ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:
Just after the Hamas attacks of October 7 last year, I met Rabbi Amichai Lau-Lavie in the mountains outside Jerusalem. It was a Friday afternoon, and he was preparing to lead Shabbat prayers for members of a kibbutz who evacuated to a hotel after members of their community were killed and kidnapped. This week, he's preparing to lead services for his congregation in New York for Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, which begins Friday night.
Rabbi Lau-Lavie, welcome back to ALL THINGS CONSIDERED. It's good to talk to you again.
AMICHAI LAU-LAVIE: Ari, my friend, good to hear your voice. Thank you for inviting me.
SHAPIRO: Well, this anniversary of October 7 arrives during what Jews know as the Days of Awe, the 10 days of atonement between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur. So how do you connect these two events on the calendar?
LAU-LAVIE: This year, October 7 falls right in between Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year, and Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement. And we know that, for the rest of our lives, these high holy days will include the demand, the request for us to do and to be better and to not let this crisis become the rest of our history.
We cannot fix the past. We can take responsibility for it. We can do what we can in the present, but we have to fix the future. So the sense of repentance, atonement, reflection, responsibility, complicity and hope is what, for me and many, many others, is at the heart of these terrible, awful, awesome Days of Awe.
SHAPIRO: There's a specific tradition that many Jews practice during these 10 days, which I know you did yesterday - it's called tashlich. It's a sort of unburdening, where you throw something like breadcrumbs into the water. How is that experience this year different for you from previous times you've practiced it?
LAU-LAVIE: Well, last night, a group of Israelis and Palestinians, faith leaders, Jewish, Christian, Muslim, others, and a whole bunch of people went down to the river in Manhattan to shed tears and to shed our grief and rage into the river. It was a reimagination of this strange ritual where we substantiate breadcrumbs or leaves or rocks and throw them into the river, as we want to relieve ourselves of some of the emotional baggage that we carry with us - to exfoliate our emotions.
It was completely different this year. And when we ended throwing some of our grief into the river, we stood in a circle and sang about the way of the heart, about the path to the future. I know it sounds like kumbaya and, like, an island of impossible hope in the middle of this misery, and yet I firmly believe that what we released yesterday is on behalf of so many people who are not yet able to let go of the trauma that we've inherited over this past year - of so much hatred - and make room for hope.
SHAPIRO: You know, this time of year so often for Jews is described in the context of a clean slate or a new start or turning the page. Is that just impossible when we are in the middle of this horrible war in Gaza and an expanding war in Lebanon, and there's nothing about this moment that feels like a blank slate or a new beginning?
LAU-LAVIE: This is a terrible, terrible day on top of a terrible year, and one of the worst things is that there is no certainty. There is no charted path beyond the path of more horror. And yet, in the middle of this, the only clean slate that I can report to you about is that, in this past year, many of us have leaned into relationships with people who we would not have prioritized in years before.
I, this year, this day, have 10 new friends - and by friends I mean speed-dial friends - who are Palestinians who are hand in hand with Israeli partners, saying, no more. Many of them have lost loved ones on October 7, in the days before and in the year after. And so if there's any clean slate - you know what? Forget clean slate. If we're turning a page in this book of life and we are insisting on a new chapter, this is the chapter where we absolutely take responsibility for our part in how we got here, and we imagine and we do what we can, grassroots, bottom-up - do what we can to forge a new path.
SHAPIRO: When you and I spoke in the hills outside Jerusalem almost a year ago now, you talked about the challenge of bridging divides. You described it as a both/and position.
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LAU-LAVIE: That, yes, I stand with Israel at this moment of hurt and will do everything I can to ensure that we defend ourselves against terror. At the same time, I stand with my Palestinian friends who want freedom.
SHAPIRO: And in the background there, we could hear the children who had evacuated from that kibbutz. And so Rabbi Lau-Lavie, in the year since then, has doing that both/and thing become easier, or has it gotten harder as the war has stretched on and expanded?
LAU-LAVIE: (Crying) I'm weeping when I hear our conversation just a year ago.
SHAPIRO: Yeah.
LAU-LAVIE: I don't know where these kids are and how deep the trauma is for so many people. It is a generational trauma that we will live with for the rest of our lives. And yet - and yet, there is no other way but both/and. There is no other way but face to face. The people in Israel, the people in Palestine are not going anywhere. This is a homeland that needs to be shared by the descendants of Abraham and by the people who commit, and will commit, to find a better way.
SHAPIRO: How do you actually hold onto the hope and the faith and the straddling the both/and? It feels challenging not only to take the position, but to persist in it over an entire year. What is the trick?
LAU-LAVIE: I don't know what the alternative is - grief and despair. I am so fortunate and privileged to have known amazing people - Palestinians, Israelis, Muslims, Christian, Jews - who are guided by our ancient faith, by our truest values, that only face to face is how we get to forgive each other and how we get to move from blame and shame to love and growth. So is it faith-based? Yes. Is it love-driven? Yes. Is it out of despair? Absolutely. But what other way is there, other than an endless cycle of revenge? We cannot give up, especially not now.
SHAPIRO: Rabbi Amichai Lau-Lavie, thank you and happy New Year. Shana tova.
LAU-LAVIE: Ari, may it be a much better year for all of us. I look forward to being with you on less tragic circumstances.
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