Can we maintain the highest ethical standards without betraying national solidarity?

As the war in Gaza surpasses 700 days and the High Holidays approach, Donniel Hartman and Yossi Klein Halevi explore what it means to love Israel unconditionally while grappling with the challenges of moral responsibility during time of war. They discuss maintaining ethical credibility while under attack and advocate making space for the “troubled committed”—Jews who refuse to choose between loyalty and ethics—concluding that the hardest questions often come from the place of deepest love.

Watch the video version of our podcast on the new For Heaven’s Sake YouTube channel. 

From the episode:

“Our season of reckoning: Israel’s moral crossroads in Gaza”
by Yossi Klein Halevi, Times of Israel

“The Troubled and the Committed”
by Liel Leibovitz, Tablet Magazine

“Liberal Zionism and the Troubled Committed”
by Donniel Hartman, Sources: A Journal of Jewish Ideas, Fall 2021

The Season of Reckoning Transcript

Note: This is a lightly edited transcript of a conversation, please excuse any errors.

Donniel: Today is day 717, the day before Rosh Hashanah, and we’re airing an episode that we taped on day 704. But within a few hours of taping the episode, Israel bombed in Doha, and it was irrelevant, and so we had to re-tape a Doha episode. And last week, Netanyahu redefined Israeli identity, and we had to talk about that. And so our episode from day 704 is now being presented to you, and actually it is the most relevant episode for the high holiday season.

Hi, friends. This is Donniel Hartman and Yossi Klein Halevi from the Shalom Hartman Institute. And this is our podcast, For Heaven’s Sake, Israel at War, a collaboration between the Hartman Institute and our community.

Today is day 703, and this was a particularly difficult week, as yesterday, 10 Israelis were killed, 6 in Jerusalem from a terrorist attack, 4 of our soldiers were killed in northern Gaza. And the price of the conflict, the price of the war, is something that never leaves us, and it shapes the way we look at our life and the realities that we’re facing, with all of its complexity and pain and evil.

And in this sort of soulful mood, Yossi and I, we decided that our theme for today will be called “The Season of Reckoning.” This is a season of reckoning. This is a season of reckoning because in our calendar, we’re about to have Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, the time when we are obligated, even though you’re supposed to be a reflective person every day, we know that it is difficult. And so our tradition gives us a season to challenge us to say that to be human is to reflect on who you are and who you want to be, and to never assume that who you are is who you ought to be. But to ask that question.

But it’s also a season of reckoning, regardless of when, how close, and the proximity we have to Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur. It’s a season of reckoning because we’re about to go into the city of Gaza and resume war with all of its intensity, with its consequences to our soldiers, consequences to the hostages, consequences to Gazans, Gazan civilians.

It’s a season of reckoning because it’s also possible that within the next number of days, Hamas will accept the Trump ceasefire plan. Israel has today, just now, officially accepted the plan, which would bring about an immediate release of hostages and a cessation of the war, and 60 days to come up with a final agreement.

The season is transitioning. Our actions are transitioning. The war might be transitioning, and if the war ends, and who knows, you know, we have to be very cautious. But something’s happening, and as things change, it’s time for us to ask. What do we think? Because even when things change, you don’t delete the past quite to the contrary. It’s precisely as things change. But you have to give a reckoning, an accounting, and ask, “Who are you?”

And so, I know this season of reckoning, our title is also a title that Yossi, you gave to an article, a beautiful article that you recently wrote in the Times of Israel, which is highly recommended, and it’s in the show notes for people to read. I want to start with a meta question. It’s not about what we need to reckon for, but it’s about how we reckon. How do we do reckoning? How do we do moral reflection? How do we talk about who we ought to be in a time when we know it’s so difficult? War, trauma, fear, anger, vengeance, we’re such an emotional, moral, political mess. But in the middle of that, reckoning is what we have to do all the time, and especially now.

So my first question to you, Yossi, is how do we do reckoning? How do we do moral reflection? In writing this article, you engaged in it, but guide us, Yossi, as to your thought processes.

Yossi: You know, Donniel, the answer is so personal for each of us, because the process of self-reckoning and then hopefully the self-reckoning leading to some form of corrective, which we call teshuva, penitence, returning to our true self, it’s such an individual, internal process that I can only speak about my own struggles.

And for me, you mentioned those very formidable emotions, anger, fear. Those are not my particular issues. I don’t feel that that’s blocking me from a self-reckoning. And by self-reckoning, I just want to be clear here, we’re really talking about a collective self-reckoning of Israel. And each of us, for the purpose of this process of teshuva, penitence, is Israel. Each of us really becomes Israel.

Donniel: It’s because we love it, and we’re committed to it, and we’re not walking away from it. Like, we’re Ruth, you know, you know, like, “Where you go, I go.” We’re bound with each other.

Yossi: One could say a Catholic marriage, but…

Donniel: Yes.

Yossi: So for me, the struggle is, how do I, as an Israeli, subject myself to this process of self-reckoning? And then even more so, how do I do this publicly, as someone who has a public platform, when we’re living with a constant barrage of lies and distortions and half-truths, and we’re overwhelmed by one wave after another of attack? And how do you find the ability to breathe? Because in order to do self-reckoning, you have to be able to take a deep breath. And I’m using that as a metaphor, Donniel, but not only, because sometimes I literally feel like I can’t breathe. I feel like I’m underwater. I’m under assault from so many directions. And so how do you do this?

And what pushes me to do it, and what pushed me to do it in the case of this piece that you referenced that I published the other day, was the realization that, first of all, our strength depends on our moral credibility. And that means maintaining our moral credibility with our friends, with our children, with the diaspora.

And I also really take this in a spiritual direction. And for me, when the Jewish people undergoes a process of asking itself difficult questions, we don’t harm ourselves, but we invite divine protection. And that’s something that I deeply believe in.

Donniel: But many people, Yossi, the minute you engage in that, the loyalists will call you disloyal. It’s interesting, you bring that spiritual dimension, that faith that you have, that you believe that actually you enhance our security through this process. You’re invoking your faith for that. I wish I was as faithful as you, but inevitably you’re attacked.

Yossi: Donniel, you are a deeply faithful Jew. You may have trouble with faith, but you are a deeply faithful Jew.

Donniel: I think I understand what you mean. It’s this notion that if I do something I have got on my side, here in that sense I’m a post-Holocaust Jew more than you are, Yossi.

Yossi: It’s funny. But you know what? I think that in your case it’s also being an Israeli who grew up in this country in the 1970s and 80s when religious Zionism became kind of a blind messianic movement. And I think that’s part of what you’re understandably reacting toward.

Donniel: I’ll leave you with your beautiful world of faith with tremendous respect. But you’re criticized. You know, I’ve read criticism about your article, but how do you do this? We want to do a time of reckoning and your belief that without that we are and who we are. And that I share very deeply. Because for me, the essence of being a Jew is to recognize that who we ought to be is not exhausted by who we are and to constantly strive. That inner process. “You shall be holy,” God says. “For I the Lord your God am holy,” not because you’re chosen people; you are holy. That process… but in the midst of war, in the midst of criticism—

Yossi: How do you do it?

Donniel: You’re attacked. So with all of your love and all of your whole record, no matter what you’ve done in the past, just doesn’t matter.

Yossi: It’s all erased. “What have you done for me lately,” as the old Jewish joke goes.

Donniel: Is the old Jewish joke, correct. So how do you do it? Because they want to silence you, Yossi. They want to silence all of us.

Yossi: Yes. And this article took me literally a month to write. And what was happening was that I was silencing myself. And I couldn’t bring myself to have an unequivocal moral self-reckoning, an accounting of the war. I kept bringing in this defense of Israel and that defense of Israel. My best critic, my best editor, is my wife, Sarah. I didn’t show her any of the earlier drafts because I knew they weren’t right. I showed her the last draft and she said, “I need a more morally self-confident voice.” She said it, and I understood immediately what I needed to do. I needed to get rid of the defensiveness.

That belongs in other articles. I’ve been defending this war, as you know, Donniel, on this podcast, in writing, and speaking, for the last two years. This article had to be different. This article had to be a genuine struggle with the questions that are gnawing at me and at so many others. The way that I tried to do that, the way that I really tried to model how does someone who loves Israel critique Israel in the middle of a war?

So what I tried to do in this article is model how to critique Israel and at the same time be mindful of what we’re up against. And what I did was not drag in all of the arguments and defense of Israel, but simply to write about why this is hard to do and just to acknowledge what we’re up against. And I think that if you put that on the table, first of all, it had a therapeutic impact for me. It reassured me you can do this. You’re actually not betraying Israel. And I think that people responded to that angst.

So in other words, what I’m trying to do is express two forms of angst. The angst about the situation, the angst about the anxiety that I feel about what we have done wrong or may have done wrong, and at the same time the angst and even expressing the angst.

So now, Donniel, I know that you’re coming from a very different place. And we’ve had this conversation on and off air for really… for many years, well before the war. What does it mean to critique Israel? How do you critique Israel? And I remember once, Donniel, we were sitting at an iEngage seminar at the Institute, and I quoted your father about criticizing Israel. Do you remember this?

Donniel: No.

Yossi: And your father said, “yes,” speaking to diasporic Jews, “by all means criticize us, but criticize us like a mother and not a mother-in-law.” And you took exception to that. You said, “What does that even mean? What does it mean?”

Donniel: And I still don’t know what it means. Is it like my mother, of blessed memory, his mother? Because my mother and his mother weren’t the same people.

Yossi: If it was my mother-in-law, I would take the criticism happily. But yes, point well taken.

Donniel: But you know, right now as we’re taping this, I’ve been spending a number of weeks here in the New York area. And in speaking to some of my friends in the Jewish community, they feel a tremendous… My colleague Yehuda Kurtzer says “squeeze.” That the attacks against Israel are so continuous that they don’t feel that they could do reckoning because they don’t want to be associated with the critics of Israel. It’s an identity issue.

Yossi: Yes, exactly.

Donniel: I sense that from you, it’s that you want to be understood. Maybe it is also an identity issue. It’s like when Elie Wiesel said to Ronald Reagan, “You don’t belong there. That’s not where you should be.” So even if I want to do it, they’re taking away from me something that, as you yourself said, is so critical to who I am.

And so there’s this shutdownness I’m being squeezed into having to pick. So if I do the reckoning, ah, now I’m in the anti-Israel delegitimizers, anti-Semites—I’m there. So I don’t have air. That’s their air that they’re looking for. They can’t breathe because they know that they don’t want to be there.

But in this sense, you’re right, I am very different. I’ve never been inhibited by the presence of anti-Semitic critics. I never really believe that what I say gives them fuel. I feel they are a self-generated engine of hatred, that they’re not waiting for me, neither do I hold myself in such importance. But I also don’t believe that they need anything. They might quote it, but it doesn’t really matter. Their hatred and moral blindness has its own fuel and it’s walking its way.

And for me to in any way change who I am as the Jew and to change my reflectiveness and my decisions about who I think we ought to be because I’m worried about what they’re going to say just never made sense to me.

There’s another argument. So my father says, “Criticize us like a mother, not a mother-in-law.” I remember in a debate I had in 1986, I think it was with Rabbi Riskin in Lincoln Square Synagogue, I was 26 or 8 at the time. And here it is, I’m in his shul and we’re debating how to criticize Israel. So it’s interesting, today’s subject, we the Jewish people have been talking about it forever, forever. And I remember Rabbi Riskin—

Yossi: We used to debate how to criticize Moses.

Donniel: How to criticize Moses, right. How to criticize God. And I remember Rabbi Riskin said, in a very deep way and in a serious way, he says, “I’m all for criticizing Israel.” Of course, because how could you be a Jew and be anti-criticism? It’s not a tenable position in our tradition. But he said, “But I need you to criticize, not like a mother,” he said, “I need you to criticize out of knowledge.”

I am always concerned about those people who create conditions—or, our colleague and our really close friend, Daniel Gordis, for many years was concerned about the critics of Israel who weren’t balanced. Criticize Israel as long as you also criticize the other side.

Yossi: I do think Danny has a more nuanced position these days.

Donniel: Oh, sure he does, but I also understand his instinct because you feel the onslaught and you’re saying, “Where are you?” We’re almost asking identity questions like, “Where do you belong?” When you make a criticism, you are changing your location. And so who do you belong with? I’m always worried that all of these—and now we’re talking about my father, Danny Gordis, Rabbi Riskin.

Yossi: It’s a good lineup.

Donniel: It’s a good one. These are good people. These are thoughtful people, lovers of Israel, lovers of ethics. These are not only our personal friends, but people who we have profound respect for.

I am always worried about conditions and somebody policing those conditions. Because for me, and maybe this has to do with my own personal rabbiting and the voice that I feel is critical to put forth, I am more frightened about Jews believing that moral questions can’t be applied to Israel and as a result are going to leave Israel, than about too many moral criticisms being generated within the Jewish community. I’m not worried about what the anti-Semites are going to do. They’re going to hate us. Time magazine is going to give whatever it’s going to do. And New York Times, they’re all going to do whatever they want to do. Everybody’s going to say what they want.

The question we have to ask ourselves are: Who are we? And are we creating the framework within our community for Jews, who I called the troubled-committed. Jews who love Israel, but who are going to be troubled? And you could be troubled about the war. You could be troubled about Gaza City. You could be troubled about anything. You have to be troubled, to be Jewish, to be reflective. I’m worried that there isn’t space to breathe for the troubled-committed, that we’re being pushed aside to either be troubled and uncommitted or to become the untroubled committed. And we have to be that voice and that’s why your article, or this conversation—I think we just have to be free from some of that.

Yossi: I agree with you. And one of the things that I learned from you over the years, Donniel, is that we can’t grant veto power to our enemies over the quality of our inner life, the Jewish people’s inner conversation. We need to insist on the autonomy of our moral conversation regardless of the hyenas around us.

Donniel: But if I really believe that internal criticism was a fuel that they use and that without, that their hatred would dissipate, maybe, you know, I believe that self-defense is a moral responsibility, and if that’s what self-defense requires, I’ll take that into account.

But always this public and private and who you say it to and how you say it to and all of the above. And when you say it, everybody wants to silence. I don’t have your theological faith that this will benefit us. But I believe that we cannot be lovers of Israel, that there isn’t room in the Zionist community unless the majority of Jews who are troubled-committed have a voice.

And sometimes I take the fact that I live in Israel and that I hope that my love for Israel and commitment to Israel can’t be questioned and doubted. And I want to say the things that many people think you can’t say. Oh, don’t say that now. You shouldn’t say that, don’t you know. We can’t do reckoning unless we free ourselves from that. Who haunts you, Yossi? Who is your audience? My audience are the troubled-committed. My audience are the troubled -ommitted. I’m afraid of the troubled-committed who are now becoming hyper-troubled. I want to make sure that they stay committed. Who’s your audience?

Yossi: I’m not sure that at this moment I’m really able to speak to Jews who are wavering in their love and commitment for Israel. Because for me, this is exactly the kind of moment that tests love. And Israel isn’t only about Entebbe and the rescue of Ethiopian Jews. You don’t just show up for Israel when it makes you feel good. And this is exactly the moment that tests true love.

And you know, I moved to Israel, we talked about this last week on the podcast, I moved to Israel at really one of the worst moments in the country’s history. It was the beginning of the First Lebanon War. The country seemed to be falling apart. And in retrospect, that feels so right to me, to tie my life, my fate, my future children’s fate, with Israel, no matter what.

By moving to Israel at a moment of crisis, I was affirming unconsciously, because I moved to Israel in the summer of ’82 because that’s just when my own personal circumstances played out. But in retrospect, I’m so grateful for having done that. Because the statement that I was making for myself was, I am on the roller coaster. Regardless of what happens, this is the Jewish people’s story. However it plays out, if it turns out to be a success, I’m here for the happy ending. If God forbid it turns out otherwise, well, it’s my story as much as anybody else’s, and it’s my failure as much as anybody else’s.

So this idea of walking away, if you really love Israel, I don’t understand. I understand trouble-committed, but I need to know that the commitment is unconditional. Those are the people today that I’m speaking to.

Donniwel: To who? So who are they? Are they the troubled-unconditional-committed?

Yossi: Yes, yes. They are the unconditionally committed who know that there’s a deep problem here.

Donniel: Who knows the deep problem.

Yossi: Whether it’s an anti-democratic government, whether it’s serious questions about the army violating its own moral principles, whether it’s the fact that the government is turning an active blind eye to violence of settlers against innocent Palestinians in the territories. People who love Israel unconditionally and also know that in order for those who love Israel to have moral credibility, they need to deal with these questions. Those are the people that I’m speaking to, Donniel.

Donniel: As I’m hearing you, you know, our differences—they’re sometimes very small and we think they’re profound. But the others, like Yossi and Doniel, they disagree, it’s like a spectrum.

Something that you said that doesn’t really have a place in my soul, and I wanted to air it for a moment and share it with you, you spoke about testing love. And that’s a term that I’ve heard as we’ve been talking and walking with each other for a very long time. Testing love is an important part. Are you standing with us unconditionally? This is the test, are you going to pass the test?

Yossi: Donniel, I’m not testing others. It’s a self-directed test. And when I say that I needed to tie my life to Israel unconditionally, that was a condition that I imposed on myself. Look, if Jews walk away from Israel, I’m sad, I’m broken up about it. I also understand it.

Donniel: Fair enough, fair enough, Yossi, that it’s your own. But I think it’s more than that. I think you’re going one step further. And that is, I don’t test love. You remember it’s been a long time. I’m going to be married now, in December, 44 years. But the difference between being married and dating, dating, you’re testing.

Yossi: I’m 43.

Donniel: You’re 43. A young marriage, newlyweds, newlyweds, things that I have known compared to you, newlyweds. But when you’re dating somebody, you’re always testing. Who called whom last? I’m waiting for them to call. I did this. You’re testing, you’re waiting. Marriage—you just go. Of course, there’s always tests. And we don’t believe in Catholic marriages, and you could leave. And when it doesn’t work, and there’s no flaw in that. But still, there’s… the essence of marriage is you stop testing each other. You stop weighing at some point.

And I think Jews around the world have passed the test of lovers of Israel decades ago, a long, long time ago. They’re seriously troubled. And by nature, troubledness questions your commitment. It doesn’t mean that you leave, but it makes you waver.

Now, there was—the editor of Tablet wrote an article, a very thoughtful, intelligent article. I disagree with it, but in our spirit of For Heaven’s Sake, who said that when you agree that the only way you could say something is thoughtful is when they mirror your opinions. It was a very thoughtful article. And what helped its thoughtfulness was that he quoted my categories of the untroubled-committed, the troubled-committed, the troubled-uncommitted, and the untroubled-uncommitted. And if that hasn’t confused anybody, just re-listen to it, the four categories of the way people relate to Israel.

But his argument was that you can’t really be troubled-committed. He says, you know, Donniel is a troubled-committed, and this is his category. But at the end of the day, the troubled-committed always become the troubled-uncommitted. And the only way to stay committed is to ultimately resolve your troubledness. Stop your navel grazing, or the critics of yours are going to say, stop this moment of self-reflection and reckoning. Let’s not engage in it. It’s betrayal in all of the above.

I think that conversation, and even the conversation, which you’re saying you’re not doing, and I accept that, of testing people’s love, of—I want to see, do you pass this test or not?

Yossi: Donniel, listening to you, I’m no longer sure that I’m not doing it.

Donniel: I could tell you that you do it.

Yossi: You may be right.

Donniel: I could tell it because at certain moments, your love for Israel and love and commitment to the Jewish people is unending. Sometimes. But when you feel that Jews don’t align themselves in a correct way, or at certain moments that you believe are the test moment for the alignment, you go through a struggle. At the end, you always stay with them. You don’t walk away from any of this.

But at one point I’ve heard you in your case, I can’t talk to the Jews anymore. I could talk to the Muslims, I could talk to Christians. I can’t talk to liberal Jews anymore. And then what do you do? You talk to liberal Jews all the time.

Yossi: The good news, I can’t talk to Muslims or Christians anymore either.

Donniel: But the point is, we’re talking about reckoning, and we’re talking about moral reflection. And I think that process requires, A, not to be worried about what they’re going to say. It’s going to be a shanda, what are they going to say? They’re going to use it. I think it stifles not only our ability to be who we want to be, but it stifles an ability of our community to remain committed. And that paradoxically, those who demand that to be committed, you have to mitigate the level of your troubledness. Or filter it through my criteria of how it should be expressed, ultimately shrink our community.

Yossi: Okay, fair enough. But I want to explore with you your boundaries. Because when you say that you’re mainly focused on the troubled-committed, what does that mean? What are the boundaries there? At what point do you say, well, you know, you’re so troubled, and your commitment is so unsteady, that I’m not sure we have a shared language anymore. Do you ever feel that?

Donniel: Very rarely, my rabbinate is the rabbinate for the troubled-committed, not just about Israel, about everything. If you love Judaism and your faith in God is complete, I’m not the rabbinate.

Yossi: No, but I’m asking you, I understand, I understand, but I’m asking you about the word committed.

Donniel: One of my closest friends calls himself an anti-Zionist, and his son is in the Navy SEALs, and his three son-in-laws are serving in Gaza, now, 400 plus days. This is my anti-Zionist… This is the guy who is all, so, you know, do you know who I don’t speak to? The only ones I don’t speak to are the people who are committed-uncommitted. They’re like ideologically uncommitted to the extent that they can’t hear, that they don’t want to hear. That, you know, I don’t speak to the anti-Semites because, plague on all their houses. I don’t speak about those who claim that Israel’s existence is of no significance—

Yossi: So you don’t speak to anti-Zionist Jews who are committed, farbrente, anti-Zionists. You don’t speak to them?

Donniel: I want to speak to those people who are still troubled. You see, when you’re troubled, then your commitment is still up for grabs. When you’re not troubled anymore and you’ve resolved it, I’m the wrong person. And so, as a result, this reckoning, to create a spirit of reckoning, is what creates the possibility of commitment. It’s what creates it. It’s when you’re untroubled that, you know, you’re not troubled anymore. You’re not troubled, and therefore you’re uncommitted.

Be as troubled as you want. We in the Jewish community, we have to fight, not for loyalty, but for the souls and for the space of a Jewish conversation that looks to Israel, loves Israel, and asks, whether it’s at this time before Rosh Hashanah, whether it’s as the war is being re-embarked upon, or whether it’s coming to an end. Who always want to ask, who should we be?

Yossi, I think we’re at the time, which we call in our podcast, the time for, for final thoughts. Any final thoughts, Yossi?

Yossi: My conclusion from this conversation is that there really are two groups of Jews with whom I don’t have a shared language at this point, and those are two groups on either end of the political spectrum who have no questions because they know all the answers. Either the IDF is the most moral army in the world, there are no moral problems, and I can recite all of the statistics along with the best of them, and I’m still not convinced. Those don’t erase the questions that I have.

And on the other end of the spectrum, those on the far left who also don’t have questions, because they’ve already reached their conclusions. They sit in judgment of Israel. We’re a criminal state, and they’ve adopted all of the libels of our enemies. And so with these two categories, I don’t feel that I have moral interlocutors, and I’m looking for Jews who share my anguish.

And there are multiple levels to that anguish, the anguish of what’s being done to Israel, the anguish of the kind of war we’re facing, the anguish of burying soldiers, and as well, the anguish of knowing that we are not up to par in relation to our own moral standards. So those are the Jewish partners that I’m looking for.

Donniel: My greatest concern is that out of a desire to love and support and secure Israel, we’re going to create a culture of conversation in which too many Jews are left outside, and that where our community is going to have loyalty tests, instead of working to ensure that Zionism has to be a broad enough space for most Jews, and to do so, a spirit of almost unmitigated reckoning, a respect for the need to do this type of introspection. That questioning is welcome. It’s a strength. Whether God helps us as a result of that, or whether it helps us in our journey to be who we ought to be.

Either way, either way, this is our season. And this week that’s coming, the days that are coming, you know, every time we do a podcast, by the time it’s aired, we don’t know what our world’s going to look like. Are we going to be in Gaza? Are we going to continue to be bombing these high rises? Is Hamas going to accept the ceasefire?

Stay tuned and be well, and most importantly, talk. Talk to yourselves, talk to your friends. My bracha to the Jewish people is that we should be troubled-committed, whether it’s unquestionably-committed or questionably-committed. But as you say, and both of us say, without being troubled, that’s when the conversation stops.

Yossi, thank you so much. A pleasure being with you.

Yossi: Great to be with you, Donniel.