For Heaven’s Sake

Written by Rabbi Elliott Karstadt — 18 May 2025

In a moment, we will count the Omer. We count every day between Pesach and Shavuot. The day we are in (until we count the next day) is Lag B’Omer – the thirty-third day of the Omer. It is often considered a day of celebration, because it marks the end of a plague that killed 24,000 of the students of Rabbi Akiva in the second century CE. The reason for the plague is that the students, all of whom would study in pairs, did not treat their study partners with respect. They did not treat each other with the human dignity they deserved. Their disagreements were not ‘l’shem shamayim – for the sake of heaven.

As rabbis, we often talk from the bimah about the importance of disagreeing and debating for the sake of heaven. We talk about the importance of holding different views with respect.

But disagreeing for the sake of heaven sometimes means moving into territory that is painful. Because those are the things it is worth having such disagreements about. The human tragedy that is currently unfolding in Israel and Gaza is one such subject.

The reason it is painful for so many of us is because we hold in our hearts a deep love for Israel – love for its cities, its farms, its food, its culture, its nature, its beaches, its people.

This week, alongside holding that love for Israel, some in the Jewish world started to make space to talk about Gaza. They started to talk about what is happening in Gaza in a different way and in a different register to what we have heard before. Rabbis in particular have begun to talk about mass starvation in Gaza. Starvation that is being caused, in part, by the two-month-long blockade that the State of Israel has imposed.

In the US, Rabbi Rick Jacobs (President of the Union for Reform Judaism) wrote this week in the Washington Post: ‘Hamas’s actions do not excuse Israel’s policy of cutting off humanitarian aid to innocent civilians in Gaza.’

Closer to home, here in the UK, Rabbis Laura Janner-Klausner and Warren Elf began a campaign directed towards the Foreign Secretary, David Lammy, aiming to draw attention both to the plight of the civilians in Gaza, and the diminishing hope that the remaining hostages might be freed alive. They said: ‘We call on the foreign secretary to convey to the British and Israeli governments that there are religious leaders here who reject the cruelty of the denial of food and humanitarian aid to Gaza as a tool of warfare: and who are distraught at the desertion of the hostages there. This blockade must be broken.’

These three rabbis are known to us as colleagues – Rabbi Laura is known by many in our community as a former rabbi of Alyth. We know that they are coming to this action from nothing other than a profound love for Israel and its people, and that they hold up a vision of what Israel can be: a just, democratic society, at peace with its neighbours. They embody that value of the Hebrew prophets that tells us to pray for the peace of Jerusalem, in the hope that Torah shall come out of Zion and the word of God from that holiest of cities.

Earlier this week I heard about members of another synagogue resigning their membership because they felt that the synagogue was standing by and refusing to play their part in stopping the humanitarian disaster in Gaza. And yesterday I was asked why I was not able to speak about it from the bimah.

The reality is that many of us find ourselves paralysed, unable to say what needs to be said for fear that what we say might be interpreted as disloyal, as a betrayal of Israel in her time of need.

And yet we have to find a way to talk about it – for heaven’s sake.

It should not be this way. We should be able to talk about Israel and Gaza. We should be able to speak about the ideal Israel that we see in our minds, which we hold in our hearts and which we know can exist. Our Israel. Not their Israel. Our Israel. The Israel that contains us, represents us and our values.

This is why we continue to ask you register to vote in the upcoming World Zionist Congress Elections. To vote for Our Israel – an Israel in which we can see ourselves as Progressive Jews, pluralists, democrats, reflected and celebrated. A land that is developed and cultivated for the benefit of all its inhabitants. Those of us who are Jews, those of us who are Zionists, those of us who are for humanity, need to make our voices heard.

There may be those who have given up, who say ‘enough’ and walk away. And sometimes that thought goes through my head too. But it cannot be enough. Hatikvah – there is still hope. Hope for the hostages. Hope for those starving in Gaza. Hope for human dignity. That is what this Lag B’Omer is about.