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November 11, 2023
Author(s): Rabbi Wes Gardenswartz,
Parashat Chaye Sarah
When Parents and Children Disagree About Israel
November 11, 2023 — 27 Cheshvan 5784
Temple Emanuel, Newton, MA
This morning I want to tackle a question that is granular, sensitive, painful, common—and coming soon to a Thanksgiving table near you. What do we do when different generations in our family disagree, passionately, about Israel? This is not a new question. It is an old question.
What is new is the urgency of the question in light of the massacre of October 7, and Israel’s ongoing response in the weeks since. If this war continues to be protracted, if both Gaza civilians and Israeli soldiers continue to die, the latent differences among the generations will only get exacerbated.
Several families have come to see me asking how they should respond to views of their children that are very different from their own. My son told me that he attended a rally to pressure Israel into a ceasefire. My daughter told me that she has been calling our Senators to force Israel into a ceasefire. I can’t even believe it. What do I say? What do I do?
What happens when these different views are expressed around the Thanksgiving table?
There is no one answer that is right for every family. But I wanted to offer three different models. Each family can figure out what works best for it.
One option is to talk about Israel and Gaza honestly. Go there. The younger generation makes its case. The older generation makes its case.
If the generations have this honest conversation, there are some pros. People are talking about what matters. So long as the conversation is respectful, it feels like an authentic Jewish move, a principled disagreement.
But there are at least two cons.
First, and we all know this, people seldom to never convince each other that you are wrong, and I am right. New facts do not convince. No article or podcast is going to make the other person say: Oh, thank you, I never knew that, now I see things the way you do. People arrive to these conversations dug in.
Which leads to a second drawback. These conversations can be painful. It is impossible to have an emotionless conversation about Israel. The conversation can easily devolve into hurt feelings.
Both parents and children can wonder: who are you? Son or daughter, who are you, that after all those trips to Israel, after all those years of Jewish education, after knowing that our own family members perished in the Shoah, after knowing that we have friends and family in Israel, who are you that you don’t have instinctive sympathy for, and a desire to protect, the Jewish people, of whom you are one? Wait Mom and Dad, who are you? Where did the parents go who raised me? Where did the parents go who ran decades of seders about protecting the vulnerable? Of course the 1400 murdered Israelis are an atrocity. But how do you not see dead Gaza civilians as also an urgent moral problem? How do you not see them?
An honest conversation like this can easily take the holiday cheer out of the holiday.
Which leads to a second option: Everyone abides by the ground rule that we won’t talk about Israel. We will agree to disagree and just not talk about it.
This option avoids painful and unproductive conversations. But this option also has a big disadvantage: what does it mean that parents and children cannot even talk about the most urgent issue of the day? Yes, it is peace, but peace accomplished by ignoring what matters. It is a peace that feels not real.
So what to do? Is there a third move?
We may not agree about Israel. But can we all be inspired by Israel’s citizen soldiers who are fighting this war, who are literally putting their lives on the line?
Soldiers like Matanya Ben Tzofit, who works with Micah Goodman as the head of Beit Prat in Jerusalem. There is this iconic photo of Matanya, in his army uniform, holding his baby daughter Yaara, giving her a kiss, before he goes into Gaza. He leaves his wife Reut. He leaves his daughter. He leaves his home. He leaves his job. He leaves all that to go to Gaza, where he is the commander of a tank, which all too often is vulnerable to anti-tank missiles. Can you even imagine what it takes, the courage one has to summon, the selflessness, the idealism, the nobility, the love of the Jewish people and the Jewish state, to leave home and hearth to get into a tank in Gaza?
His tank was hit by a missile. Two of the soldiers under his command died. He was badly injured. He was rescued by a medic. The medic got him out of the burning tank. It turns out that the medic who saved his life had also studied at Beit Prat in Jerusalem. It is going to be a long road, but Matanya is recovering in a hospital. So young. So idealistic. So scarred.
Matanya Ben Tzofit believes in something larger than himself. He believes in the right of the Jewish people to a homeland in eretz yisrael, to live in peace and security, without fear. He will fight for that right. If necessary, he would die for that right, to make sure that October 7 never ever happens again.
Matanya’s story is so powerful. But the truth is there are 360,000 stories like it. There are 360,000 young Israeli citizen soldiers who left their homes, left their spouses, left their children, left their parents, who are not sleeping, left their daily routines, left their showers and beds and cups of coffee, left safety and security, to come fight a war in Gaza or to prepare for a war against Hezbollah in the north. There are 360,000 young Israelis who do not know if they will survive this war, but they are highly motivated to fight it because they believe in something larger than themselves.
What does this have to do with our Thanksgiving table, and with the differences among our generations?
Matanya, and his fellow soldiers, believe in something larger than themselves.
What do we believe in that is larger than ourselves? What is asked of American Jews is different from what is asked of Israeli Jews. Israeli Jews are asked to fight for, and if necessary to die for, Israel as a Jewish homeland. While some American Jews, including the sons and daughters of our congregation, are in the American armed forces, for the most part American Jews in civilian life are not asked to die for something. But what are we willing to live for? What are we willing to fight for? What are we willing to sacrifice for that is bigger than ourselves? If we can’t answer that question now with something meaningful, that is an opportunity for spiritual growth and conversation around our Thanksgiving table.
We asked Matanya’s wife if we could use his story. She said yes, on one condition, that Temple Emanuel prays for him. She said he needs our prayers. May God bring a rephuah shelaimah, a full and complete healing, to Matanya Ben Tzofit, rephuat hanefesh, a healing of his soul, and rephuat haguf, a healing of his body. May Matanya be restored to health, strength and life.
And may we all be inspired by Matanya, and by all of Israel’s heroic soldiers, to find what it is that we believe in that deeply. As William James taught us, the greatest use of a life is to spend it on something that will outlast it. What is that for you? That is a question for all generations. Shabbat shalom.