Living In Limbo. How Do We, Can We Make Sense Out Of What Is Happening?

            Let me get right to the point. This is a challenging, frightening and even fearful moment for our Jewish community. This war has signaled a cosmic shift in attitudes, and relationships. Something has changed, there is no doubt about that, but what the long-term implications are, well, we must wait and see. It is not an isolated event for nothing happens in a vacuum, rather, I fear, this is one part of a geo-political re-alignment.  We search for statesmen who can broker solutions. We see only technocrats invested in maintain power. But the warnings of the future are all over. Witness the series of articles in the New York Times Sunday November 12 Opinion section. Witness the frightening words of Bret Stephens: “But there is a growing sense among Israelis, as well as many Jews in the diaspora, that what happened on Oct.7 may be the opening act of something much larger and worse: another worldwide war against the Jews”. (p.7)

            Many of our generation remember our parents describing WWII and we listened to Holocaust survivors retell their stories as we were grateful that “it cannot happen here”. For this we still hope. But we also live now with an existential dread, a sort of limbo, not quite sure of our place in this society. We seem comfortable yet deal with rising antisemitism. Even our once solid belief that, in a crisis, all the Jewish community would stand together is being challenged as we see increasing reports of a generational divide. Such a reality was reported on the front pages of the Philadelphia Inquirer and the New York Times on Monday November 13. The Torah portions reference estrangement in stories of Isaac and Ishmael and Jacob and Esau. How many people will now see those stories as symbolic of estrangements with groups we once thought of as friends.

            One of the great challenges for all of us in these times is what do we do with all these conflicting feelings. We do not wish innocents to suffer. Yet, there is the reality that we are dealing with groups that wish Israel’s destruction and, by extension, our own extinction. We feel dizzy with these feeling, off center, conflicted. Aviva Zornberg in her brilliant commentary on Genesis (“The Beginning of Desire”) cites the phrase “the vertigo of existence”. That may sum up perfectly what so many are feeling. We are dizzy, off balance, unsure of our steps, seeking a sure footing in this new reality as we slowly realize that that everything we knew and took for granted has shifted beneath us. The vertigo of existence: “to be suspended in mid-air is to be live in suspense, in a condition of radical and constant doubt of the continuity of one’s being”. (p.218,129)

            There are no answers now. We are re-negotiating so many feelings. What we do know is that in these moments of existential vertigo, we need to hold on to those people who we care about and who care for us. This is a new Wilderness experience. Once again, we journey to what we hope and pray will be a Promised Land of peace. But not just yet.

Shalom. Stay safe and well

Rabbi Richard F Address.

Rabbi Richard Address

Rabbi Richard F. Address, D.Min, is the Founder and Director of www.jewishsacredaging.com. Rabbi Address served for over three decades on staff of the Union for Reform Judaism; first as a Regional Director and then, beginning in 1997, as Founder and Director of the URJ’s Department of Jewish Family Concerns and served as a specialist and consultant for the North American Reform Movement in the areas of family related programming. Rabbi Address was ordained from Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion in 1972 and began his rabbinic career in Los Angeles congregations. He also served as a part time rabbi for Beth Hillel in Carmel, NJ while regional director and, after his URJ tenure, served as senior rabbi of Congregation M’kor Shalom in Cherry Hill, NJ from 2011-2014.