(RNS) — The saying goes, “There are decades where nothing happens, and there are weeks where decades happen.” And sometimes, there are days when decades happen — in a biblical phrase, k’heref ayin, or in the blink of an eye. Or, as the Eagles sang, “In a New York minute, everything can change.”
Oct. 7, 2023, was a day when decades happened, and now we are marking its second anniversary.
The night of Oct. 6, 2023, we went to sleep in one era. By the time we awoke the next morning, we had already gone out of that era and into another — the post-Oct. 7 era of Jewish history. It has been one of renewed antisemitism of the most savage variety; of a meltdown of American Jewry’s romance with the universities; and of a new confrontation with what it means for a Jewish state to wield military power. It has also been a time of renewed Jewish commitments and a vocal pride in Judaism and Zionism.
It has been the most difficult and exhilarating time in modern Jewish history. And now, we are living through those weeks where decades happen. Two years later, we may be standing at the edge of another era: peace negotiations mediated by the United States, Qatar and Egypt are taking place based on President Donald Trump’s ceasefire proposal. It could mean the end of overt hostilities between the Israel Defense Forces and Hamas, the freeing of Israeli hostages and a road map to Palestinian sovereignty — in short, a new path forward.
This reminds me of the greetings of the High Holy Days season, not only shanah tovah, or a good year, but the Israeli expression, shnat dvash, or a year of honey. Honey is sweet, but also sticky and messy. That’s the truth of life. The sweetness and the messiness are always intertwined. If this year is to be a year of honey, we will have to learn to live with both.
A friend asked me if this ceasefire plan could cause me to reassess my feelings about Trump. Domestically? No. When I look at what he has already done to this country — the willful erosion of democratic norms, a growing authoritarianism, nods to racism, etc., etc. — I disdain him and all that this administration stands for.
But, as I turn my eyes to the Middle East, I will praise his efforts.
Many people supported Trump because they believed that he would be “good for Israel.” Trump’s version of what is good for Israel might be different from what they might have thought.
Consider Rob Eshman’s observations in The Forward:
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu just agreed to President Donald Trump’s Gaza peace plan — which almost reads as if it was written by J Street, the liberal Zionist lobbying group that has long pushed for a peaceful two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
The plan, which crucially still awaits Hamas’ approval, is a victory for the hostages and Palestinian civilians in Gaza — and for the cause of pragmatism over extremism.
And it introduces the question: How, exactly, did Trump become a liberal Zionist?
For years, Trump had led the Israeli hard right and its American enablers to believe that under his watch, Israel wouldn’t cede an inch of land to the Palestinians. Trump himself floated the idea of a United States-run future Gaza, rebuilt as Palm Beach East.
So what happened?
I will leave the question of what happened to the political pundits. I want to focus on what has happened — and what continues to happen — to us when we think about the various paradoxes that we face.
If I choose to praise Trump’s efforts — and not his alone, but also those of Jared Kushner, Steve Witkoff and Tony Blair — it would be because of a Jewish value. Hakarat ha-tov means acknowledging goodness wherever it appears, even when it comes from deeply flawed human beings.
Rabbi Isaac Luria, the great mystical teacher of Safed, taught that when God created the world, divine light flowed into vessels too fragile to contain it. Those vessels shattered. The late songwriter Leonard Cohen put it best: “There is a crack in everything. That’s how the light gets in.”
Every one of us is a broken vessel. And yet, even through the cracks and the brokenness, light can still shine.
I hear people say Trump is only doing this because he wants the Nobel Peace Prize. But Jewish law says that even if someone does something that is not out of a purity of motive for its own sake (l’shma), it is still acceptable (Talmud, Sotah 22b).
Trump’s motives are his own business and they are between him and God. The task is to see the light that might come through the cracks. The same is true of Netanyahu regarding his amorality, his pandering to the right wing and his willingness to weaken Israel’s democratic institutions. But he is agreeing to a peace plan. Kol ha-kavod — all respect to him.
Hakarat ha-tov allows us to make microjudgments of people’s individual actions, even to the point of embracing paradox. It means seeing the good even when it resides in those we distrust, and of recognizing the brokenness in those we admire.
Look at biblical kings. King David, a poet, warrior and psalmist, was also an adulterer and a murderer. Solomon, builder of the Temple, a symbol of wisdom, enslaved his own people. For them, and so many others, these are glimpses of light through fractured lives.
I am a Zionist because I believe in tikvah, or hope. It is the radical conviction that tomorrow can be better than today, and history is not a cul-de-sac but a journey. It is also the conviction that deeply flawed people can nevertheless do great things.
To be a Zionist is to live with that faith. Even after Oct. 7, even after all the heartbreak, we believe that honey can follow ashes, that hope can rise from horror.
Can this year become one of honey? Yes, because it will be sticky, messy and complicated.
The Jewish mission is to find sparks in the shards, to ring the bells that still can ring and to gather the honey that drips through history’s wounds. As we mark the second anniversary of Oct. 7, we pray that our hostages will be free and that a kind of shalom, however uneasy and tentative it will be, might descend.
May we all find the sweetness — even in that which is sticky and messy.