Lamentations

Newsletter July 28, 2025 Together, we're #keepingitsacred...

In my first year of rabbinical school, I took a class on Zionism with a very special professor. It wasn’t just a history class, it was led as an exploration of what the Zionist enterprise means to us: rabbinical students and cantorial students and Jewish educators. The biggest takeaway was that there were many approaches to the enterprise. My professor allowed students the space to wrestle, critique, affirm and challenge- always with from a place of love- by leading us in a deep dive into the various Zionisms (and anti-Zionisms) professed throughout time by Herzl, Jabotinsky, the Bundists, Ahad H’Am, the Satmar community, Ben Yehuda, etc.

Our soul connection to this topic was formed through visits to historical sites of significance, through discussions with thinkers along the spectrum of relationship to the land, and of course with the foundation of deep historical learning and context.

My professor has lived in Israel for decades and has deep feelings about the Zionist enterprise. He has lived his feelings on the topic. As we have differed on our orientation to the land, (not the least of which was his continued decision to live in the land and mine to live in the diaspora), we have wrestled on many elements of the subject over the years. And, I have always appreciated his investment in my identity formation and development as a Jewish communal leader.

Recently, he posted a long entry outlining the countless moral failings of the leadership in Israel.

He is someone who picked up his life from another country, made Aliyah/moved to Israel, and raised his family in the land. His words come from love and he calls out the abysmal situation from an aggrieved heart. In his writings, he calls out the government leadership and their atrocious actions, the power dynamics at play in their decisions, their attempted dismantling of judicial systems, and the devastating neglect of Jewish values in each decision made. 

My heart breaks for him in this moment because I know how deeply he yearned for another path and how personally invested he was, and is, in another vision of what Israel could be.

Personally, I am, and have been, horrified by the realities of life on the ground in the region for a long time and especially now- for the hostages’ degradation, for that of their families, for the Gazans who are literally starving and have no way to go back to even the minimal dignity they had before their homes and everything they knew was leveled. I live in constant fear for the safety of my loved ones in the region, including those in the reserve and in the IDF. I am traumatized by the utter desecration of human life and human dignity that plagues the region including on October 7 and before and after that atrocious date. I am aggrieved by the thousands of fractures the ongoing conflict has caused and continues to cause between Jews and other groups, and within our own communities and families. And by the corporate interests who keep this war going for obscene amounts of profit. And by the politicians drunk on power and who have no sense of leading for the good of the people they are supposed to do right by. Despair is here, on so many levels and it is overwhelming.

Perhaps this is fitting to express now since we are one week away from the observance of Tisha B’Av, a holy day reserved for grieving over communal loss, complete with a public reading of the Book of Lamentations.

At heartbreaking times like this, where it seems like there is no way through, I remember that even when a terminal illness is diagnosed (and I have walked this path two step-dads and countless congregants now), we still have choices in front of us- we can still choose to uphold our values in the face of the horror, we can choose to look for the light and joy each day - maybe more finely attune ourselves to these things than before. We can look for and surround ourselves with and bolster those working for human dignity, honor, and shared respect. We can work to keep the precious little we do have and honor it and sanctify it. We can work to keep it sacred and not let it ruin what little we have left. It’s a privilege to be with you in this moment as together, as we’re committed to keeping it sacred.

Together, we’re #keepingitsacred.

Rabbi Heather Miller

Founder, Keeping It Sacred

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