Love Thy Palestinian Neighbor: A Bar Mitzvah

Dvar Torah by Elijah David Gold

Posted on the Jewish Voice for Peace Rabbinical Blog, Palestiniantalmud.com, May 8, 2014 by Rabbi Brant Rosen
The following post is a Dvar Torah (Torah lesson/commentary) that was written and
recently delivered by thirteen year old Elijah David Gold for his Bar Mitzvah at
Congregation Tikkun vOr in Ithaca, NY (where JVP Rabbinical Council member Brian Walt
serves as rabbi).
In his address to his community, Elijah powerfully applied the Torahs teaching to love ones
neighbor as oneself to the Israeli militarys treatment of Palestinian children in the West
Bank.
Thank you for coming to my Bar Mitzvah.
My Torah portion is Kdoshim, Leviticus 19:1- 20:27. It is a very important Torah portion
because it gives us guidelines for how to treat others. I would like dedicate my Dvar Torah
to the memory of Wolf Karo. Our congregation participates in the Remember Us project. The
Remember Us project has Bar or Bat Mitzvah children lift up the spirit of a child who died
during the Holocaust before they had a chance to become Bar or Bat Mitzvahs.
Wolf Karo, who I am lifting up today was relative of mine from Babiak, Poland, where my
great Grandma Anne was born. My mother and I requested a child from Babiak or with the
last name Caro. It turns out that Wolf Karos name had been submitted by my great
Grandmothers cousin in Pennsylvania who has the same name as Wolf Karo.
We tried to do research about Wolf Karos life, but we were unable to find out much. His
Hebrew name was Zev. His fathers name was Chiel-Maier And his mothers name was Ester
and he was born around 1922. We dont know how or when Wolf Karo died, but we believe
it was likely in the Chelmo Concentration Camp because the first transports to Chelmo came
from neighboring Babiak and Chelmo was the first camp where the Nazis used poisonous gas
for extermination. At the end of the service I will say Kaddish for Wolf Caro.
Kdoshim is a Torah portion of Gods laws and commandments as told by Moses to the
Israelites. It includes the Holiness Code and prescribed punishments for sex offenses which
includes a prohibition on gay sex. The Tikkun vOr community strongly disagrees with this
and openly welcomes everyone. In Judaism, laws are meant for everyone to understand the
reason and significance of the law. For this purpose, the famous Jewish legal scholar who
was also a mystic, Joseph Karo, who I and Wolf Karo are direct descendants of, wrote the
Shulchan Aruch, or Set Table, so that Jewish law would be laid out for the Jewish people
like a set table ready for eating.
The Holiness Code includes the Ten Commandments, stated again, but in a different order.
The Holiness Code involves a number of different subjects including, how to farm and eat,
how to be a person of integrity, how to relate to others in your personal and work life, some
laws of Jewish religious practice, and obligations to work for social justice.
For farming and eating, The Holiness Code says that when we plant fruit trees, we should let
them mature for five years before eating them. It also says not to eat anything with its blood.
The Holiness Code tells us that we should not sow two kinds of seeds
In terms of being a person of integrity, the Holiness Code tells us to be kind to and feed the
less fortunate. This relates to my Mitzvah Project because for my Mitzvah Project every other
week I would go to Loaves and Fishes which is a place where anybody can go to get a free
meal. I would play guitar for fifteen to thirty minutes for others entertainment.
The Holiness Code says to respect God. It says to love your neighbor as yourself. It tells us
not to place a stumbling block before the blind and not to insult the deaf in front of them. It
tells us not to steal. It says not to degrade your daughter and make her a whore. The Holiness
Code says to love the stranger as yourself.
For relating to others in your personal and work life, the Holiness Code says to not cheat or
rob, It says not to hate your relatives or hold grudges, It says not to hate your relatives or hold
grudges, It says not be selfish or unethical. To not be unbiased and be fair. To have good
labor practices, And to revere our parents.
For religious practice and to set ourselves apart as Jews, the Holiness Code tells us that we
must keep the Sabbath and not worship false idols. It says men are not to shave the hair at the
corner of their heads. It says not to permanently mark yourself, and to observe Gods laws.
The Holiness Code also includes rules about sacrificing animals. It says not to let your cattle
mate with another kind, not to make clothing out of two type of cloth, not to turn to ghosts or
spirits and includes rules about having relations with someone elses slave.
After the Holiness Code, Kdoshim includes a large section outlining punishments for sex
offenses, as I mentioned before.
I am going to talk about three parts of the Holiness Code that stood out for me. The first is
You shall not eat anything with its blood too. In kosher law this commandment is
interpreted as you must drain the blood of an animal before you eat it. I think this is a very
bland interpretation of the commandment. Cornell professor Sherry Colb, who read the
Torah for us today, points out that when a commandment is repeated three or more times in
the Torah it has a deeper meaning than just the words of the commandment. Sherry thinks
that kosher laws are interpreted too simply and instead of just not mixing milk and meat we
should not eat animals and dairy because it is cruel and unnecessary.
Rav Simcha Zissel who is best known as the founder and director of the Kelm Talmud Torah.
says that the prohibition of eating blood is because the blood is the soul of the animal, and we
shouldnt eat another soul, whereas plants dont have a soul. Rav Simcha Zissel also says that
this is why the Torah mentions the concept of doing what is correct and good in connection
with the prohibition of eating blood. When the Torah tells us not to eat blood, it is telling us
to respect life, even animal life. I think the main way to respect life is to not take from it or
kill it.
The next two parts of the holiness code that I am going to talk about are love your neighbor
as yourself and love the stranger Rabbi Rachel Barenblat, of Congregation Beth Israel in
the North Berkshires, says that love your neighbor is Gods mitzvah. She says that
according to a Hasidic teaching, God created humans because God needed a partner or
neighbor to be in a relationship with because God couldnt be whole without without
extending love to another. Because we are called to be like God, we are supposed to extend
love to others too.
There is the famous story of where a convert asked Hillel to teach him the entire Torah while
he stood on one foot. Hillel said, what is hateful to you, dont do to others. That is the entire
Torah, the rest is commentary. Second century rabbinic sage, Ben-Azzai disagreed that
loving your neighbor is the greatest requirement of the Torah. He said that the teaching God
created human beings, making them in the likeness of God is a more important principle.
Ben-Azzai thought that people should not be able to use their likes and dislikes, or if they
understand others, as a guideline for how to treat others because we are all created in Gods
image.
I believe love your neighbor should include all human beings, not just Jews. But even if
you do not agree with that, Kdoshim also includes the requirement to love the stranger. It
says:
When a stranger resides with you in your land, you shall not wrong him. The stranger who
resides with you shall be to you as one of your citizens; you shall love him as yourself, for
you were strangers in the land of Egypt.
Certainly in this case, it is clear that we are to treat all human beings with dignity, equality,
and respect. For this reason, for my Dvar Torah I decided to learn more about how
Palestinians, and especially Palestinian children, are treated in the state of Israel. To do this I
watched the documentary 5 Broken Cameras that takes place in the West Bank. I read
testimonies of detained Palestinian children in +972 Magazine, I read testimonies of Israeli
soldiers who served in the Occupied Territories in Breaking the Silence, I read parts of the
book, Stolen Youth, published by Defense of Children International Palestine, and I
read a report on the psychological effects of child detention that my mother helped prepare
for the human rights organization, Friends of Sabeel North America.
If the Torah says that you are to love your neighbor and love the stranger as yourself, it
seems that Israel is in serious violation of this. Palestinians in the West Bank only get 20
percent of the water that Israelis get. As I learned about Palestinians living in the West and
Gaza Strip, what affected me the most was the children.
The Israeli military targets children for arrest and detention in order to uproot Palestinian
communities. Around 200 Palestinian children are arrested per month. They are tried in the
only juvenile military court in the world. The most common charge is rock throwing. They
are between the age of twelve and seventeen. This includes what is my Bar Mitzvah age.
During their arrests 90% are blindfolded, 75% undergo physical violence, and 60% are
placed in solitary confinement. They are not given lawyers or allowed to see their parents.
They are verbally abused and forced to sign confessions in a language they dont know with
the false promise of being allowed to see their parents if they will sign. After they are
released, they do not go back to being the children they previously were. They suffer from
Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, they have nightmares, trouble sleeping, anxiety, behavior
problems, scared to leave their houses, and many other problems.
Last fall my mother traveled to the West Bank and spent time in the village of Bilin where
5 Broken Cameras was made. She became friends with the filmmakers brother. She
recently learned that his daughter, Mayar, who is my sisters age, has not been able to sleep
because she has nightmares from when the soldiers have come into her home with tear gas in
the middle of the night. Most children are arrested during the middle of the night and more
than once in their childhood. As you can see, Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza Strip
are not treated like human beings should be treated; certainly not like neighbors or like their
Israeli counterparts whose children are are tried in civil, rather than military, courts.
In my Torah portion, God commands us to help our fellow Israelites return to good if they are
committing sinful acts. In fact, it is a sin not to help. Maimonides and Nachmanidies who
were famous for their work on Jewish law say that the commandment is about collective
responsibility and we are not only responsible for ourselves but also the behavior of others.
If you see someone committing a sin, or going down a wrong path, you are commanded to try
to make him go back to a path of good. Nachmanides says You shall surely rebuke your
neighbor. As I have now become a Bar Mitzvah, I have moral and ethical responsibilities
and I am required to fulfill mitzvot. I am responsible for my own actions and the actions of
my community. As long as the State of Israel is committing crimes, it is a sin for me to stand
idly by and not help my fellow Israelites return to a path of goodness. That is why I will be
donating some of my Bar Mitzvah money to the organization, Defense of Children
international Palestine.
Now for the thank yous, I would like to thank my mom for helping me with all of my Dvar
Torah and supporting me. Thank you to my dad for taking me to Loaves and Fishes and
supporting me. Thank you to Isabella for being a loving sister. Thank you Cantor Abby and
my Hebrew school teachers for helping me get ready for my Bar Mitzvah. Thank you to my
Grandparents and great Grandparents for loving me. Thank you to all of my Torah readers for
helping me out.