For such a time as this, p.1
For Such a Time as This, page 1
Dedication
In honor of my parents,
Gabrielle and Malcolm Cosgrove,
who instilled in me
a love for Israel and the Jewish people,
the ability to think critically,
and the importance of always putting family first
Epigraph
Do not imagine that you, of all Jews, will escape with your life by being in the king’s palace. On the contrary, if you keep silent in this moment, relief and deliverance will come to the Jews from another quarter, while you and your father’s house will perish. And who knows, perhaps you have attained to royal position for such a time as this.
(Esther 4:13–14)
Contents
Cover
Title Page
Dedication
Epigraph
Introduction: The Wake-Up Call
Part One: What Was
One: Living the Hyphen: The Heart of Jewish Identity
Two: The Invisible Thread: Jewish Faith and Our Ancestral Homeland
Three: The Two Worlds of Judaism: Israel, the Diaspora, and the Divisions Within
Four: Empathy and Vigilance: The Two Responses to Jewish Trauma
Five: Antisemitism: A Modern Look at the World’s Oldest Hate
Part Two: What Is
Six: Grief, Clarity, Solidarity: Anchors for This Moment in Time
Seven: The Tribal Moment: What It Means to Be Jewish Today
Eight: For Such a Time as This: Esther, a Hero for Our Moment
Nine: Kiy’mu V’kiblu: Affirming and Accepting Our Jewish Identity
Ten: Empathy or Revenge: Choosing a Path of Peace
Eleven: Sinat Ḥinam: Why Our Greatest Risk Is the Enemy Within
Part Three: What Might Be
Twelve: The Day After: Toward a Dialogue of Peace
Thirteen: The Generational Divide: On Bridging the Politics of Zionism
Fourteen: The Broken and the Whole: A New Vision of Zionism and American Judaism
Fifteen: To Begin Again: Stepping Toward the Promised Land
Acknowledgments
Notes
About the Author
Praise
Copyright
About the Publisher
Introduction
The Wake-Up Call
October 7, 2023
“Are you going to get that?”
It was the third time I heard the buzz of Debbie’s phone from her side of the bed. As an observant Jewish household, we abstain from using the phone on Shabbat. As a congregational rabbi, I will get the occasional emergency call about pastoral duties that require my attention on the Jewish day of rest. But for my wife, Debbie, to receive a predawn call on Shabbat was unprecedented.
It was her sister Nancy, calling from Israel. There had been an attack—the extent of which was still unknown. The Israeli air-raid sirens had sent everyone into the bomb shelters, and there were scattered reports of an infiltration from the Gaza Strip. Nancy’s nineteen-year-old son, Yonatan, was home for the weekend from his military service and had been called back to return immediately to his tank unit. I listened to Debbie’s hushed side of the exchange between sisters. “Tell Yonatan we love him,” I called out, “and are proud of him.”
In the hours, days, and weeks to follow, we would learn not only the extent of the horrors but also their duration. This was not a single or scattered rocket attack to which Israel and its Iron Dome defense had grown accustomed. This was not the work of an isolated, lone-wolf terrorist, apprehended or “eliminated” by the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF). Beginning at 6:30 a.m., a barrage of over three thousand rockets was fired against Israel, continuing throughout the day. Nearly three thousand Hamas militants infiltrated Israel by land, sea, and air. They breached Israeli security in about sixty locations—a terrorist assault including acts of murder, rape, and hostage taking. It would take hours, amid the chaos and confusion, for Israel to launch a counterattack—hours we now know were filled with horror after horror.
My clergy colleagues and I assembled in synagogue earlier than usual that day. There was both a bar and a bat mitzvah that Shabbat morning, and it was also the penultimate day of the fall Jewish holiday season: a season beginning with Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year, followed by Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, followed by the festival of Sukkot (Feast of Tabernacles), and culminating in Sh’mini Atzeret and then Simchat Torah—days given over to appreciating the blessings of life and the renewal of the Torah reading cycle, darkly ironic considering the events unfolding in Israel. There would be special holiday prayers to recite, including a memorial service known as yizkor. How would we negotiate the logistics and emotions of the sacred day with the knowledge that horrific events were developing in real time, happening to our Jewish community halfway around the world? We huddled for a few minutes, then decided that the service must go on, hoping that both our congregants and the Good Lord above would forgive any missteps we made as we muddled through a very fluid situation.
With one exception, the morning passed without incident. Midway through the service, an agitated man whom I did not recognize stepped up to my pulpit. Given the tensions of the day, not to mention recent memories of synagogue attacks in Pittsburgh, Poway, and Colleyville, the exchange was, in retrospect, very scary. Park Avenue Synagogue is a “high-profile community”; a flagship congregation of two thousand member families in Manhattan, with tens of thousands of online participants. Israel was attacked, we could be a target, too—did this individual intend harm to me and my community? Thank goodness, the man was well-intentioned. He too had woken up to the news from Israel. Knowing that not all rabbis would be checking their phones on Shabbat, he had taken it upon himself to visit as many synagogues as he could, to make sure that everyone knew what he knew—that Israel and, by extension, the Jewish people were under assault. The gentleman left as quickly as he arrived—I have never seen him again. After that incident, however, I have made sure that a plainclothes police officer is sitting among my congregation in the pews.
The events of the next few days remain a blur. There were constant calls and text updates from my family and my wife’s family who live in Israel. As a clergy team we closed out the Jewish holiday season, celebrating the renewal of the annual Torah reading cycle while keeping tabs on the news from abroad. Twenty-five years into my rabbinate, I have learned to cherish a few days of rest following the holidays. The weeks of anticipation and preparation, and then the officiation of holiday services, are grueling for clergy, and we all look forward to catching our breath at the end of the festival cycle. In the wake of the attacks, there would be no such reprieve. The lives of clergy, mine included, would be turned upside down by the shock of the attacks, Israel’s immediate declaration of war, and the first signs of response in America. In the week that followed (and before any Israeli counterattacks), over 150 anti-Israel rallies were held across the United States; incredibly, participants voiced solidarity with Hamas—they viewed the attackers as freedom fighters and their actions as expressions of armed resistance. It felt, and in some ways continues to feel, like we were playing defense and offense at the same time.
I spent hours in dialogue with my colleagues, my synagogue leadership, and representatives of the wider Jewish and civic community to formulate a response and consider possible domestic threats to Jewish interests. Together with other Jewish leaders I stood at the side of a variety of city representatives as they affirmed their support for Israel. Our community rallied to raise funds to help with disaster relief there—breaking an $18 million goal in less than a week. This effort reflected extraordinary community engagement and more phone calls than I can count.
And all this on top of the already frenetic life of a congregational rabbi.
I recall counseling a young engaged couple, planning to wed that week, that despite the news, their wedding must absolutely take place. I shared with them the wise Talmudic counsel that in the event that one must choose between a wedding procession and a funeral procession, the wedding procession takes precedence. Under the cloud of war, as I officiated at their beautiful wedding, I explained to the couple, their guests, and, if I’m honest, to myself that Judaism is a tradition that affirms life. Even, and perhaps especially, in the face of loss, as the biblical book of Deuteronomy states, we are obligated to “choose life.”
Having led my congregation through the challenges of the COVID-19 global pandemic, which disrupted our way of communal worship and prayer, October 7th brought with it a feeling of déjà vu: our entire world was turned upside down in an instant. In the wake of the attacks, my congregants, like the rest of the Jewish world, entered an intense period of grieving, with many seeking out me and my colleagues for support and guidance. Yet another layer was added to my normal, overflowing docket of life cycle events—weddings, births, deaths, and hospital visits. One of the challenges of being clergy is the balancing act of supporting a congregation through loss, whether it be the death of a congregant, a global pandemic, or an attack on Israel, while experiencing that loss oneself. Congregants become friends, sometimes best friends, and when they die, a part of me dies. It is not easy to hold another’s pain when one is in pain oneself. So too with global events.
For me—and for many Jews outside of Israel—the attacks of October 7th were deeply personal. Was my nephew Yonatan okay? Which of my cousins were being called up to military service? Israel is more than an essential aspect of my identity; it is family—and it was under attack. I had
In hindsight, that predawn wake-up call Debbie received from her sister was a wake-up call for all of diaspora Jewry. We did not understand it at the time, but that morning our eyes opened to a world very different from the one we had gone to sleep in the night before. My life changed that day: my roles as pastor, preacher, and institutional leader took on new urgency and dimension. I became a “wartime rabbi,” as my friend Steve (and later, a newspaper headline) would reflect a few weeks into the conflict.
One particular phone call stands out in my mind. Sometime in the weeks following October 7th, my friend Caryn called me and said something to this effect: “Elliot, the whole world was turned upside down on October 7th, and I can only imagine, as rabbi to Park Avenue Synagogue, how your life has changed! The Jewish people are in need of leadership, and you occupy the pulpit of a major synagogue in the heart of the largest diaspora Jewish community. I can’t help but think that you didn’t choose this moment—it chose you. Who knows, maybe it was for such a time as this that you are in your position.” I remember the deep breath I took as the weight of Caryn’s words registered.
For such a time as this . . . Whether Caryn knew it or not, she was quoting from the biblical book of Esther. Specifically, the scene in which Queen Esther’s foster father, Mordecai, calls upon her to step up and save the Jews of ancient Persia from destruction. Esther does not choose her moment; it chooses her. She is being asked to rise to the occasion. The exchange between Mordecai and Esther is a turning point, not just in the biblical story but in all our stories. There is a happenstance nature to our lives—far more is beyond our control than within it. What we can shape, however, is our response to whatever is happening to us. Mordecai’s words to Esther (and Caryn’s to me) are a reminder of the role of human agency in an out-of-control world often filled with pain. “For such a time as this” is a phrase that has called to many of us, myself included, in the months following October 7th, and the title of this book.
* * *
IT WASN’T JUST my world that changed in the months following October 7th—it changed for everyone. The great awakening was not just the trauma of the attack itself, or the war that ensued, or the ongoing plight of the hostages—over 250 initially reported taken captive. That in itself, as the Passover seder song goes, would be “dayenu,” “enough.” It was more than that—much more.
Jewry worldwide shared a disorienting experience of whiplash—the world was revealed to be less hospitable to us than we had hitherto believed. Our heightened sense of vulnerability spurred a great awakening of individual and collective Jewish identity. In our communities, homes, social media feeds, and hearts, new questions bubbled up to the surface. Was the Israel previously believed to be the powerful, Abraham Accord–signing, tech powerhouse “Start-Up Nation” now exposed as a fragile and, God forbid, fleeting project? From January through October of 2023, mass protests and counterprotests took place across Israel over the government’s proposed legislation for judicial reform. About half of the Israeli electorate and much of American Jewry stood at odds with the Israeli government, believing its push for judicial reform was in breach of its founding vision of being both a democratic and Jewish state. Prior to October 7th there existed two radically different visions of the Jewish state, in Israel and the diaspora—Israel’s internal rift was thought to be as dangerous as any external threat. Following October 7th, the state and the Jewish community at large came together in unity, however tenuous, to defend Israel against a shared enemy and to face an existential crisis. How do we turn on a dime to defend the wartime decisions of the very government that yesterday was thought to threaten Israel’s long-term vitality? And as we watched, the war in Israel set off a flurry of anti-Israel (and often antisemitic) protests in the United States and created a climate of hostility for many Jews across large cities and college campuses nationwide. We also wondered—where did all this antisemitism come from? Was it always there, under the surface, or was a new hatred emerging?
And what did this mean for Jews and our collective identity? Suddenly, many felt called to be more openly Jewish and proud of their identity, even as they experienced growing anxiety at the rise of hate around us. Was this the echo of our parents’ and grandparents’ experiences as they escaped from countless pogroms and Holocaust Europe? Is our identity shaped by the positive “pull” of everything that brings us together or the negative “push” from others that sets us apart? Are American Jews members of the privileged establishment or a vulnerable and detested minority? Where does our Jewish identity end and our attachment to Israel begin, and what are diaspora Jewry’s obligations to Israel?
In light of the brutality of the October 7th attacks and the continued plight of the hostages, how is it possible that a victimized country has come to be portrayed as an aggressor? That even as the fate of the hostages remains uncertain, calls for the destruction of Israel have migrated from Hamas’s founding charter to the chants of university students, side chats, and academic conferences? How is it possible that an America insistent that Black Lives, LGBTQ+ Lives, and Asian Lives Matter cannot bring itself to declare that Jewish Lives Matter? How can diaspora Jewry square the circle of its hope for Palestinian-Israeli coexistence with the inhuman hatred that Hamas’s terrorists inflicted on Israelis on October 7th?
Prior to October 7th, I publicly advocated for a two-state solution, believing as I still do that everyone—Israelis and Palestinians—deserves a place to call home. How can we defend Israel’s right to self-defense and self-determination yet also mourn the loss of every Palestinian displaced, injured, or killed? In a time of war, how do we display empathy for the “other side”? Is it possible to prosecute a war and advocate for peace at one and the same time? In a world divided between “us” and “them,” what concerns must I have for the innocent noncombatants among “them,” and how do I give those concerns expression?
As many have noted and perhaps as Israel’s enemies intended, the October 7th attacks took place almost exactly fifty years after the 1973 Yom Kippur War—a surprise attack by Arab armies that left Israel’s fate hanging in the balance. Israel survived that war, but it shattered what Israelis referred to as the conceptzia, the hubristic belief that the Arabs could not and would not go to war against Israel. In 1973, diaspora Jewry underwent a transformation, a surge in tribal identity prompted by solidarity with a threatened Israel and a surge in domestic antisemitism. Fifty years later, the Hamas attacks once again shattered Israel’s self-perception, sending its political and defense establishment into a painful process of self-examination—how did it fail to protect its citizenry that day?
So too, off the battlefield and across the ocean, diaspora Jewry is asking a host of questions regarding our own condition—questions that extend beyond any single news cycle and run deep into the core of our being. Attendance at worship services and adult education classes, youth group participation, philanthropy, volunteerism—by any metric, there is a surge in Jewish engagement. Jews worldwide are yet again singing the defiant and affirming anthem of our people’s solidarity: “Am Yisrael Chai,” “The People of Israel Live.”
“Amazing / How everything looks / Unchanged, / Even / When nothing / Remains / The same,” writes the contemporary Hebrew poet Michael Zats. Here is the paradox of October 7th. At one and the same time, everything and nothing changed: the intractable Palestinian-Israeli conflict and cycle of violence, the blurred line between anti-Zionism and antisemitism, the balancing act by which American Jews bridge all our hyphenated identities—universal-particular, liberal-parochial, religious-secular. These tensions are not new to the Jewish experience.
The pogrom-like nature of the day was intended as and understood to be an attack not just on Israel but on global Jewry. The trauma of the October 7th attacks was not just their brutality but the way they triggered a nerve buried deep in the Jewish psyche, which spurs us to compare a current crisis to past calamities: “The most Jews killed in a single day since the Yom Kippur War . . . since the Kishinev pogroms . . . since the Holocaust.” Why did every Israeli or Jewish journalist need to invoke some past Jewish catastrophe as the measuring stick by which to calculate the magnitude of the present one? Whether used intentionally or not, this choice of language is a “code signal,” an inner Jewish nod to an idea expressed in this saying attributed to Mark Twain: “While history may not repeat itself, it does rhyme.” Or, as the biblical book of Ecclesiastes said so long ago: “There is nothing new under the sun.” Indeed, to Jewish senior citizens, especially members of the Holocaust survivor community, October 7th is a trauma beyond words. To have lived this long, to have survived, and . . . it begins again. Israel’s back is against the wall, the world’s oldest hatred—antisemitism—is still very much alive, and world Jewry feels exposed and isolated once again.
