Kol Nidre 5786 | October 1, 2025

Watch Rabbi Faryn's D'var Torah here:

Read along with Rabbi Faryn's D'var Torah here:

(I begin with the Hineni Prayer, a Yom Kippur prayer of presence, accountability, representation, and humble acceptance of the task at hand)

Interpretive Hineni (chanted)

Hineni
Here I am
Imperfect
Not enough
Terrified
Before you, (my community)
The One that comes into being
Through our songs
Through our prayers

I come here now to root in pleading
In your presence
For your people
Who have appointed me
Their guide
Even though
To be worthy
Of the task
Is impossible

For this, I ask you
Hashem, Hashem, El Rachum v’Chanun
Source of Life, Source of Life, Compassionate and merciful
That you help me to succeed in this mission
As I beg forgiveness
For myself 
and for those have appointed me

Do not find them to blame for transgressions of mine
Do not declare them guilty for my own mistakes
For I myself am fallible 
For I, myself, have done wrong

Receive my prayer as if it were
the prayer of one experienced and wise
Whose voice is sweet and pleasing
To the ear of all who hear it

And may all transgressions 
Be wiped clean
Through love
For the sake of the people
For the sake of joy and gladness
And for the sake of life and peace

Blessed are you
Who listens to our prayer

________________

It is taught in the Mishnah that, back in the second Temple Period, there came a time when the elders of the Court began requiring that the High Priest take an oath–an oath that, in his performance of the Yom Kippur atonement rituals on behalf of the community, he would not change a thing. He would do exactly as they instructed him.

So they would administer the oath, and he would take the oath, dutifully. But after, the High Priest would remove himself and cry, and so too would the elders.

The rabbis ask of this: “Why did they all cry?”

And they answer themselves: for the community had split into factions, and these factions no longer agreed on the right way to perform the atonement rituals. Therefore, the only way to guarantee that the High Priest would follow after their way–the way of the elders–was by way of oath. So the High Priest cried, for he was not trusted by his community to do right by them, and the elders would cry, for they no longer knew who or what to trust.

My dear Or Shalom community, being your rabbi in the midst of rising factionalism within the Jewish community in what many consider to be one of the greatest crises facing Judaism since the destruction of the Temple two-thousand years ago has been one of the–if not the–most humbling experiences of my life. To say it has been a time of tears would be an understatement.

I made the theme for this year’s High Holy Days “We Rise, Together” because I so deeply believe its wisdom to be true–that true liberation can only come for any when it comes for all. Yet I also made it our theme because I was noticing rupture, yes, in the world, and yes, in the wider Jewish community, but, more importantly, inside of our own community. And if our small, relatively homogenous community cannot rise together, then how can we expect the wider world to do so?

On so much, we at Or Shalom agree. But, as I have learned, the dividing wedge historically–and one that, as of late, has intensified–is our relationships to Zionism.

This congregation is made up of Liberal Zionists, Progressive Zionists. Anti-Zionists, non-Zionists, post-Zionists, and people who wish we would just stop talking about Zionism. We love each other. We support one another. And, I have found, we can be skeptical of one another. In times of activation, we can lose trust in one another. 

We are living in a time when both “Zionist” or “Anti-Zionist” are considered dirty words, depending with whom you are speaking. In a Western world where the power structures still make it safer to be a Zionist than an anti-Zionist, but in which the tide of public opinion is turning against Zionism. In a time when being a Zionist could mean exclusion, threats of violence, even death by vigilante violence. And when being an anti-Zionist could  mean state persecution, criminalization, arrest, detainment, deportation, death.

I speak these words in a time that is dire. In which every passing second means more lives lost due to bombs, guns, starvation. In a time that feels far more urgent than quibbling over terminology and language, and yet in which language itself has the power to kill. To dominate.  

I imagine many of you do not want me, right now to talk to you about Zionism. I, too, (really) do not want to talk to you about Zionism. But I believe we need to talk about Zionism. Why? Because we need to talk about the very thing that is dividing us. We do not have the luxury to be divided any longer. The stakes are too high. The risk is too great.

If there is one thing I believe with full and utter faith, it is that this community, across our diversity of relationships to Zionism, wants what is best for every Jew, the Jewish people, every Palestinian, and the Palestinian people. We want not just peace, but justice. Not just safety, but liberation.

So I talk to you tonight about Zionism, in hope that we can begin to better understand each other, and in so doing, can build a Jewish community and a movement big enough and broad enough to overcome the forces of power and domination, and build a world that is finally safe for every Jew and every Palestinian. For I fear the consequences if we do not.

There are many kinds of Torah. There is the Torah–the five books of Moses. There is Torah d’rabannan–or, the Oral Torah–mythically understood to have been passed down by word of mouth, rather than textually–and now exists in the form of the Mishna, the Talmud, the rabbinic commentaries. And there is also the torah of us. The torah we create to make sense of the world around us, in conversation with all previous Toratot and wisdom traditions with which we interact, religious and secular.

This drash is the Torah of you. The Torah I have learned from you all, over the past two years, collated, sifted through for themes, and presented back to you, humbly. I do not claim it to be whole. I do not claim it to be fully representative. But I hope it allows each of you to see something in your fellow–something in this community–that you did not see before. For, as it says in Pirkei Avot/the Wisdom of our Ancestors, “turn it and turn it, and everything is in it” (Pirkei Avot 5:22). Turn us and turn us, and everything is in us.

So let us begin.
_______

The problem begins with definitions. 

There is no shared definition of Zionism, and no shared definition of anti-Zionism.

I have noticed, when one party is critiquing the other, each camp writes their own definition of the other’s ideology. They then proceed to knock down the definitional straw man that they themselves have constructed (whether purposefully or not), illustrating, look, how illogical, biased, wrong they are. Yet they do so based on a definition of the other that has very little to do with the other’s self-understanding.

For example:

Many Zionists define anti-Zionism as an ideology that seeks to delegitimize, and thus destroy, Israel as the only Jewish state. According to many Zionists, anti-Zionists do not believe in the Jewish people’s rights to national self-determination (as has every other people, they say). Rather, anti-Zionists, they say, single out Israel for critique for no reason other than that it is a Jewish state. 

In this definition, these Zionists both sidestep defining what anti-Zionism is while boiling it down to nothing more than a form of antisemitism operating on a national scale. This definition assumes that anti-Zionism is, first and foremost, about hatred of the Jews.

Yet most anti-Zionists define anti-Zionism as a movement for justice. Of human rights. As opposition to a system that privileges one class of people over another–that guarantees national and human rights for the Jewish people in historic Palestine while not doing the same for the Palestinians. For many anti-Zionists, the Jewishness of Zionism is irrelevant–for them, it is about universally guaranteed human rights.

On the flip side, many Anti-Zionists define Zionism as a system of Jewish supremacy. I’ve heard many an anti-Zionists use short, pithy statements to get at their definition, in the form of “Zionism is _____.” “Zionism is racism.” “Zionism is ethnic cleansing.” “Zionism is settler-colonialism.” While these terms may describe actions that are being taken in the name of certain Zionisms, this formulation renders them definitional–Zionism becomes nothing but a synonym for some of the worst human acts, and nothing more.

Yet most Zionists define Zionism as a movement for Jewish liberation through national self-determination. It is the right for Jews, within a political system built around nation-states, to have their own in their historic homeland. 

As you can see, each way one party defines the other sets up a straw man. If you’re anti-Zionist, you’re antisemitic. If you’re Zionist, you’re racist and support ethnic cleansing.

But most anti-Zionists I know personally are not antisemitic, and most Zionists I know personally do not support racism or ethnic cleansing (whether here at Or Shalom, or in the wider world.) The setting up of these straw men may serve a rhetorical and strategic purpose, but it does not change hearts and minds. It does nothing to build the broad coalition that we need to get free.

I am not naive enough to claim that there are no big differences between Zionists and Anti-Zionists. There are, and the stakes of such differences are existential. But I fear that it is leading those of us on the side of universal human rights–which I believe is everyone here in this room–to choose to form coalitions with those with whom we have diametrically opposed values, simply for the sake of upholding either support for, or opposition to, Jewish nationalism. 

Personally, I would rather be in a big, broad coalition of human rights defenders than in a movement where everyone shares my thinking on Zionism (which, let me tell you, is complicated). And not only do I desire this, but I think it is necessary. I fear that if we–in the broader sense of “we”–do not unify across this rhetorical and ideological distinction, the consequences will be dire. For Palestinians. For Israelis. And for the soul of the Jewish people.

The stakes are high.

Yet we fail to unify. Why?

I believe we don’t unify because we do not feel safe enough to do so. And this lack of a sense of safety leads to lack of trust. And I think all of this is rooted in the fact that we do not understand each other. Not fully. For it is easier to believe in our caricatures of one another than to really understand the other. So let us begin with understanding.

I do not feign to know, from my very limited and individual perspective, how every Zionist or every Antizionist (or everyone in-between) feels. But I have had enough conversations with all of you–my ideologically diverse rainbow of teachers– to hope that I can somewhat fairly represent both parties, albeit quite imperfectly, so that you all may receive the gift I have received from you–the gift of learning from one another. I ask for your compassion and offer teshuvah in advance for the ways these descriptions will inevitably be incomplete.

For each party, I will speak in the language of “we,” in the spirit of Yom Kippur and collective accountability, no matter where I personally fall on the ideological spectrum. I will begin by speaking from the perspective of Progressive Zionists, and then will switch to speaking from the perspective of Anti-Zionists.

Before we begin, I invite everyone to take a breath. Feel your feet on the ground. Look around. Know that you are safe and brave enough to hear what may be hard. To hear that which may challenge you. To know that in it, you are not alone.

So anti-Zionists, here is what Progressive Zionists need you to know in order to feel safe and heard in broad coalition as part of a movement for human rights and collective liberation:

We are traumatized. The Holocaust is not the only example of violence against Jews for being Jews in human history, it is just the most recent and devastating one. This history of violence lives in our bodies. If you fight for Palestinian liberation in ways that do not seriously wrestle with questions of Jewish safety–that do not take our lives and our safety seriously, let alone into consideration–then how are we supposed to join with you? Why should we be expected to take into consideration Palestinian safety if you do not, too, take into consideration our own? 

Our tradition has roots in that land. Jewish connection to the land–whether called Eretz Yisrael or Palestine–is not contrived. One cannot get through a Jewish prayer service without dozens of mentions of our connection to and yearning for return to that land. Our sacred texts have grappled with the role of this land in our sacred system and the spiritual implications of our dispersion from it for thousands of years. Why should we be expected to take into consideration Palestinian belonging to this land if our belonging is dismissed and discredited?

Israel saved us. Many of those who emigrated to British Mandate Palestine, and later, Israel, did so as refugees, fleeing the specter or reality of antisemitic violence. They were not safe where they were, and many had nowhere else to go (including the United States, which too, closed its door). How should our families have been saved, if not through the founding of the State of Israel? How should our families continue to be saved, if not by the State of Israel?

Genocide feels personal. Genocide happened to us. Our friends and family. Within our lifetimes. An elaborate system of identification, deportation and death camps. Six million lives extinguished. No corner of the Jewish world remains untouched by this. Genocide is not a term to be used lightly. When you use the word “genocide,” are you taking seriously its implications? Are you grappling with the legacies of genocide you are invoking?

We too want peace. All we want is for our people to be able to live in peace with our neighbors on our land. We believe the best possible path to this is a two-state solution, in which the national rights of both peoples are guaranteed and the human rights of all are safeguarded. We fear that if the Jewish state comes to an end, there will be no guaranteed protection for the Jews living there. How can you guarantee that Israeli Jews remain safe if a Jewish-majority state ceases to exist?

It feels like antisemitism… The international fixation on Israel is terrifying. We are such a small people, with a small land, and yet we have been a hyper-fixation of the West’s not just for the last two years, but since our founding. This hyper-fixation is disproportionate to our size, and whether or not the critique is merited, it is frightening for our safe haven to be under such a microscope all the time. Why is there such a hyperfixation upon the state of Israel in a world in which Israel is not the only bad state actor, if not antisemitism?

***

Take a breath. Whether what I just shared reflected you, missed the mark, or challenged you out of your comfort zone, you are safe here. We can hold it all, and stay together.

For now, let’s turn.

***

Zionists, here is what anti-Zionists need you to know in order to feel safe and heard in broad coalition, as part of a movement for human rights and collective liberation:

As long as Zionism has existed, so too has Anti-Zionism. In the late 19th and early 20th century, Jews faced with the reality of antisemitism came up with many different possible solutions to affect Jewish safety. Zionism was just one of them. When you equate Anti-Zionism with antisemitism, or say that anti-zionists are not real Jews, you are erasing us. Not just in the now, but whole Jewish histories. Whole Jewish cultures. That have existed for 150 years. Are you willing to accept us as full and legitimate Jews who simply practice and express our Judaism differently than you?

The problem did not begin in 1967. The founding of the state of Israel in 1948 was predicated upon the Nakba, the expulsion of 750,000 Palestinians their land and not allowed to return. If you skip to 1967 and say the only issue is the West Bank, Gaza, and the settlements, you are missing the root of the problem, as well as the reason for Palestinian resistance to Zionism. Are you willing to truly grapple with this root, the cycle of violence it engenders, and what it might require to stop it?

There is a power differential. This is not a war between two equal parties. This is not a battle between a moral state actor and  terrorists. This is a struggle between a state with one of the largest militaries in the world, illegally occupying the land of another people while denying them basic human rights, and those stateless people who choose to resist that occupation, quite often by nonviolent and sometimes by quite violent means. While one can debate the ethics of Palestinian resistance movements and tactics–while one can be morally outraged by the violence–one cannot claim that this is a war between equals. Are you willing to believe in a reality in which you are not the sole or primary victim?

The real danger of antisemitism is being co-opted by Trump and religious nationalists for their own agenda. Here in the United States, accusations of antisemitism leveraged against critics of Israel are being used to silence, to fire, to deport, to incarcerate. In Israel and Palestine, they are being used to kill, starve and expel an entire civilian population. Antisemitism is real, but when it is misused as a tool to silence any dissent, then we fear real presentations of antisemitism will also end up getting ignored by people who would otherwise be our allies. Are you willing to stop accusing us of antisemitism for being opposed to what is being done in the name of Zionism, and instead unite with us to fight against real threats of antisemitism worldwide?

Zionism has led to the deaths of tens, if not hundreds of thousands of people. While the form of Zionism carrying out the violence at present may not be the one you believe in or practice, this violence is being committed in the name of Zionism and Jewish safety. Are you willing to engage in teshuvah for the violence being done in your name? Are you willing to call your own community–Jewish, Zionist–to account?

We are losing the Jewish Soul. While we can imagine how devastating the loss of the state of Israel would be to so many, we are more concerned about the loss of the Jewish soul. Jewish people in Israel are, according to Palestinian reports, genocide scholars, the UN, and international and Israeli human rights groups, carrying out a genocide in the name of Judaism, while many Jewish people the world over actively defend or passively accept it as an unfortunate reality of the continuation of the Jewish state. For us, to be the perpetrator is a much crueller torture than to be the victim. Are you, too, scared for the loss of the Jewish soul?

***

Take a breath. Whether what I just shared reflected you, missed the mark, or challenged you out of your comfort zone, you are safe here. We can hold it all, and stay together.

***

I was taught in school that to be a rabbi is to hold the dual roles of pastor and prophet.

The pastor, like Moses, tends to the community’s spiritual and emotional needs–validates the individual, and harmonizes the collective. Guides them on the journey of where they need to go.

The prophet, like Eliyahu HaNavi, stands apart from the people. Tells them the exact thing they do not want and are not ready, and yet need to hear: their own moral culpability.

A pastor makes people comfortable. A prophet makes people uncomfortable. A pastor is well-liked and revered. A prophet is reviled, often persecuted, exiled, imprisoned, tortured, killed.

Both roles are utterly and wholly necessary. Neither is enough on its own.

In this Torah–your Torah–I hope I am doing both.

As a pastor, I see you all. Your hearts. Your heartbreak. I want us to stay together. For the sake of the community, yes. But also for the sake of the world.

And yet also, the most prophetic thing I can say right now is we need each other. Not in some palatable, we’re-actually-all-the-same way that sweeps our differences under the rug in the name of shalom bayit- a harmonious, conflict-free home. But rather in the if-we-don’t,-I-am- scared-how-many-more-will-die way.

In the Book of Jeremiah, Jeremiah the prophet warns that if the people do not turn away from the acts of injustice in which they are engaged, Jerusalem will be destroyed, and the people carried off into exile. But the people did not listen. They preferred to listen to false prophets who promised peace without any required behavioral change. 

As we know, Jerusalem was destroyed.

So in this season, let us heed the call. Let us turn. Away from injustice in which we are complicit, willingly or unwilling. And toward one another, in our ideologically diverse yet values-aligned multitudes.

It is already too late for so many. But may our turning be a tikkun–a healing. May our turning save lives.

G'mar Tov.