Hope is the Thing With Teeth (Yom Kippur 5785)

Hope is the Thing With Teeth
Rabbi Sivan Rotholz, Yom Kippur 5785

It is Yom Kippur Morning. The Day of Atonement. Today we join millions of Jews around the world in coming together to atone for our sins, seek forgiveness, and hold one another up. It has been an incredibly painful year for the Jewish people, and yet we are here, together, in community. This holiday is not observed alone, and that could not be more symbolic of our communal solidarity at this moment. Now we turn to the heavy lifting of self-examination, accountability, and repentance—together.

As I enter the new year, I am thinking about a word that can sometimes be overused, but that has taken on a whole new meaning for me, post-October 7th: hope. How it has defined the Jewish people for centuries. How, in the face of tragedy after tragedy, from destruction and exile to pogroms to the murder of six million Jews to more than 400 missiles fired at Israel last week, we have always been a resilient people, and our endurance has been driven by our refusal to abandon faith in a better, safer, sweeter day. And yet. Despite this legacy, many of us here today are reeling from recent events. We have witnessed barbaric terrorism and unimaginable violence against our people, only to see those outside our community – and some within it – respond to our suffering with virulent—even gleeful—antisemitism. The truth is, after such a year, it may feel impossible to summon optimism and stamina. And when we look to the east, to a war that has raged on for 12 months, to hostages who have been in captivity for what feels like an eternity, our ability to believe in a peaceful future for Israel may also have been damaged or lost. But despite how hard it may feel at this moment, we must not give in to pessimism. In fact, in 5785 and beyond, we must hope harder than ever.

As a child, my mother spent many happy hours visiting her best friend, Joanie Edelstein. Joanie’s parents offered a warm, loving environment, a culture of curiosity and learning, and family gatherings centered around Jewish rituals and foods. The Edelsteins embodied the Hebrew word mishpacha—family and tribe. My mother grew up and converted to Judaism, inspired by the Edelsteins, and by her best friend Joanie.

Eventually, Mr. & Mrs. Edelstein made aliyah—immigrating to Israel. And my mom’s best friend, Joanie Edelstien, decided in her adult years to follow her family to Jerusalem. One day—not long after her arrival, she boarded a bus, and was killed by a suicide bomber.

Israel has never been a nation without risk or sadness. But when I lived there recently for three years, and every time I return with my children or on my own, I absorb not just the Jerusalem light, the joyful Tel Aviv beach, the Shabbat quiet, or the bustling markets and enterprise, but the palpable, even defiant, vibrancy of the place. I feel its strength.

For the past year, since the horrific events of October 7th, we have all been thinking about Jerusalem. Psalm 137 famously warns, “If I forget you, O Jerusalem, let my right-hand wither; let my tongue cleave to my palate if I cease to think of you.” We turn toward Jerusalem when we pray. And when we send our pleas and gratitude to the east, we are lifting up a kind of conviction. If there is anything our tradition teaches, it is this: We are a people that can’t be broken. We are a people that longs for a peaceful, thriving Israel. And we are a people that never leaves hope behind.

I never met Joanie Edelstein, but her story has shaped my own. Among the many things I absorbed from the legacy of Joanie’s life and death was the importance of defiant positivity. The Edelsteins believed in a world capable of peaceful coexistence. A Jewish news article published in the wake of Joanie’s death begins, “Only hours after her oldest daughter died in Monday's Jerusalem bus bombing...Betty Edelstein said she hasn't lost faith in the peace process.” Mrs. Edelstein, the woman who taught my mother what it means to be Jewish, held fast to her vision of a possible Jerusalem, to her faith in humanity, and to her hope of peace, even in the face of her daughter’s killing.

The Hebrew word for Jerusalem is Yerushalaim. The ending, ayim, indicates the plural in Hebrew. Why does a single city end in the plural form? Our tradition teaches that it is because there are, in fact, two Jerusalems—Jerusalem shel ma’ala—the Jerusalem above—and Jerusalem shel mata—the Jerusalem below. One a heavenly, celestial city, ideal and idealized, and one the lower, earthly city, still beautiful, still bathed in light, but a more complicated place.

“Why is Jerusalem always two, the heavenly and the earthly,” asks Israel’s beloved poet laureate, Yehuda Amichai. “I want to live in the Jerusalem in the middle / Not banging my head on top or stubbing my foot below.” But despite Amichai’s words, we as humans and Jews have no such choice. We must live between the realms of the real and the possible. And so, when Joanie Edelstein was killed in Jerusalem shel mata, her family still believed in the promise of Jerusalem shel mala.

Because Jerusalem has never been just about Jerusalem. That incredible, layered city where I gave birth to my second child and pushed her stroller down narrow sidewalks, where I walked through fields and playgrounds each day to take my son to preschool, where I ate rugelach at the bustling Machne Yuda market, met friends for coffee on busy streets, and fell in love with the white stone buildings, has always served as a metaphor for yearning. For Eretz Yisrael. For the Jewish need for a homeland. For the personal, spiritual, and communal longing to return. For thousands of years, the Jewish people have never forgotten Jerusalem. And they DID go back. We never forget that to be Jewish is to share a sense of belonging – to one another, to our history, to our home, and, yes, to a world where we might live freely – and safely – alongside people who pray differently from us.

Jerusalem shel mata—the earthly Jerusalem—is a very real place. She exists, in all her multifaceted glory, beautiful and broken and striving to heal. But Jerusalem shel ma’ala—the heavenly Jerusalem—is just as real.

There is a Jewish mystical teaching that when we sing “kadosh kadosh kadosh” during the Amidah, the angels sing with us. That our actions in this world inspire action in the world above. This is echoed by our modern sage Leonard Cohen, who taught that “The Heart beneath is teaching …the broken Heart above.” Our hearts here, in the earthly realm – our broken hearts, our grieving hearts, our hopeful, praying hearts—reach up to God’s heart above. What we offer down here with our actions and our prayers impacts the heavenly realm. Our brokenness in this world actually teaches God. And we have never been as broken as we have this year. Imagine what God might have learned.

So, too, does Jerusalem shel mata—the earthly Jerusalem—teach Jerusalem shel mala—the heavenly Jerusalem. There is so much that the Jerusalem below can teach the Jerusalem we strive for. In the wake of October 7th, Israelis lined up for hours and in droves, day after day, to donate blood. They made food, harvested fruit and vegetables, and organized donations so that soldiers had home-cooked meals, warm clothes, and the comforts of home. And they went on with their lives. They went to cafes and spent days at the shore, they celebrated at weddings, the school year started, they went to museums and held concerts and ate falafel and marked Shabbat, week after week, moving forward with a rhythm of life one can only maintain if they believe that the deep shock, sadness, and mourning will not be Israel’s whole story.

For thousands of years when Jews spoke of Jerusalem, we spoke of return. But to which Jerusalem did we dream of returning? To the real and complex city that exists right now—a home to both Orthodox and secular Jews, to Jews and Arabs, to peaceniks and warhawks, or to Jerusalem ba’shamayiim, the heavenly Jerusalem? When we say, “Next year in Jerusalem” at our Passover Seders, are we talking about the place, or the promise? The fact that, despite the blessed existence of the State of Israel, we are still, formally and informally, individually and communally, longing for Zion, begs the question: What is it we are still praying for when we pray for Israel today? Is it a cry for peace? For a Jewish State that is more aligned with our personal values? Are we praying for a haven, a refuge, a corner of the earth where Jews can live safely together?

To believe a perfected world is possible; to long for that world, to pray for it, believe in it, strive toward it – this is what it means to me to hope. When it comes to Israel, some days it feels like hope is our only oxygen when we can’t breathe, when we wake up each day and think about all the hostages still in airless tunnels, when we think about Rachel and Jon Goldberg Polin who will never hug their son again, when we see how Hamas has so willingly, heartlessly sacrificed its own people.

It is a deeply Jewish act to hold fast to hope even in the face of loss, anguish, and uncertainty. Our modern sage, Elie Wiesel, perhaps captured it best: "Just as man cannot live without dreams, he cannot live without hope. For hope summons the future.”

Wiesel reminds us that hope is a verb. That it is not utopian optimism, not a passive sense that everything will be OK. Hope requires grit, determination, resilience. Emily Dickinson famously wrote that “hope is the thing with feathers.” A delicate bird perched in the soul. But the poet Caitlin Seida wrote in response that “Hope Is Not a Bird… It’s a Sewer Rat”:

Seida writes:

“Hope is not the thing with feathers
That comes home to roost
When you need it most.

Hope is an ugly thing
With teeth and claws and
Patchy fur....

It’s what thrives in the discards
And survives in the ugliest parts of our world,
Able to find a way to go on
When nothing else can even find a way in…”

Since October 7th, I have struggled with the earthly Jerusalem, with the very real Israel. With questions like How could they let this happen? And Will there ever be peace? But hope is not only the thing with feathers. “Hope [is also the thing that] survives the ugliest parts of our world, able to find a way to go on when nothing else can even find a way in.” Even in the depths of my grief, I have prayed for the safe return of the hostages, and I have prayed for an end to this violence every day. My hope has teeth and claws. Even when I despair of the earthly Jerusalem, hope persists, finding a way in.

Gmar Hatima Tovah—may we all be sealed in the Book of Life – and may we remember the words of Psalm 122: “Pray for the well-being of Jerusalem; May those who love you be at peace.”