Earlier this month, I had the honor of spending ten days learning at the Shalom Hartman Institute in Jerusalem. As we move through the three weeks leading up to Tisha B’Av, this week will feature reflections on some of what I studied there through the lens of Tisha B’Av and October 7.
Imagine that it is 1943 and you are living in Brighton, Massachusetts. It is Yom Kippur at your Orthodox synagogue, and your rabbi is a Munich-born Jew, known for his fiery rhetoric. What do you imagine he might say at that moment? Or, in Detroit in October 1918 – as World War I is still raging and you are sitting in your Reform synagogue and your rabbi gets up to speak. What might he say? And, of course, the unspoken question in a room full of rabbis – on October 8, 2023 or High Holy Days 2024… what could we say?
In a fascinating lecture, Dr. Elana Stein-Hain led us through five different sermons preached by five different rabbis, in five different times of crisis – for the Jewish people and for the world. In preparation for her talk, Dr. Stein-Hain had us study sources. The sources were texts that informed the sermons – perhaps they were quoted, or perhaps she thought that they might be in conversation with the sermons. Particularly poignant, were some of the post-October 7 texts which she brought. But in Jerusalem in the summer of 2024, I found myself returning to two different visions which our tradition offers for two farming implements – the plowshare and the pruning hook.
The version familiar to most of us is probably the one from Isaiah 2:4, where the prophet envisions that, “they shall beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks: Nation shall not take up sword against nation; they shall never again know war.” This is part of a larger, almost utopian, vision for the end of days as presented by Isaiah at the beginning of his prophecy – and thus was delivered at a time that most assuredly did not feel that way.
The other related vision is presented by one of the minor prophets. In 4:10, Joel exhorts the people to “beat your plowshares into swords, and your pruning hooks into spears. Let even the weakling say: I am strong.” Here, Joel presents an almost mirror image to Isaiah. Citing this text, and preaching during World War I, Rabbi Leo Franklin told his Detroit congregation:
While the Jew has never been a militant people in the ordinary sense of that term, he has never, never, through all the centuries of his existence, sanctioned as an ethical ideal a peace that was based in compromise with evil. His God is not denominated “The Prince of Peace;” He is called “A-donai Zevo-oth” (The God of Armies), the God who would lead his people unto battle against those who would defy the principles of justice and humanity…
It was, of course, powerful to read these words in Israel as rocket warnings blared from the North and soldiers battled – some to their deaths – in Gaza. That is, of course, one of the reasons Dr. Stein-Hain brought us this text. But, she also brought it to us so that we could – at this moment in particular – wrestle with the relationship between Isaiah and Joel; and how we move – as a people and as individuals – from the needs of Joel to the vision of Isaiah. When do we, as the Jewish people, as the State of Israel, or maybe even as humanity overall, get to turn our swords back into plowshares? Rabbi Franklin offers a sobering answer to that question as well, preaching that:
…to consent even to a momentary cessation of hostilities with a regime that does not yet understand the iniquity of its philosophy, would be to bring upon our heads not only a well-deserved humiliation at this time, but as well, the disdain and even the hatred of those future generations who security would be implied by our cowardice…
In Israel, there is a lot of conversation about “the day after.” Even though it is now July, people ask, “What happens on October 8?” They ask this because, as a nation, Israelis are still living in the trauma of October 7; still fighting the battle of that day. There are signs everywhere reminding us that Israel is not complete, nor is victory, until all of the hostages are brought home. But part of the mission of a prophetic people is to imagine what comes next; to imagine a day after. It is to imagine the sort of transformative change that Rabbi Franklin preached about, and that the hundreds of thousands of Israelis who take to the streets each week are demanding.
And, we pray, it is to fulfill the words of Israeli poet laureate Yehuda Amichai, who took the words of Isaiah even further:
Don’t stop after beating the swords into plowshares, don’t stop! Go on beating and make musical instruments out of them.
Whoever wants to make war again will have to turn them into plowshares first.
We do not yet have the answer as to how we will move from Joel to Isaiah, and certainly not to Amichai. But during these days, at this moment, I am so grateful to be a part of a tradition which finds hope and strength in asking the questions – and dreaming of that future of plowshares and song.
— Rabbi Sari Laufer