May this evil/tyrannical government be removed from the earth. (From the Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur liturgy, author’s translation)
In the mahzor (prayer book) for Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, the above sentence appears in the Amidah, the silent prayer that we say five times during the 25-hour day of fasting and prayer that is Yom Kippur. In the Mahzor Lev Shalem (whole heart) of the Conservative movement, it is translated as: “May You remove the tyranny of arrogance from the earth,” which I think is a good translation. However, for the purposes of this article, I have translated this sentence more loosely:
May this evil/tyrannical government be removed from the earth.
This new translation speaks to me and to hundreds of thousands of Jews in Israel this year – because it rings so true. We are very tired and fed up with the current irresponsible and fanatic government that has abandoned the hostages and continues to pursue the path of war, rather than seeking peace and stability.
In recent weeks and months, hundreds of thousands of Israeli citizens have taken to the streets of Israel to protest the current Israeli government of denial, destruction, and defamation. The people of Israel are furious with this government for understandable reasons, and I am with them.
Another one of the central prayers of Yom Kippur is the Al Het prayer, which alphabetically lists many of our collective sins as Jews. Many, if not most, of the verses of this traditional confessional prayer are relevant every year, but somehow some of them seem especially relevant this year, especially for our so-called “leaders” in Israel. Here are some examples, with some contemporary commentary from yours truly:
We have sinned against You through denial and deceit.
By now most of us in Israel are severely shocked and deeply dismayed at the purposeful denial of the starvation of Palestinians in Gaza by the prime minister of Israel and many of his colleagues in this government.
Their denial of the starvation is nothing more than political spin, which too many Jews in Israel currently accept, but many of us here and most of the rest of the world are not buying it any more. There are many reputable reports in the Israeli and foreign media about the starvation of the Palestinians in Gaza, which has been going on for a long time but has worsened severely during recent months.
There is no doubt any more that there is serious starvation and much malnutrition suffered by the mostly homeless Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, which has been caused by the looting and the irresponsibility of the Hamas leadership, but mostly by the misguided, irresponsible and immoral policies of the government of Israel. It is very well documented.
The “leaders” of the government of Israel should do some serious soul-searching about this on Yom Kippur this year, as should the large masses of Jews in this country who are going along with the denial and obfuscation on this basic humanitarian issue.
We have sinned against You by resorting to violence.
The State of Israel has committed much too much violence during the past year. The destruction and wanton killing of innocent civilians in Gaza every day has got to stop. Enough is enough already! Much of Gaza has been flattened. Whole cities, like Rafah and Khan Yunis, hardly exist anymore. The amount of destruction and the frequency of daily massacres is intolerable and it is deeply unJewish! It has led many people in Israel – including many former security heads and previous heads of the IDF – to now refer to this war as an unjust and immoral war, which must end. And more and more people around the world want this war to stop since it has led to much death and suffering.
We have sinned against You through foul speech, and we have sinned against You through foolish talk.
We are all guilty of this some of the time. But our so-called “leaders” have been guilty of this most of the time. Not only have they used foul speech and foolish talk all too often, but they have strayed very far from the truth with their constant lies and spins.
Moreover, there is too much defamation by these people against too many people. Anyone who criticizes their outrageous statements, lies, spins, and denials is quickly defamed as an “anti-Semite,” a “collaborator with Hamas” or a “traitor,” when most people in Israel and abroad know that the opposite is the truth.
The biggest collaborator with Hamas has been and still is the prime minister and his previous governments and current one. It is he who allowed the Qataris to give millions of dollars in cash to Hamas over many years, to create and support an alternative to the Palestinian Authority; and it is his partners in the government who support the continuation of this war, as do the Hamas “leaders,” who also have an interest in keeping it going, for their own very diabolic reasons (one has to wonder why they haven’t surrendered by now, and returned all the hostages by now, if they really care at all about their own people).
Moreover, as most people in Israel know and feel it every day and every night, it is Bezalel Smotrich and Itamar Ben-Gvir and their colleagues from the alarming far-right political parties who promote and inflame anti-Israelism and antisemitism in the world by their outlandish, embarrassing, and blasphemous statements all the time. I won’t quote them here because their many immoral statements are too embarrassing.
These anti-religious and anti-Zionist Jews defame Israel and Judaism all the time, through their foul speech and their foolish talk, so much so that Jews and pro-Israel people around the world cringe at their outrageousness and are shocked and embarrassed that the prime minister of Israel does not denounce them and disassociate himself completely from them (as he did a few years ago).
On the contrary, he was the one who brought them into this extremist government for his own political survival and, during the last three years, he has normalized their racism and warmongering. By now, he is no different from them.
THIS GOVERNMENT of denial, destruction, and defamation is causing great damage not only to the Palestinian people, but to the Jewish people everywhere. To paraphrase the prayer on Yom Kippur, it needs to be removed from this land.
The only good news is that the people are rising up against it. It can’t last much longer, because if it does, the damage that it has done may be irreversible. We desperately need elections in Israel as soon as possible, to bring back a leadership of sanity and responsibility.
The first step is for this war to end now, for a deal to be reached to bring home the remaining hostages and to arrange for a new leadership in Gaza, which will reconstruct it with help from Arab nations and from the international community. Most of the citizens of Israel want this war to end without further delay. (Maybe with the help of God and pressure of the president of the USA, this will have been accomplished before this article is published).
At the end of Yom Kippur, the shofar is blown in the synagogue. The great medieval Jewish philosopher Maimonides has taught us that the blowing of the shofar is meant to be a wake-up call for Jews to repent from the evil ways of the past year and to return to doing good in this world. He wrote:
“Wake up, sleepers, from your sleep! And slumberers, arise from your slumber! Search your ways and return in teshuvah (repentance) and remember your Creator! Those who forget the truth amidst the futility of the moment and are infatuated all their years with vanity and nothingness, which will not help and will not save – examine your souls and improve your ways and your motivations! Let each of you abandon his wicked ways, and his thoughts which are no good” (Mishneh Torah, Repentance 3:4).
The current government of Israel – and the Jews of Israel who support it as well as Jews everywhere –need to not only hear but also to heed the call of the shofar this year. Yom Kippur reminds us that we all need to wake up and change our ways. Now, before it is too late. ■
The writer is an independent scholar, writer, blogger, lecturer, teacher, and mentor. www.ronkronish.com/