Rabbi Ed Feld

The following 3-part curriculum was written by Rabbi Ed Feld. It looks at 3 aspects the intersection of Jewish texts and human rights: The importance of human dignity (k'vod habriot), the limits of self-defense, and the role of the judicial process.

While the words of the liturgy serve to remind us of themes that are part of our consciousness, the sound of the shofar opens different layers of meaning.  When we say the words, “We have sinned,”  we remember those acts which prompt our regret, we remember the people we have hurt, the paths we should have taken, the anger we carry with us that causes us to act in ways which border on violence, the fears that don’t allow us to be who we know we need to be.

But the cry of the shofar enters the non-verbal reaches of our souls and demands a reawakening.   It calls us to reencounter what we long ago repressed, long ago forgot about.  It has the power to turn our attention to those parts of ourselves that have been silenced.  While we live our lives routinely – our routines after all are the way we can order the business that needs to get done in a day – the shofar breaks through our every day patterns and calls us to think anew about who we are and where we are going.  It can bring to the foreground questions about ourselves that we have avoided, that we have silenced, for too long.

The attached liturgy is based on the traditional public confession of sins on Yom Kippur and is meant to complement the existing al chet found in the mahzor.

Allow us, Adonai our God, to sleep peacefully, and to awaken to life, our Sovereign.

Spread over us Your canopy of peace, restore us with Your good counsel, and save us for the sake of Your name.

Shield us. 
Remove from us enemies and pestilence, sword, starvation, and sorrow, and remove the evil forces that surround us.

God of all flesh,
Hear the voices rising up to you in the dark of night:
Shouts issuing from the mouths of those suffering from violence,
Fear-filled cries of those threatened by their interrogators,
Broken sounds rising from the lowly.
Listen to the bitter cry of those who are tortured.
Give them and us hope.
Cause all of us to lie down in peace and raise us up to peace.

Shelter us in the shadow of Your wings, for Your are the God who watches over and delivers us
And You are the merciful and compassionate Sovereign.
  
Ensure our going and coming for life and peace, now and forever.

May You spread over us Your canopy of peace.

This year is the first year that I hear Israelis remark that the State may be a temporary phenomenon: "I am happy to live in a Jewish state, to be alive at a time when Jews have a state. But the last state we had, the Maccabean one, two thousand years ago, lasted a hundred years, and this one will probably be shortlived, as well. We don't know how to be an autonomous people and live in a larger world. We are always overtaken by fanaticism," one Israeli told me.

Rabbis for Human Rights North America has prepared two exciting supplements to be used at your Seder table this year. The first raises issues of human rights and social justice, while the second reflects on Israel's Declaration of Independence and the meaning of freedom. We hope that you and your guests will use them to reflect on the responsibilities of being free and your visions for the future of the State of Israel.

It is natural that some people find the special reading on the coming Shabbat, March 15, of Deuteronomy 25:17-20 regarding the wiping out of the memory of Amalek dificult to understand, or even somewhat off-putting. The wiping out of a whole people feels too much like collective punishment, even genocide, and though we recognize that there is evil in the world which we must oppose, the absolute voice of the reading feels so harsh that it becomes a source of deep unease. Hasidic literature can be helpful in recovering some meaningfulness in reading about Amalek.

Aharon Barak was the Chief Justice of Israel's High Court of Justice when it issued its far reaching decision regarding banning the use of torture by Israeli interrogators. In 2005 he spoke at Harvard and elaborated on the reasoning behind that decision as well as other decisions regarding the treatment of detainees. In his remarks he reflects on the balancing of the state's interest in providing security for its citizens and the need to maintain the law and its protection of each individual's rights. You can read his remarks at http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/Politi...
The texts of the the decision on torture and related cases of treatment of detainees such as home demolitions can be read in pdf format at
http://www.mfa.gov.il/NR/rdonlyres/599F2190-F81C-4...

On January fourteenth, as Americans prepare to celebrate Martin Luther King Day, Rabbi Arik Ascherman, the executive director of Rabbis for Human Rights in Israel, will go on trial. He is accused of having twice stood in the way of Army bulldozers that had come to demolish the homes of two Arab families. In neither case were the demolitions prompted by acts of terrorism, nor intended to secure land for new public works; demolitions were ordered because the Palestinian families lacked building permits.

As the setting sun begins to change the very nature of the light that allows us to see the world and as the skies threaten to become blood red, at that moment, when fear and awe and joy commingle with tiredness and hunger, we are asked to read the book of Jonah. Dusk is that between time, when our hearts and minds intermingle the rationalism of daylight with the emotion and imaginings of the night. It is at the moment when rationality can be tempered by the promptings of the heart that we are taught the lesson of compassion.