We had a special visitor at our shul in Johannesburg this past Shabbat: Avi Kagan, the newly appointed director of the Israel Center and the Jewish Agency’s representative in South Africa. The timing was perfect, as we have just begun building a protective wall around the outer perimeter of our synagogue and nursery-school campus, substantially supported by the Jewish Agency.
We aren’t the only Jewish institution that has received such assistance; the Jewish Agency is funding similar efforts around the world. Still, we were pleased to welcome Avi and express our gratitude personally.
Indeed, Jewish communities internationally are upgrading their security. The sad reality is that we do need to protect ourselves. In our own community, we are blessed to have a dedicated, professional Community Security Organization that is organized, highly developed and well-structured. CSO volunteers are outside our shuls and schools whenever there is substantial traffic. I dare say that Jewish communities in the United States and elsewhere could take a few pages out of our local book.
When it comes to protecting ourselves from organized antisemites or lone wolves, it doesn’t matter what level of involvement or Jewish practice is; sadly, Jews have become prime targets in the world once again.
I remember my late father describing how in the early days of World War II, he was huddled inside a bunker in Poland during the Luftwaffe’s indiscriminate airstrikes. Suddenly, a bomb landed right outside their bunker. The explosion was deafening.
Inside that bunker were all kinds of Jews: Chassidim, religious, irreligious, Bundists, Socialists and Communists who proclaimed to be atheists. But when that bomb crashed next to them, every single one shouted Shema Yisrael at the top of his lungs. Indeed, there are no atheists in a foxhole.
The late Rabbi Jonathan Sacks quotes Rabbi JB Soloveitchik, who called this phenomenon our “Covenant of Fate.”
In Israel since Oct. 7, 2023, Jews have witnessed how when the chips are down, we all realize where our lives, safety and security come from. When we are under attack, we understand innately that we’re all in this together.
Israel usually has a government of national unity in times of war. But as soon as the war is over, we’re back at each other’s throats. The civil war in Israel over judicial reform before the Hamas-led terrorist attacks in southern Israel led our enemies to believe that we were vulnerable. And yet, the Jewish people—with Israel on the frontlines—responded with tremendous unity and resolve.
Of course, now that things have quieted down a bit after nearly three years of battling regional terror groups, we are again experiencing much dissension and anger, particularly regarding the draft exemptions of yeshivah students in Israel.
Since becoming Life Rabbi Emeritus of the Sydenham Shul, I have been able to travel extensively on speaking tours worldwide. In the last few years, when hostages were being held captive in Gaza after being dragged there by terrorists on Oct. 7, it was both beautiful and gratifying to hear prayers for them throughout the Jewish Diaspora, especially in America. Our global unity was quite inspiring.
But we dare not be a community united by pain and persecution alone. That may be fate, but it is negative. We need to be a community that sticks together by choice. We have chosen to be part of the “kingdom of priests and a holy nation” (Exodus 19:6). We’re not opting out of being Jewish, even if it is safer and more convenient to be something else.
We are together in good times and in bad. When we pray Refaeinu for our own health in the Amidah, we conclude: “Blessed are You, Hashem, who heals the sick of His people Israel.” We don’t only pray for ourselves.
When we comfort mourners, we say: “May Hashem comfort you among the other mourners of Zion and Jerusalem.” We always include ourselves with the collective, with all our people.
And we celebrate together as well.
Being proactively and positively Jewish is embracing not a “Covenant of Fate,” but what Rav Soloveitchik calls a “Covenant of Destiny.”
Now, fate and destiny are synonymous, but there is a big difference. Fate is negative—something thrust upon us against our will. Unfortunately, we must live with it. The circumstances of Jew-hatred today are frightening, but we have no choice but to hold our heads high and confront it with pride and resilience.
Yes, some people—many of them in the younger generations—have become cynical, asking about Jews being a “chosen people.”
They lament: “Chosen for what? Pain and suffering?”
As the character Tevye from “Fiddler on the Roof” so famously asked God during a moment of personal stress: “I know, I know, we are the chosen people. But once in a while, can’t you choose someone else?”
Destiny is a choice. How does that graffiti go … the antisemite scrawled on the wall: “How odd of God to choose the Jews?” And the Jew responded, “No, not odd. The Jews chose God!”
So it is. We were born Jewish; we didn’t choose it. But we did choose God at Sinai, and we will keep choosing Him again and again—in every generation and in every circumstance.
