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Furthermore, we do not say Hallel - the prayers of praise - as one normally would on any other festive Yom Tov. The reason for the more sombre atmosphere of Rosh Hashanah is that it is a day of judgement, we are acutely aware of our vulnerability as we stand before the King of all kings in awe of His majesty and power. In fact, the Jerusalem Talmud (R.H. 1:3) actually notes with amazement that the day has any Yom Tov dimension. It remarks that in the normal course of human behaviour if a person comes before a court for sentencing, they would not present themselves in a festive manner and yet, in spite of the slightly toned down atmosphere of Rosh Hashanah nevertheless, we are required to wear Yom Tov clothing and to eat and drink festive meals.

The Talmud says that our unique approach to the Day of Judgement is based on our faith in G-d, who attends to our fate with loving care. This is an important lesson for us as individuals and as a community. We all face challenges, anxieties and uncertainties when looking to the future. As the Jewish people, we are going through difficult times in the Land of Israel and the affects of that conflict on the Jewish community around the world.

As the South African Jewish community, we face our own unique set of challenges. As individuals, people struggle with many varied problems such as earning a living and health issues. The lesson of Rosh Hashanah is that while remaining cognisant of our vulnerabilities and our complete and utter dependence on G-d for everything, we celebrate confident and firm in the knowledge, that in the words of the famous Rabbi Akiva "whatever the Merciful One does is for the good" (Brachot 59) and as the famous Talmudic phrase goes "Gam Zu latovah" - This too is for the good.

As children often do not understand the deeds and actions of their parents, so too, we often do not understand why things happen the way they do. But as children of our loving Father in heaven, we know with absolute faith that whatever does happen comes from Him and in this same way ultimately for our good and the good of the world.

In fact, there is an explicit provision of the Code of Jewish Law that instructs us to adopt this approach to life as a matter of habit, we are obviously obligated in accordance with our traditions to use all practical this worldly means of solving our problems while remaining acutely aware that such practical means are merely tools through which G-d works in this world.

We emerge from the Days of Awe to the exuberant joy of Sukkot demonstrating our confidence in the future which is completely in the hands of G-d. In the event of this perfect faith, may we as a community be blessed with a year of life and goodness together with an especially our brothers and sisters in Israel and throughout the world.

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Latest News

Sunday Times 2007/06/17 Page: 29
Look again: Israel is the victim, not the root of all evil
Chief Rabbi Warren Goldstein


Blaming the Middle Eastern conflict on the Jewish state is an error that could see many people unwittingly complicit in one of history's worst injustices, writes Chief Rabbi Warren Goldstein
Sometimes we make the most fundamental errors. When large numbers of people make mistakes - even monumental ones - it is almost impossible to challenge the resultant prevailing view.
It was once the conventional wisdom that the Earth is flat. In ancient times, if anyone dared to claim that the earth was round, they would have been denigrated as being detached from reality.
When, in the 16th century, Nicolaus Copernicus dared suggest that the sun was the centre of the solar system and not the Earth, he was regarded as a heretic.
In today's world, any attempt to explain the Arab-Israeli conflict in terms other than "Israel's illegal occupation of Palestinian land" and the "denial of Palestinian nationalist aspiration" is often regarded like a declaration that the earth is flat and the centre of the universe.

But what if this view is wrong? What if, in terms of understanding the Arab-Israeli conflict, we are living in pre-Copemican times? What if the Jewish state that is considered to be the root of all evil in the Middle East were instead the victim? What if the apartheid of the Middle East is really one directed against the Jews? And what if Israel is the ANC of the Middle East?

In South Africa, our conflict was caused by a white racist apartheid regime. The ANC was always ready to talk peace, but the regime refused to talk and so the conflict could not be resolved, and the ANC was forced into an armed struggle.
Like the ANC, the Israeli government has always been ready to talk peace but has been forced since the birth of the Jewish state into an armed defensive struggle because the anti-Semitic Arab world has not been prepared to talk peace. The ANC had to wage an armed struggle for many years until white South Africans were ready to talk, and then the long-standing conflict was resolved relatively quickly.
Unlike the ANC, Israel has not found genuine negotiating partners, and so its struggle continues, and peace remains a distant dream.

What if Zionism is not colonialism but rather an ancient people's deep connection to their native, historical and covenantal land? What if the real colonialism is Arab expansionism, which contests a Jewish state on even 1/520th of the area of Arab lands?
Nearly 4 000 years ago, the forefathers of the Jewish People, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, lived in the land of Israel, which God had promised to them and to their descendants forever. That promise was confirmed at Mount Sinai, and was delivered upon by G-d through Joshua, after the death of Moses, more than 3 300 years ago, when the Jewish People entered the land after being liberated from Egyptian slavery and oppression.
About 3 000 years ago, King David established Jerusalem as the capital city of the Promised Land. The Jewish people lived in the land of Israel for 850 years until their expulsion by invading Babylonians. They returned in large numbers 70 years afterwards and remained for many centuries until their eviction by the Roman Empire. Despite unremitting anti-Semitism and persecution, some communities managed to remain in Israel during the long interval between the Roman dispersion and the re-establishment of the Jewish state in 1948.

What if the dispute has never been about Palestinian statehood but really about the destruction of the Jews and the only Jewish state on Earth? In 1917, the Balfour Declaration, confirmed later by international law through the League of Nations, declared the British Mandate of Palestine to be a national homeland for the Jewish people, recognising 4 000 years of Jewish connection to the land, and the injustice of the destruction of ancient Israel by the Romans and the forced removal of the Jewish people. In 1922 the British took 76% of the land designated for a Jewish state and allocated it instead to the Arabs, creating east of the Jordan River a new country called Transjordan, later to be known as Jordan, which to this day has a Palestinian majority. In 1947, the United Nations voted to establish two states - one Arab and one Jewish - west of the Jordan river on the remaining 24% of the original portion of land allocated for a Jewish state by the international community. In spite of this reduction to their original portion, the Jews accepted the offer, which was then rejected by the Arabs. This was the beginning of a long history of Arab rejectionism.

And so, in 1948, the newly reborn state of Israel was invaded by Arab armies from Egypt, Lebanon, Iraq, Syria and the Arab Legion, all of which made it quite clear that they intended to destroy the tiny Jewish state at its rebirth and to massacre its citizens, many of whom were Holocaust survivors. Israel survived the war, and from 1948 to 1967, the West Bank and the Gaza Strip were in Arab hands and there was no "occupation" of these territories.

If the cause for the Arab-Israeli conflict is the "occupation" of the West Bank and Gaza, then why did the conflict rage throughout these years unabated, with continued Arab refusal to recognise Israel and to make peace with its Jewish neighbour? Why was it that in mid-1967, just before the Six Day War, and before the West Bank and Gaza fell into Jewish hands, Arab leaders called for the destruction of Israel? What "occupation" was at issue? Why did Syrian President Hafiz al-Assad order his soldiers to attack Jewish civilian targets to "pave the Arab roads with the skulls of Jews"?
For the 19 years that Jordan controlled the West Bank and Egypt the Gaza Strip, the Arab world had the opportunity of establishing another Palestinian state in those territories, and chose not to. Why not? If the conflict is about Palestinian statehood, then why was there no talk whatever of a Palestinian state for all those 19 years?
After the Six Day War, Israel immediately tried to enter into negotiations with the Arab world about the political future of the West Bank and Gaza. The response came from the Khartoum Conference of all the Arab States on September 1, 1967, in the form of the infamous three nos: "No peace, no negotiation, no recognition." And so, when in 2000 at Camp David, Yassar Arafat rejected without making a counter-offer at all, Israel's proposed 95% of the West Bank and Gaza as well as land compensation for the remaining 5%, his rejection was wholly consistent with Arab rejectionism of any Jewish presence at all.

If the Arab-Israeli conflict is about a Palestinian state, then there has always been an obvious solution of two states living in peace side by side. The conflict is more fundamental and therefore, all the more intractable, and is really about Arab rejection of the very presence and existence of a Jewish state, and probably any Jews at all, in the heart of the Middle East.

And so the very charter of Hamas calls for the murder of all Jews, worldwide. And rockets from Gaza continue to target Israeli civilians even after Israel's evacuation. And threats of genocide and a second Holocaust, together with denial of the first, emanate from Iran. And the Arab world is awash with the most rabid and pernicious anti-Semitism.
What if the war directed against Israel is really the global war of fundamentalist tyranny against freedom and democracy? Then indeed, all of those who believe, with the best of intentions, that they are defending a vulnerable victim, are actually being complicit in one of the worst injustices in the history of human civilisation. They will have sided with the forces of death and destruction, of fear and prejudice.

What if the world is siding against the only beacon of freedom and democracy in the Middle East, thereby endangering us all, because the fate of Jews is often a sign portending the future? Hitler came after the Jews first, and then he attacked the world. Suicide bombings began in Jerusalem and then migrated to New York, Bali, Madrid, London and Nairobi.
We need clarity to understand these tumultuous times. We also need an ultimate vision of peace and reconciliation between Arab and Jew. The conflict in the Middle East is between brothers, and that is the real tragedy. We are all the children of Abraham; Jews are the children of his son Isaac, and Arabs the children of his son Ishmael.
The Talmud tells us that, although the sons of Abraham fought for many years, when Abraham was buried in Hebron, Isaac and Ishmael were reconciled at his grave. Let us all pray to God that we will merit to see the day when brother will once again be reconciled with brother in the Middle East.

“This article by Chief Rabbi Dr Warren Goldstein has been published in the Sunday Times and Jerusalem Post and has been circulated worldwide via various internet sites.”