The following is a transcript of Episode 10 of the Perfect Jewish Parents Podcast. Note: This is a lightly edited transcript of a conversation, please excuse any errors.

Joshua: Hello and welcome to Perfect Jewish Parents. My name is Joshua Laden. I’m the Director of Education for the Shalom Hartman Institute.

Masua: And I am Masua Sagiv, Scholar in Residence for the Shalom Hartman Institute.

Joshua: This is the first of what we hope will only be a few special episodes of Perfect Jewish Parents Israel at War. At the time of our recording, we’re only day nine since the horrific Hamas attacks on Israel in which parents and children have been massacred or taken hostage in Gaza. This episode will be different than those in the first season. Today it will just be Masua and I sharing some thoughts. We’ll be back with that conversation in a moment.

Masua: Almost immediately after the attacks, Jewish institutions sprang into action to address teachers’ and parents’ concerns regarding how to speak to children about this horrible attack, about the images and videos shared on social media, about the heartless, disgusting, idiotic displays of political support for the attacks by certain left-wing groups which translated into blaming the murdered and kidnapped victims. 

Educators and parents have been working tirelessly to shield young people from trauma. 

Just to give one example, our first season guest Sivan Zakai held an emergency webinar where over 4,000 parents and educators heard from her how to navigate this moment with our kids.

Joshua: While we too have been grappling with how to shield our children from these horrific images and stories, we started to realize this is also an important time to talk with our children about the meaning of the Jewish peoplehood and Israel in our own lives, to offer a beacon of what we stand for that sits in deep contrast to the cynicism, hate, and evil of Hamas. In a sense, our conversation models the conversations we want to have with our kids today.

Masua, I’m gonna ask you a question that might sound odd to the Israeli ear, but I think for those of us who grew up in North America, this is a conversation we talk about a little bit in our growing up, in our upbringing. 

I’m wondering if you could share in this moment what you’re thinking about, like, the meaning of Israel for you. And not only for you, but like what role should it play in the lives of Jewish people?

Masua: So especially in this time, you know, like Israel for me, the first and foremost is where I grew up, right? The noises, the smells, the colors, my family. But I think you were asking a broader question, I would say two things. 

One is more on point to this moment and the other is more on point to the world that we had only a week and a half ago. So we cannot ignore safety, right? There is a there used to be Andrea Dworkin, who was an author and an American feminist activist, she wrote, in the world I’m working for, nation states will not exist. But in the world I live in, I want there to be an Israel.

So I think that we can’t ignore the fact that Israel is a safe haven for the Jewish people and it doesn’t matter at all if you live there or if you are angry at it or if you criticize it. 

And I think that what I would like to be my first answer, but I think it’s not, especially now, is, you know, Hebrew and Judaism. Israel is a place where we can try and explore and create Judaism in a very interesting setting. And we weren’t doing too well on this before this war and I hope we’ll do better after it ends. How about you Josh?

Josh: Yeah, I mean, I think what you’re pointing to in the second question is certainly where I oftentimes land, which is I am in love with Torah, I’m in love with the Jewish people, and I am in love with Israel. And those three loves are sort of intertwined, right? 

Meaning not all Torah comes from Israel, right? The Torah was given in the desert for a reason so that we could all have it, but it’s also a place where Torah is created en masse in the same way that North America is a place where Jews are flourishing and thriving and creating new versions of Judaism, of learning lots of Torah and making it, bringing it alive. So too Israel is a place where that’s happening. And sometimes, some of that Torah I really like, and some of that Torah I find really challenging. So for me, Israel is a location where the Jewish people are bringing to life a possible world. And so it’s inherently important. 

I think there’s also something that’s really challenging for me as a North American Jew, which is for me, the Sabbath, Heschel’s The Sabbath is like the paradigmatic Jewish text of North American Judaism, right? Like, oh, you can make Shabbat anywhere, is what Heschel says, right? Like it’s a palace in time. And I think what Israel represents is actually a Judaism of space. And it’s a place that is unlike the place that we get to live in here in North America, in part because it’s a place right now where Jews are majority, but it’s also a place where in the past, in the history and art, in the Bible, it says like God reveals God’s self there. So it’s inherently special and holy on one hand for me, and it’s also this amazing laboratory for Jewish life.

Masua: In my dream, there’s a perfect dialectic between North American Jewry and Israeli Jewry, right? Because I feel like almost each of those places has something that the other is lacking. And if we could have just, you know, be together on that. Yeah.

Josh: If we can be chavruta, if we can be partners in learning from one another, I think what you’re pointing to in that moment to say, Oh, I want Israel. I want Israeli Jews and North American Jews to be in conversation with one another and to learn from one another. You’re speaking to this question of Jewish peoplehood. 

And this feels like speaking to sort of Jewish peoplehood, and you’re saying this feels like a Jewish peoplehood moment. And I’m wondering if you can reflect on your feelings as a North American, Israeli, transplant Jew who thinks a lot about peoplehood. What makes this a Jewish peoplehood moment?

Masua: You know that in the past, we said it’s day nine, right? In the past eight days, I think I have heard more Hatikva than I have heard in eight years. And the Hatikva, like the Israeli anthem, that I’ve heard did not come from Israel, from within Israel. It came from different communities of the Jewish people around the world. 

I think that, the day before yesterday, your family came to our house, right? We had a bunch of people coming to our house. I think it was like something like 20-30 people, all, you know, adults and kids came to an afternoon in our house and different families brought food. 

And all the time, we were sitting outside, there were people like adults and kids in every single room in the house. Most of the adults were sitting outside and every time a different adult would go into the kitchen, wash some fruits, or bring some food, and replenish the table of food outside, and at some point I stood at the kitchen and I said wow, this feels like a Shiva, which is the Jewish ritual of mourning, but in the best way possible.

Because it was a wonderful afternoon. I think it was one of the first moments in the past nine days that I felt very free laughing. The kids have had a blast, but it felt like, it feels like the Jewish people is on a Shiva right now. The Jewish people is in deep mourning right now and it doesn’t really, it doesn’t matter at all if you know someone from Israel, if you’re an Israeli, if you know some of the people who got hurt, right? And we sat there and the togetherness between the different people, but all of them a part of the Jewish people and all of them are in deep pain was so meaningful.

Josh: Yeah, I was reflecting on that moment also because and I think a good Shiva, if you can have a good Shiva, is one where you’re sitting around and you’re talking about stories that matter to you, but you move in and out of sort of funny stories and sad stories and you express values. 

And I was, at one point I turned to my eldest and I was like, are you okay? Because we had gotten a little dark. And then she was like, yes, okay. And I realized, like the importance to me right now about being in those types of environments is that our kids hear values, both when we’re explicit and when we’re telling our stories around them. That was a moment that I think you’ve captured nicely. 

There’s something else you said, which I think is really important, which is, this is not about if you knew someone in the attacks. And that’s strange for a lot of people, both, I think, for some Jews and certainly for our friends and colleagues who are not Jewish to encounter a world where I’m just sad because the Jewish psyche is sad, that we feel sad. 

And I think being able to give space to that, being able to say, oh, it’s not about knowing people. It’s actually about when something happens to Jews around the world, especially something as horrific as this, we feel impacted and we care for them. 

And there’s something else you said, in turning into a Shiva, one of the things you’re pointing out is that Jewish peoplehood is not just this concept. It’s actually a set of activities. I’m wondering what activities you see as Jewish peoplehoodactivities in this moment.

Masua: So I’ll just say before that I think that. When you said about the history and the peoplehood history, I think the history of the Jewish people was triggered, something triggered that made all of us at once experiencing the same thing in different levels, right? But I think that this is something very strong. So what do we do? We do rallies and we sing songs and we write letters and we give donations. 

But what I think is we help other other people in our community. I think that what I’ve noticed though, and this is something that if I would have thought before to speak with my kids, that that’s what I would have done. What I have noticed is that it’s almost, it almost doesn’t matter what you do. I think that by doing something, you enact Jewish peoplehood. I love the language that you used enacting Jewish peoplehood, I think that by the practice is doing something, right? So doing something.

Josh: I might add here, it’s doing something for or with someone else, which is to say doom scrolling is an activity we would not recommend and don’t see as a, like, you know, reposting something on Facebook, may be cathartic, I’m not sure it’s advancing the needs of the Jewish people.

What I hear you saying is, oh, me going and bringing soup to someone who is sick or take like, life goes on, Jewish life goes on, all life goes on, and feeling embedded in a community and taking care of that community in this moment, it’s like a tricklem it’s not a trickle down effect. It’s a trickle up effect. 

At some point it reaches the preschool teachers or the religious school teachers or the parent, you know, the parents who have a partner who have, who is left and going back to, like it trickles up from, but you have to be embedded in community to do all of that. 

And you also have to, one of the things we have to do, which I think is hard in the American Jewish community, is transcend the like, oh, you live in that house, I live over here, we don’t really see each other except we go into synagogue, or we go to a Jewish camp, or we go to a Jewish farm, like, whatever the center of our Jewish community is, if we have one, oh, it’s this other location. 

And one of the things we’re trying to say, I think, in this moment is, you find the people who you’re close to, and you take care of them.

Masua: I think that even if you don’t have a community, I feel like there are more and more communities that are created these days because people are looking exactly what you said before, you know, to be with some someone and to look for someone, which I think is very powerful.

We’ve been talking about Jewish peoplehood, but there’s also a question specifically because of the community that we are living in or the society that we are living in, which is very multicultural. There is a question about why Jewish peoplehood and what’s the meaning of Jewish peoplehood. 

The other day, our neighbors, who are non-Jewish, came over and they brought us flowers from the backyard and said that they’re thinking about us. But I think a question which is very, that is pronounced these days when we, when we are inside ourselves as a community is why? Why is that so? Why can’t we look at everyone the same way? Why can’t we love everyone the same way? Why can’t we hurt for everyone the same way?

Josh: I think what you’re pointing out is, ingrained in Jewishness is this connection to the Jewish people. I think that is in conflict sometimes with broader multicultural values of North America.

Your story about your neighbor is a beautiful reflection of, right, sometimes you hurt and someone’s going to take care of you. And sometimes someone else’s hurt and you’re going to take care of them. And right now it’s okay for the Jewish people to be in pain and to be sad and for other people to have that feeling of a tribal connection.

But I want to suggest something else, which is Judaism is both something that is inherited. It’s also this porous boundary that people can join. It’s also a set of activities that we go and do. And many of us have non-Jewish family members who are ailing with us, or they’re trying to understand that we’re ailing, and so they’re ailing because we’re ailing.

And I think that itself is a beautiful reflection of, yeah, there is tribalism and tribalism is okay sometimes. Those feelings are real. And if it can be translated into behaviors of care, because behaviors of care always are between someone and another person who’s in an immediate need, right? 

Care is not about universal ethics. It’s actually about like meeting the person in front of you. So I think right now, like the people that you’re associated with are in pain. And so we’re trying to take care of them and we’re trying to take care of ourselves.

I’m thinking about the fact that you spent the last year, not to mention years before, but certainly the last year, entrenched in a pro-democracy movement that was protesting the Netanyahu government. And now we’re at war. And you have pointed out to me that your feelings about Israel’s safety, Jewish people’s safety, and your feelings about the government are a little conflicting, we might say. 

I’m wondering if you can speak about that inner conflict because I think it speaks to this broader Jewish community experience right now, which is we’re sitting on the cusp, maybe by the time this episode airs, Israel will have started a ground war in Gaza. For some of us, it feels very justified. Other people are very concerned about the loss of Palestinian life. Many people, I think, are feeling both.

How does your ability, or how does the fact that you spent so much time criticizing the government, where does that stand today? Because I think one of the things that we are standing up for is democracy. A democracy where you can criticize the government, where there may not have been much regime change in the last 17 years in Israel, but there was more than in Gaza, and there were many, many elections.

So we stand up, we’re standing up for democracy. Democracy is rooted in the ability to criticize the government. Maybe your ability to critique the government is still there, but at the same time anything about the war effort feels really challenging, too. I’m wondering how you are navigating, sort of, some of that conflict. And is that conflict live for you with your kids?

Masua: Well, I have plenty of criticism on the Israeli government these days. I would have them all quit and hopefully be replaced by other people better than them. But I think  that what you’re pointing is something a bit broader. And I think if you’ve listened to our, for our listeners back home, if you’ve listened to the first Identity/Crisis episode of this war, you’ve heard a voice, which is very similar to my experience. One of the speakers there, I think it was Leah Solomon, said

Josh: It was Leah Solomon, yeah.

Masua: Or I’ll say my version of it.

My whole life and my whole career are built on nuance, recognizing nuance, being in between, understanding that there are multiple versions of the truth for different people. And I am, it’s very hard for me to hold onto these days. 

I’ve been hearing, and this is maybe something that is different than from, from between living in Israel, right now, and here in North America, but I’ve been hearing quite a few concerns about the morality of Israel’s response in Gaza and the concern for the safety of innocent Palestinians in Gaza. And I know that I should be worried about that too. I know in my mind and I know in my personal history that I should be worried about that. Since I am, you know, I’m a lefty. I’m a liberal. You know, I’m progressive. I should be worried about all these things. I should be criticizing my country right now and its military response. 

But I can’t seem to be doing this. I can’t seem to be at this place and I wonder how I can attain it back, like I’m looking for the way, and this is, maybe this is something that’s, I don’t know if it’s good to talk about it or not, Josh, to be honest. I don’t know. Not in our conversation. I’m saying in general. With my kids, with my community.

Josh: Right. I just want to point out, one of the things you’re saying is, I’m traumatized, and I’m not the only one. As Tal Becker likes to say, there are two traumatized people here and that trauma leads to an inability to see the humanity of the other. 

I think what you’re also saying, which I think is powerful is actually, there’s this really underlying question. There are two big underlying questions. If I want Hamas out, if I want to feel defense, I want to feel like Israel can defend itself, I don’t want to live next to ISIS, how do you navigate the need to eradicate something that is so evil and they’re hidden among civilians? It’s a big ethical question. 

There’s a second question, which is for us, because that question we can talk about. No one’s waiting to hear from you and I about the answer to that question.

Masua: Thank goodness.

Josh: As it relates to military strategy. The other question though is, when will I feel comfortable with the defense and where’s the murky line between defense and revenge? And I think we don’t know on a policy level and we probably don’t know, like I don’t know in my heart. And that I would say to my kid. 

Not my five-year-old, my 11-year-old. I don’t know what to do about that feeling, because it’s new. And it’s okay to say that. But to bring out a set of values feels really important. And to put it in value language, to be able to say these are values, there are deep values behind these various political decisions. 

Masua: What, revenge is of value?

Josh: Revenge is absolutely a value. I don’t think like revenge is totally absurd. In fact, I’ll just point out, our first episode that we did with Scott Hershovitz has it, in his book, he has a great chapter about revenge. He has a great chapter about revenge with kids and that sometimes revenge is appropriate and important. It might not be politically savvy, but it plays a role in our lives.

Masua: And at least recognizing the feeling, right? Not hiding it, or recognizing the value and recognizing the conflicting values. Yeah. I wonder if I can work out these things with my kids or I need to work them out for myself before.

You know, on the one hand, I said that all of my life and career are built on nuance and that, you know, nuance is my being and this is not a nuanced moment, because this is black and white. There’s right and there’s wrong. Hamas is wrong and we are right in a sense, right? This is for me, when I’ve talked to with my students last week, and they asked about nuance. I said that this is not a nuanced moment. This is a black and white moment. 

But then I do want after hearing you, Josh, I do want to go back to nuance in a sense, and say that I think we can and we should hold on both, you know, to our understanding that we are in an emergency right now. We are, we are in an emergency situation and in an emergency, an emergency situation, some of the things that we have believed or that we still believe in are taking second place because right now, you know, life and defense are the most important thing.

At the same time, we can still hold on to the rest of our belief system, right? That democracy is important, that we have to be moral, that we are troubled, that we care about other people’s lives. All of these are things that we have to hold together. But it is harder when things conflict.

But I think our whole life is about conflicting values, our whole life is balancing and navigating between conflicting values. This is different because now the stakes are higher.

Josh: What I also hear you saying is, I want my kids to develop the capacity for nuance and critical thinking, and I want them to understand commitments. And you can live in a world of nuance and critical thinking and balancing conflicting values. But that can also give you the freedom to step away from a set of commitments. 

But there are moments where the conflicting values are conflicting values and a commitment. And this is a moment for you where you’re saying, I have a commitment. I have a commitment to life. I have a commitment to the defense of Israel and the right for the Jewish people to have a homeland in Israel.

Masua: And exist. 

Josh: And exist. Yeah.

I’m wondering if we could end with something hopeful. We’ve said this is a peoplehood moment. We’ve said we’re having conversations with our kids that we didn’t necessarily want to, but we were forced into. And when this is over, and please God, that will happen speedily, with a limited loss of life, what values do you hope your children will come away from this moment with?

Masua: So I have one that I already know that they have and the other, the other is up to us. So the first one is community. You can call it community. You can call it peoplehood. You can call it both, but the Jewish people is pretty awesome. 

What we’re seeing both in Israel and in North America, with regards to people just, what do you need? That’s one version. Or I’m not gonna even ask you what you need. I’m just gonna give. I’m gonna be here for you. I’m present whether with, you know, whether with my thoughts or my love or my money or my hands or my feet or my car. I’m everywhere. And the Jewish people right now are everywhere. And the sense of community is so strong. It’s really, it’s unbelievable how grounding it is. 

And the second, I would say, I think we need some historic perspective. We’ve mentioned before that we have seen historic metaphors being used everywhere in the past eight days, right? 9/11, Pearl Harbor, the Holocaust, all of them were out there. But these are not the only examples we have, right? Not in our history, in the Jewish history, we have not only, not only, destruction, but also resilience and hope. 

And maybe, I’ll give a story to reflect this. One of the, can I say famous stories of the first two days of the attacks, was the story of Rachel and her husband. Rachel is an elderly woman from Ofakim who was held hostage all day long with her husband by five terrorists by Hamas. 

And they were armed the whole time and threatening her and the police forces, including her son by the way, were just outside for hours and hours. And they were rescued safely at the end of the day because of Rachel’s initiative, because throughout the day she would be just like she was talking with the terrorists and she was like, you look pale, maybe you need to eat something. Can I bring you something to drink? 

And she would give them coffee and cookies and cookies and cookies. And she kept giving more and more cookies and asking them about their family and talking with them and taking care of them in the way that, you know, it’s like these stories of the Jewish mom. And she was doing all of that because she wanted to stall the moment.

And then a few days later, there’s a meme going on going viral, in Hebrew, that says something like, when this ends, we’re going to win, in a thousand years, there’s going to be a holiday that celebrates how they tried to destroy us and we won. And the custom in this holiday would be to eat Rachel cookies. 

And I think this essence of historic perspective is something so innate in us, which I really hope this is something that my kids, our kids can take from this moment. What about you, Josh?

Josh: So I echo, what you say about community, I might say, is both about obligation to others and obligation moment. And then the other part of that is showing up.

Masua: Can you say more about this?

Josh: About obligation? So Yehuda Kurtzer on his podcast has talked a lot about this in terms of when someone when you have a dead body that you are responsible for burying, which is part of Jewish law, you are not obligated in mitzvot of doing tefillah, because you’re obligated in the mitzvot of burying the dead person.

And so he’s been using that sort of in a broader metaphor of like, we become obligated to people and we show up in certain ways. What I heard you say was the sense of obligation and in community, which is when I’m in community, I’m wrapped up with other people’s lives and I go and I show up for them. That’s the second part. It’s not just feeling obligated. It’s showing up in ways that are, and showing up is like, I’m here, I’m doing your laundry, I’m bringing you food. And it doesn’t, it shouldn’t have to take a horrible attack, but that we do this because we are concerned with others. 

I want to offer another value, which is we value life over death. We value this world over the world to come, even though the world to come is in our tradition. And there’s this amazing piece of Talmud where it talks about what happens regarding funerals and death. And if a wedding procession is coming down the road and bumps into the funeral procession, the wedding procession takes precedence. And it’s a beautiful statement about the bride and the groom go forward first, even though we’re in so much pain, we put forward first the living. 

And I think the cynicism and the hate we saw, which is unfathomable to us, and reflects such an opposite worldview. Are we’re not obsessed with death. Paradise is not in the world to come. We make paradise here and we make a world for the living that is beautiful, that is caring, that takes care of others, and that preferences and privileges beauty over hatred. 

It’s going to be a rough few weeks. We’re going to have to have lots of conversations with our kids. And we’re thankful to our listeners to giving us the opportunity to share with you what we hope becomes a set of conversations you’re putting forward with your kids about the meaning of Israel, about the values that you’re committed to. 

We hope that those values are about obligation, about community, about taking care of the Jewish people, about life over death. And we wish everyone health and safety and shalom al Yisrael, peace over Israel.

Masua:  Thank you for listening to our show. Perfect Jewish Parents is a production of the Shalom Hartman Institute, where we tackle pressing issues facing Jewish communities, so we can think better and do better. 

You can check out our world-renowned faculty, free live classes and events at shalomhartman.org. This episode was produced by Jan Lauren Greenfield and edited by Ben Azevedo. Our assistant producer is Tessa Zitter, M. Louis Gordon is our production manager, and Maital Friedman is our vice president of communications and creative.

We plan to release more of these special episodes soon, and you’ll be able to find them by subscribing to us wherever you get your podcasts. We’ll see you then, and until then, take care.