Rosh Hashanah is marked by Jews everywhere as the Day of Judgment, when God considers and weighs the vice and virtue of every individual and nation, and of the world. In the wake of a year of unrelenting intensity surrounding Israel and the Jewish people, I find that deeply comforting.
To be sure, it will not be easy, as standing before the all-knowing God must prompt serious reflection. We dare not insist on the virtue of all our choices, individual or national. Rather, we must honestly and humbly engage in the transformational process of teshuvah that Jewish tradition prescribes during this period—evaluating our actions, challenging our assumptions, identifying our failures, committing to radical change, if called for, and addressing areas needing improvement. We have made mistakes, and we must ask forgiveness of man and God.
Yet as a Jew, after another year during which my people have faced relentless judgment before man, it will be comforting to approach the Day of God’s Judgment. Prime ministers, professors, popes and pundits sit in judgment of Israel. Many of them have deemed the very existence of the Jewish state unjustified, illegal and racist. Too many have concluded that Israel bombs Gazans indiscriminately, starves them maliciously and delights in the destruction of their hospitals, churches and children.
These determinations deliberately or ignorantly disregard the Jewish people’s ancestral and biblical roots in the holy land; Hamas’s vicious brutality towards both Jews and Gazans, before, on, and since their monstrous attacks on Oct. 7, 2023; and Israel’s efforts to minimize civilian casualties and provide humanitarian aid. As the global spike in antisemitism demonstrates, every Jew everywhere personally bears the consequences of these judgments.
After a year of this kind of human judgment, facing God will offer comfort not because He will find us perfect, but because He will find us as we are. Our tradition teaches that the King of Kings does not pass judgment from His high and exalted throne, but comes down to stand in our place, understand our fears, and hear our dreams and prayers from up close. That is precisely what He did for the biblical Hannah, whose story is told in the book of Samuel, which will be read by Jews everywhere on Rosh Hashanah.
Hannah was a childless woman who desired with all her heart to have a baby, leading her to pour her feelings out to God during a pilgrimage to the Temple. Her prayer was so raw and genuine that the Talmud saw it as the paradigm of prayer and drew multiple lessons from it. Yet she was grossly misjudged by the leading prophet of the time, who erroneously accused her of having wandered into the temple intoxicated by the festival’s food and drink. He completely misread her.
Being misunderstood was not a new experience for Hannah. The distress that drove her to offer this prayer was her childlessness—a painful experience that profoundly saddened her, but that her husband could not understand. “Hannah, why do you cry, and why don’t you eat? Am I not better for you than 10 sons?!”
Hannah’s husband was a great and kind man, but he didn’t appreciate her anguish. Her husband didn’t get it, and the sage of her time didn’t understand her either. Hannah was utterly alone.
With one exception.
People may have no clue about what is going on inside others, but God enters our hearts and sees what fills them, our fears and dreams. That realization led Hannah to prayer. Alone and isolated from the people around her, she noiselessly mouthed her most intimate thoughts to the One Who could truly understand. In prayer, and even in judgment, God is the ultimate source of comfort.
We may not, however, wait for God to fix the problems that humans create. Hannah cried to God in desperation because the people around her had failed her.
We continue to fail.
As a Jew today, I feel like Hannah—misjudged and misunderstood by man.
I dream of the day when those who deliver verdicts on me and my people will understand how our identity has been forged by the complex blend of the destiny of Abraham and the designs of Hitler.
I dream of the day when they will recognize our commitment to be a source of blessing to the world, including our Muslim neighbors, and our sincerest wish that not a single innocent Palestinian would have had to be killed or displaced.
I dream of the day when others will relate to how the sordid and stubborn history of antisemitism haunts and informs us as we watch too many of Israel’s neighbors proudly act upon their commitment to destroy us and too many of our neighbors across the world celebrate them.
I dream of the day when, before judging us, others will truly stand in our place, in our shoes and imagine what they would do.
I dream of that day. But until it comes, my people and I will strive to humbly and wisely extend to others the understanding we ourselves seek, and, like Hannah, will find comfort standing before God.
