Along with a group of my colleagues from across the religious spectrum, I participated in organizing last Friday’s “Prayers for Peace: A Gathering To Show Solidarity with Israel,” which took place at Zeidler Park in the downtown area. On only a few days notice, we were successful in bringing together close to 200 people on a Friday afternoon.
The success we had in getting people to show up illustrates that during times of travail in Israel and for the Jewish people around the world, Jews want to be with other Jews. This is also true of the highly successful Washington rally that I participated in Monday, which drew more than 100,000 people with only five days of notice.
As rabbis we sensed the need not only to congregate, but also the need to come together in prayer and hope. The saying of psalms is an age-old Jewish tradition. Jews have been saying psalms during times of trouble for thousands of years.
The Psalms themselves, although written by specific people during particular challenges, were composed in a broad and wide-ranging manner making them valuable in almost any setting at any time. While saying the words of any particular psalm, it almost seems that the psalm was written just for this occasion. Friday’s rally and the troubling times in which we find ourselves are no exception.
Just consider these words from Psalm 121: “I raise my eyes to the mountains; whence will come my help? My help is from God, maker of heaven and earth.” The words of this psalm and others express better than any other words ever could what is going on in many of our minds.
As Jews we believe that the help of Heaven is desperately needed for the world to see the end of this crisis. The events of the last few months transcend our intellectual capabilities and our ability to understand the way in which the world works.
Yes, we must write to our other elected officials to demonstrate our support for Israel. We must go to rallies and raise money for brothers and sisters in Israel. We must do whatever it takes to convince the world that Israel has a right to exist safely and securely and to flourish.
But we must also do whatever is needed to evoke the mercies of our God so that He will cause the bitterness to end. This is done by doing more mitzvot, by coming together as a community to offer prayers and by being more careful about following that most important dictum from this week’s Torah portion, “and you shall love your neighbor as you do yourself” (Leviticus 19:18).
This is what we hoped to achieve last week in Zeidler Park. We hope that these efforts and others like it will give people in our community the spiritual and moral stamina and fortitude to get through these very difficult times. We hope that as we plan coming events that you will stand with us as we pray and hope that times will be better soon.
Rabbi David Fine is spiritual leader of Lake Park Synagogue.
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