Shabbat Shalom. Shabbat Parashat Shelach Lecha 5772, June 16, 2012: Why Israel (And We) Will Be Okay Rabbi Eric Yanoff

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1 Shabbat Parashat Shelach Lecha 5772, June 16, 2012: Why Israel (And We) Will Be Okay Rabbi Eric Yanoff Shabbat Shalom. This week, in an effort to demonstrate that your rabbi is just this side of crazy, enough to be interesting, I went to Israel for three days. I got on a plane on Sunday night, arrived Monday evening to join a group of congregants and other community members in Tel Aviv, and got on a plane on Thursday, to be back for Shabbat. Crazy, I know but worth it. TOTALLY worth it. First of all, I usually send off others headed for Israel with a strict instruction to eat a schwarma for me and I was able to take care of that all by myself this time. But more importantly, I came back with a new perspective on why Israel is going to be okay. Not just okay, but great despite all the press, despite all of our constant worry and vigilance about Israel s security for which we cannot let down our guard despite the occasional violence and constant uncertainty, Israel is going to be great. It feels sort of weird saying that. I mean, last High Holidays, I put a balance beam on the bimah and delivered a sermon about constantly living on the narrow balance between life and death, in which I described the life of too many Israeli children in Sderot who live in fear of constant rockets falling from Gaza, or of Israeli parents who live for the phone to ring, to hear the voice of their young-adult child serving in the Israel Defense Forces. And it is true: We must never let down our guard, or ease our sense of solidarity with our Israeli brothers and sisters who pray for the critical combination of both peace and security. It is fragile; it is precious and as Israel gives a platform of self-determination for world Jewry, so must we support Israel s right to exist and thrive. Shabbat Parashat Shelach Lecha 5772, June 16, 2012: Why Israel will be Okay Rabbi Eric Yanoff 1 (of 6)

2 But after this past mission, I have a new layer of respect for what Israelis do in order to survive and thrive. And that s why I come back to you after this insanely short trip to tell you that Israel is not only going to be okay but in cases where Israel s adversaries put the Jewish State into a binary position of either win or lose, with no gray-area or wiggle room then in those cases, when Israel s existence and safety is threatened, Israel is not only going to be okay. In those win-or-lose, blackand-white cases, Israel is going to win over her adversaries. This mission was run by Shurat Ha-Din, an organization for using avenues of legal advocacy in Israel to help support the security of the state. Together with Friends of the IDF and other advocacy groups, I was privileged to travel with several members of our congregation (who are still there), to learn about how Israel ensures its own survival in unique ways. What I learned is that the classic images of guns and soldiering, of the United States helping Israel maintain its qualitative military edge all of this is important. But in addition to all of those things, there are other things that Israel is doing that win wars. Yes you win wars with bullets and technology. And I do remember when in high school, I had a four-day experience in the Israeli Army basic training, when they let us shoot a Mem-Shesh-Esrei an M-16. I actually had a viscerally negative reaction to shooting a gun. And so maybe that s why it was so reassuring to hear of the other ways that wars are won: Shabbat Parashat Shelach Lecha 5772, June 16, 2012: Why Israel will be Okay Rabbi Eric Yanoff 2 (of 6)

3 Wars are won not only in the battlefield, but in the courtroom. Our host organization, Shurat ha-din, had been in the papers recently, because it helped to stave off another Gaza Flotilla to Gaza, that is a violation of international law, and that undermines the security blockade and only makes more difficult the tons of humanitarian aid that Israel ensures arrives legally to Gaza daily. How did a bunch of lawyers manage to do this, even before a single Israeli soldier was in danger? It s brilliant, actually: It is international maritime law that every boat going in and out of ports must have maritime insurance and satellite tracking. Shurat HaDin convinced top maritime insurance companies, including Lloyds of London, that it was not worth the risk to insure the vessels. They warned Satellite Communication company Inmarsat that, since they have a Miami office, they were liable to prosecution under a US law making it a crime to support acts of violence, since Hamas, a recognized terrorist organization, was in charge in Gaza. And finally, they found an old US anti-piracy law, dating back to 1789 (so this was like real pirates like Johnny Depp!) a law making it a crime to outfit ships intending to start hostilities against a US ally, as Israel is listed. That law splits the profits of any prosecuted ship between the US and the informer so backers of the flotilla had a lot of money to lose. In the end, the second Flotilla was called off. Shurat ha-din also managed to cut off most of the stipends that had been going to families of suicide bombers, because they had been funneled through an account at the Arab Bank. Since this bank had a New York office, it was liable under US Law. While this case is still pending, the demonstration of liability has already caused a marked decrease in solicitation of contributions and in incentive payments to the bombers families. Shabbat Parashat Shelach Lecha 5772, June 16, 2012: Why Israel will be Okay Rabbi Eric Yanoff 3 (of 6)

4 Also, the organization has gone through a process in the US, France, Italy, Germany, and elsewhere of domesticating claims against Iran s funding of terror making Iran unable to use the currencies of any of those nations. They now cannot fund terror with the dollar, euro, or shekel at all and Iran has to go to banks mostly in Asia, whose currency is worthless for purchases out of Gaza and elsewhere. This is why terrorists are resorting to smuggling suitcases of cash into Gaza because the world banking system, due to these legal maneuvers, cannot bring funding into Gaza. It s fascinating and it s very effective. So, Israel has been successful at warfare and also at LAW-fare. But still, that s not the only ways I learned that Israel is going to be okay. Because just as you can win wars with guns and with legal briefs you can also win wars in other ways. You can win wars with computer viruses that stall and slow nuclear centrifuges in Iran. You can win wars with accountants (Yes, Alan, that s right you could take on the terrorists!) because, as we heard from a Mossad Secret Service agent, the accountants of an organization know EVERYTHING about the operations of an organization seeking to hurt Israel, whereas a single operative or attacker may only know his or her individual role. You can win wars by taking out the accountants (watch out, Alan!) But you can also win wars for our survival in other, even less obvious ways. You can win wars with trees planting, growing, fostering a sense of belonging and building the environment. You can win wars with chutzpah, and you can win wars with tikvah hope, like the Israeli National Anthem. I believe it was David Ben Gurion who said that in Israel, the only difference between what is possible and Shabbat Parashat Shelach Lecha 5772, June 16, 2012: Why Israel will be Okay Rabbi Eric Yanoff 4 (of 6)

5 what is impossible is that the impossible takes a little bit longer to get accomplished. And as I learned in one of my most memorable moments ever in Israel, you can win wars with OPERA. On Tuesday night, a group of us went to see the opera Carmen performed at the base of Massada. As we got there, it was a bit disorienting, because they had built a 7000-seat stadium seating theater, and so you couldn t see where Massada was. It was pitch-black, and I was with Wendy Branzburg, a first-time traveler, and she asked, Where s Massada? just as the announcer asked all 7000 of us to rise for HaTikva and they turned on lighting to light up the entire mountain. A mountain where our ancestors had vowed they would fight to make sure that Jewish honor and identity would not fall again and 7000 of us were standing there, making good on that promise of 1,939 years ago, proclaiming that Israel would be okay, would live, and survive, and thrive. Everyone had tears during that singing of Hatikvah. And then we watched an opera high culture in a place that had once been a site of desperation, self-sacrifice, and loss for the Jewish People, that was now, once again, a place of culture, and confidence It s a lesson we learn, in the negative, from this week s Torah portion, Shelach Lecha, is that when Moses sends scouts into the wilderness to check out the Land that God has promised, and they come back crying to the people, U nehi v eineinu ka-chagavim we felt like we were vulnerable and insignificant as grasshoppers those scouts don t realize that though it takes hard work and sometimes hard fighting and defense, that when forced to fight for your lives, there are a lot of ways to win. You can win with guns, but you can win with law, Shabbat Parashat Shelach Lecha 5772, June 16, 2012: Why Israel will be Okay Rabbi Eric Yanoff 5 (of 6)

6 and brains, and planting, and even opera. And certainly with chutzpah. That s what I learned again this week, on my brief stop in Israel: That though we would sincerely like to win through careful negotiation and compromise, to live with our neighbors in peace even so, when we are forced unwillingly into a binary position where defeat is not an option, we, and our Israel, will ultimately win. We will win because even before the fight is fully on, we will win because we are already building the society we d want to live in after we have won a society of high culture, of family values, of law, of loving life and avoiding death, of promises that endure for 2000 years, of trees planted now that will only bear fruit for our grandchildren. It s not always perfect, God knows but we will win, because we are already building the society that will make us proud to have endured the hardship. We are already building the society that, God-willing, our children will enjoy, after the conflict. Keyn yehi ratzon So may it be God s will. And let us say: AMEN. Shabbat Parashat Shelach Lecha 5772, June 16, 2012: Why Israel will be Okay Rabbi Eric Yanoff 6 (of 6)