  Any defense of Israel, in their view, gets twisted into a defense of everything related to Israel, without allowing for a nuanced position.  

When I speak as a navi, critiquing particular Israeli policies or actions, the extreme right will accuse me of not loving or supporting Israel at all, seeing anything other than blind allegiance as treachery.  And when I speak as a navi, the extreme left use my words as a Jew as a fig-leaf to counter the antisemitism that lurks behind some of the anti-Zionist sentiment, or will make it appear as if I never support Israel but stand in principled opposition to its very existence, as opposed to the more nuanced position of opposing a particular policy.

Must we choose between being shomrim and being nevi’im?  The truth is, we must be both.  We must defend Israel.  And we must ensure that Israel lives its values.  My Zionism is large enough to encompass both roles. This is not about both-sides-ism.  It is about being, not neutral, but nuanced in how we relate to Israel and how we express that relationship.  It is too complicated a situation not to be.

Then how do we know when to be shomrim and when to be nevi’im?  That is a more difficult question to answer, as it will be different for each one of us.  Much may depend on the particular circumstance.  I might defend Israel to those outside the Jewish community, but critique Israel within Jewish circles.  I might defer to Israel’s military leaders and support their goals when it comes to war plans, but speak up about humanitarian issues.  I can stand with the large percentage of Israeli society that wants Hamas defeated and destroyed so that they can never again threaten Israeli lives, and also stand with the large percentage of Israelis who want Israel to fulfill the commandment of pidyon shvuyim, the redemption of the captive,¹⁴ and demand that their government cut a deal, end the war, and provide for the safe return of the hostages.  When I feel like Israel is threatened, I am more likely to speak as a shomeir.  When I feel like Israel’s values are threatened, the navi side comes out more.

The roles of shomeir and navi do not always line up with presumed ideological leanings.  In the wake of the death last September of Hassan Nasrallah, the leader of Hezbollah, the press release from J Street, the left-leaning pro-peace Israel advocacy group, was very clear that, “J Street sheds no tears for Nasrallah or the deaths of other terrorists.  Israel has the right to defend itself in accordance with international law – and we remember that it was Hezbollah that chose to start firing on Israelis without provocation on October 8.”¹⁵  In the wake of Houthi missile attacks on Israel in May, J Street condemned the attacks, saying, in part, “This strike underscores the grave danger posed by Iran and Iranian-aligned forces … No country should have to live under the constant threat of rocket or missile fire targeting its population centers.”¹⁶ And … in August this year, over 80 Orthodox rabbis released a letter in the face of reports of severe starvation in Gaza, which recognized that although the roots of the humanitarian crisis “began with the horrific terrorist attack by Hamas on Israel … this does not absolve Israel’s government from assuming its share of the responsibility for the profound suffering of Gaza’s citizens.”  The Orthodox rabbis felt compelled to speak up in fulfillment of their ethical obligations “to demand policies that uphold human dignity, to provide humanitarian aid wherever possible, and to speak out when our government’s actions contradict the Torah’s moral imperatives, no matter how painful this may be to accept.”¹⁷ Left-leaning organizations that are usually in the public eye as nevi’im can stand in Israel’s defense.  And right-leaning rabbis who might be more likely seen as shomrim can call Israel to account for its actions and values. 

Israel needs shomrim, those who will stand up to defend Israel, to take up its cause on social media and in the court of world opinion, in the conversations between co-workers or neighbors.  As a Jewish community, we need Israel, and we need to be there for Israel.  And Israel needs nevi’im, those who will speak up when Israel is in danger of going astray, when Jewish values seem frayed in their execution by the Jewish state, when its leaders need reminding of the prophetic ideals upon which the state was founded.  As a Jewish community, we need Israel as a living embodiment of the moral code Judaism bequeathed to the world.  It is not one or the other.  Both are needed in our world today.  It is shomrim and nevi’im that will keep Israel safe and whole.  Both come from a deep love of Israel, a desire not only for her to exist but to thrive as a Jewish, democratic, moral state.

So when we have a hard time understanding how anyone could be what we are not, I’ll ask you to remember this framework. Both the navi and the shomeir speak and act from their deep convictions about Israel and Judaism.  Standing watch on the walls, speaking truth to power, both are acts of love.

May the shomrim and nevi’im of Israel continue to lift their voices with a deep and abiding love for the people of Israel, a deep and abiding connection to the Land of Israel, and a deep and abiding hope for the State of Israel.  

And let us say, Amen.

¹See https://www.resettingthetable.org.  Thank you to Rabbi Fred Greene for introducing this concept to me.
²Isaiah 62:6.
³Hosea 5:1.
⁴Isaiah 62:1.
⁵https://www.theguardian.com/news/2025/aug/05/antisemitic-incidents-spiked-in-uk-after-bob-vylan-glastonbury-anti-idf-chants
⁶See https://combatantisemitism.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/Antisemitic-Symbols-Report-2025.pdf; https://www.yahoo.com/news/red-hand-pin-means-jews-185101671.html
⁷See multiple examples in Gil Troy’s The Zionist Ideas.
⁸https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/the-declaration-of-the-establishment-of-the-state-of-israel
⁹Genesis 1:26-7
¹⁰Deuteronomy 24:19-21; 26:12; 27:19, among others.
¹¹Exodus 12:49; Leviticus 24:22.
¹²Exodus 23:9.
¹³See Yehuda Kurtzer’s recent writing - https://www.jta.org/2025/08/28/ideas/the-zionist-case-for-palestinian-statehood.
¹⁴Maimonides, Mishneh Torah, Laws of Gifts to the Poor, 8:10
¹⁵https://jstreet.org/press-releases/j-street-statement-on-assassination-of-hassan-nasrallah/
¹⁶https://jstreet.org/press-releases/j-street-strongly-condemns-houthi-missile-attack-on-ben-gurion-airport/
¹⁷The letter can be found at http://www.toratchayimrabbis.org/gazahumanitariancrisis.html.  For press coverage of the letter, see https://www.jta.org/2025/08/19/israel/80-modern-orthodox-rabbis-call-for-moral-clarity-in-the-face-of-gaza-humanitarian-crisis