“If you walk in My statutes, and keep My commandments, and do them; then I will give your rains in their season, and the land shall yield her produce, and the trees of the field shall yield their fruit. And your threshing shall reach its vintage, and the vintage shall reach its sowing time; and you shall eat your bread until you are satisfied, and dwell in your land safely. And I will give peace in the land, and you shall lie down, and none shall make you afraid.”

There is a majesty in that language. A hope and a dream.

Does anyone remember what happened 66 years ago? Do some of you remember listening on the radio? Israel became the Jewish State. After the UN Partition vote in November of 1947, this was the day that Israel declared its independence. Great Britain was no longer in charge. As soon as the declaration of independence was read by David Ben Gurion, five Arab countries attacked Israel.

I grew up singing Israeli folk songs, mostly about peace and believing in the Israeli dream. “Im tirtzu ayn zo agadah, If you will it, it is no dream.” Theodore Herzl said. Debbie Friedman set it to music. I sang it with every paper I delivered and every yard I raked earning money to go on my NFTY Summer Tour as a 16 year old.

On the Kibbutzim we sang as we worked, “For our hands are strong and our hearts are young, And the dreamer keeps a dreaming’, Ages on, Keeps a dreamin’ keeps a dreamin’ along…What did we do when we needed corn? We plowed and we sowed to the early morn…” The early Israelis made the desert bloom, learned about drip irrigation, desalinization of water, solar energy. They built towns, brought Hebrew back to life, absorbed refugees from Europe and from northern Africa and Arab countries. All while fighting for its very existence.

Israel fought wars in 1948, in 1956, in 1967, in 1973. It invaded Lebanon in 1982. There have been two intifadas and any number of terrorist attacks. On Yom HaZikaron Israel mourned 23,169 fallen soldiers and 2,495 terror victims since the founding of the State of Israel. How is this possible?  How is it possible that we have lost so many, so very many? One of them is mine. It clouds my understanding of Israel.

Yuval didn’t ask to be a soldier yet he understood that was his destiny. His parents were Holocaust survivors. They lived on a kibbutz. They never talked about their life prior to the kibbutz. They lost children in the Holocaust and Yuval’s older brother in another war. His father tended the cotton fields and his mother made beautiful batik cloth. I still have napkins she made. Yuval knew he would be a soldier, an officer. And so he was. He had a very typical Israeli philosophy. Very matter-of-fact. Either we go to war or we don’t. If we don’t it is no problem. If we go to war, either there will be casualties or there won’t. If there are not, there is no problem. If there are casualties, either they are serious, or they are not. If they are not serious, there is no problem. You get the idea. He went to war. He was a casualty. It was a problem. And he died a hero.

It is times like this that I want to sing, Blowing in the Wind. “How many times must a man turn his head. How many times must the cannon balls fly.” How many young men (and women) do we have to send off to war? When will we be safe?

But Israelis are optimistic. In an article that was published this week in Israel Hayom, http://www.israelhayom.com/site/newsletter_article.php?id=4098, 93% of Israelis are proud to be Israeli and 80% wouldn’t live anywhere else. People are not concerned about the political situation and surprisingly the biggest fear is for personal safety, 17%.

This survey, based on 500 “typical Israelis,” fills me with hope. It does not address the fact that Israel is complex. Israel is intense. There are no black and white answers. There are no simple answers to complicated intractable problems that are now generations old.

The current prime minister of Israel, Benyamin Netanyau, has different response. He lost his brother Yoni. He is filled with fear. Never again should Israel lose a son, a brother this way.

I watched Prime Minister Netayahu stand with his wife at his Yoni’s grave for Yom HaZakron. He seemed detached. Almost disingenuous. Yoni was the commander of the elite group of Israeli soldiers that raided Entebbe on, does anyone remember that date? July 4, 1776.

I remember that Sunday well. It was Independence Day of the Bicentennial. As a Girl Scout I was speaking at Grand Rapids big celebration. The Declaration of Independence would be read. President Ford would be in attendance. I went to get the Sunday paper on the front porch and put the flag up on a warm, summer morning. The headline about Entebbe was splashed across the front page. It overshadowed the sitting president being in town and filled me with pride. Yoni was the only Israeli soldier killed in the raid. He was only 30. There is a movie based on his life, Follow Me, Kadima in Hebrew, the command of every Israeli officer. Yuval’s last word.

Sh! It is a dirty little secret. Israel does not always do everything right. Benjamin Netanyahu does not always do everything right. Managing a country is different than remembering a dream. Building a country is not the same as praying for peace. Sometimes difficult choices have to be made.

Despite the ambiguities, the complexities, Israel has a right to exist. Israel needs to exist. As a Jewish state. Of course, how Israel defines Jewish differs from the State of Israel and from the state sponsored rabbinate of Israel. For the State it is good enough for one grandparent, to be Jewish. For the rabbinate your mother must be Jewish and you better be able to prove it OR you may convert, using Orthodox rabbis and only some that they accept.

I am proud of Israel. Undeniably, unabashedly proud. Proud that the technology that drives my cell phone was invented in Israel. Proud that every time there is a disaster anywhere in the world, Israel shows up, sometimes quietly behind the scenes but they always show up and they are always effective, based on the painful knowledge they have cleaned from all those wars. Proud that their main hospitals do not discriminate against anyone, that they treat Jew and Arab alike. Proud that there are more Nobel prize winners per capita than anywhere else in the world. Proud that my friend, Yossi Abromowitz is running for President. That in Israel you don’t have to be born in Israel to be president and that it doesn’t matter if you are an American olah with a woman rabbi as your wife and two kids from Ethiopia amongst your children.

Israel is complex. So I worry.

• I worry about Jews being judgmental of other Jews. I stand here in my brand new tallit from Israel. Simon has a matching one. Women have a right and an obligation to davven in Israel. It is a mitzvah. There is nothing in halacha to prevent a woman from taking on the obligation of tallit or tefilin.
• I worry that Jews don’t let other Jews have honest and open dialogue about Israel. That many congregations won’t even talk about Israel for fear of offending one group or another. That many Jews will no longer speak out when Israeli politicians seem misguided. That somehow saying anything critical is considered anti-Israel or anti-Semitic. That J-Street was not allowed as a member of the Conference of Presidents. Here we will have that dialogue, because Israel is that important. You may not agree with everything I say—and that is OK come be part of the dialogue. After services we will gather to continue this discussion and thank you to the sisterhood for providing Israeli snacks to eat!
• I worry about what fear does. When those who were oppressed for so many years, generations really, become the oppressors. When there are real human rights violations on the West Bank. When fear drives our actions rather than pursing the dream of peace. Real fears. The fear of anti-Semitism. The fear of the Holocaust happening again. The fear of terrorism. The fear of a nuclear strike by Iran. Peace, real peace cannot be made with fear. Real peace cannot be made without safety.
• I worry about the peace process breaking down, again.

Why has the peace process broken down? Because on both sides there is tremendous fear and mistrust. While Israelis mark Yom Hazikaron and Yom Ha’atzmaut on the Hebrew Calendar, the Arab community marks Nakba Day on the Gregorian Calendar. While our Torah School children were here on Wednesday singing songs of peace, telling us why Israel is important to them, and leading a Torah service, and sampling hummus, some they made and some commercial, in Israel there were clashes at Damascus Gate and five Israeli Arabs were arrested, two Arabs were killed by Israeli soldiers in Ramallah. Abbas’s response was to announce that Israel is “living in the mentality of the past and closing the door to the two-state solution.” The Palestinian Authority were considering cancelling security coordination with Israel.

And in truth, for Israel to exist as the Jewish State it was intended, the Palestinian Authority needs to recognize its right to exist. Benjamin Netanyahu was clear in his response: “Not far from here, in the Palestinian Authority, they are commemorating what they call the Nakba Day. They are standing silent to mark the tragedy of the establishment of Israel, the state of the Jewish people. Palestinians are educating their children with “endless propaganda” calling for the disappearance of Israel. We have many answers to that,” he said. “The first is that we continue to build our country, and our united capital of Jerusalem. And we will also give an additional answer to ‘The Nakba’ – we will pass the Nationality Law that demonstrates clearly to the world that Israel is the state of the Jewish people.”

I deplore the propaganda that Palestinian children are raised with. Linda Blatchford posted on Facebook this week a scary example. A friendly looking kid TV character , maybe a bee, saying “That’s right, if the neighbors are Jewish…He should beat them up. You should shoot all the Jews.” Pretty shocking stuff. Ask her for the link.

The BDS is movement raging on college campuses. Sabra Hummous, the winner of our taste completion here on Wednesday, was banned at DePaul. Loyola voted to divest from Israel .Scarlett Johanseen, a former Oxfam ambassador was caught in the middle of the controversy over her SodaStream ad. She stood by her decision, saying, “I was aware of that particular factory before I signed. And it still doesn’t seem like a problem – at least not until someone comes up with a solution to the closing of that factory and leaving all those people destitute.”

Oxfam wrote to her explaining that, although it understood the independence of the stars who volunteer to help, as an organisation it officially “believes that businesses that operate in settlements further the ongoing poverty and denial of rights of the Palestinian communities that we work to support”.

This is not new. In the 70s, Jewish congregations didn’t drink Pepsi. Why? Because they wouldn’t sell in Israel and Coca Cola would. I stand with Scarlett Johanssen and Rabbis for Human Rights. Providing sustainable work on the West Bank with companies like SodaStream, Ahava and Sabra is a better way to work for peace than boycotting economic development. Maybe I should go get a Sodastream machine for my office.

But what Netanyahu means when he says build our country is a reference to continued building of settlements on the West Bank and East Jerusalem. While that is how the early Zionists were successful and I am in the middle of reading Ari Shavits fascinating book My Promised Land, I believe that continued building in the West Bank is an obstacle to peace. It erodes any sense of safety.  I was at Damascus Gate when Biden was in Jerusalem. The demonstrations and counter demonstrations were not safe. Yet, as a democratic country, free speech prevailed.

I worry about the Nationality Law. Will I or any of you even be granted Israeli citizenship should we want it? Will the Knesett once again debate “Who is a Jew?’ Whose definition will survive this time?

So I join organizations like Rabbis for Human Rights, the Parents Circle, J Street., Women of the Wall, the Israeli Religious Action Center I talk about Israel frequently and I work for peace—as often and consistently as I can.  I create space so that we can have this conversation in respectful tones but so that we can talk about Israel. I travel to Israel and help organize trips as often as I can. We will try to plan one as a congregation for next summer.

I am a rabbi, just a simple rabbi and not a politician. I think in metaphor. What I learn from the story of Abraham and Hagar, is that we have to keep trying. We need to keep pursing peace, over and over again. Hagar, the mother of Ishmael, the father of all the Arabs, hides her son Ishmael, under a bush. She calls out, not even a prayer per se, “Don’t let me look on while the child dies.” Not “heal my child,” or “ help my child”. All hope was gone. She opens her eyes and sees a source of water.  I want to cry out. I want to scream. I pray, “Make peace not just in the high heavens; but here on earth as well. Between the sons of Sarah and the sons of Hagar, speedily and in our day. Amen.”

Being a rabbi was part of the dream that Yuval and I shared. I am not sure how we get to an age where everyone can sit under their vine and fig tree and none can make them afraid. That is Isaiah’s dream. It is mine too. Speedily and in our day. Working for that dream, working for peace is how I will spend Yom Ha’Atzma’ut. It is how I keep Yuval’s memory alive.