Rabbah Gila Caine: Knowing ourselves

by Rabbah Gila Caine

(Edmonton) – Last year, my inner focus was on tracing the outline of our organism, the parameters of Jewish community, like skin around the flesh of a living thing. October 7, 2023 and all of its aftermath first made me want to bandage our bleeding gash. Stop the blood-letting and protect ourselves from the poison freely making its way in. And now that we might be on our way to scarring nicely, I find myself thinking of the next stage: Going deeply in, and getting to know ourselves again.

The Mishnah teaches us that Torah (which I would take to mean a Jewish moral centre, but also so much more!) is acquired by forty eight things, one of them being a person who “recognises his (her) place” (Mishnah Avot, 6:6). Our sages were not referring here to a geographical or social place but, as Rabbi Shlomo Wolbe helps us understand, by knowing who we are and being close to our inner selves (Alei Shur, book 1, p. 137). Jews need to get to know themselves again.

Why is “knowing ourselves and our place” important, specifically at this moment? In his book on moral injury, Achilles in Vietnam, Jonathan Shay points out that a reason veterans returning from the Second World War fared better psychologically than their children returning from Vietnam was the presence of social cohesion. He explains: “What a returning soldier needs most when leaving war, is not a mental health professional but a living community to whom his experience matters.” (Shay, p. 198). And the soldier’s experience matters because the community understands it as their own.  Of course, they are strong enough to care about their returning warriors, and humble and grateful enough to recognise the sacrifice done in their name. The horrors of war felt by the soldier are ones the community feels in its own being, though of course being on a battlefield is a different degree of pain than hearing about it. But the ability to truly listen to the pain is what eventually brings healing, not only to those with moral injury but also to the wounded society in which they sit. This is true for any battlefield and any war, and in our case I can think of soldiers fighting to protect Israel, Jews fighting to protect Jewish communities around the world, Jewish students battling antisemitism and “anti-Zionism” on campuses today. The list is long and it’s touched many of us in a variety of ways.

I was struck by Shay’s explanation for two reasons: The first was that it clarified for me the predicament of those Jews who are unable to remain in Jewish community at this time. Their pathway to healing will be so much harder, and the fracture within them might become much deeper. Remaining within the body of our people, even when there is deep pain, is probably a good indicator of a person’s or a group’s ability to not only survive this time but also flourish in later days. The second reason Shay’s teaching touched me was that he reminded me of the organic nature of community, of how much of a living thing it is—sinewy and thrumming with energy.

I suspect that for many of us, these past two years have been immensely transformative. Many of us may feel like parts of us have shattered and other parts have disappeared. Our history has been mutilated, our connection to Zion distorted and weaponised against us. Our story is once again appropriated and thrown back at us like a knife. We find ourselves in deep inner disagreement about reality, about our actions, about the way to move forward as one living entity. And that is precisely why we need to dedicate the coming year/s to move inward and relearn ourselves, relearn our own story, truly understand who we are, even if parts of that examination might not be pleasant. (Think of your visits to a physician—are they  always delightful?)

At Temple Beth Ora we plan to make this action of knowing our place, knowing ourselves central to our being as a community this year and in the years to come.

Our Or Shalom Hebrew school (Shabbat mornings, children ages 4 to 12) will continue bringing our youngest members together in celebrating their Jewish identity, learning Hebrew, and creating a community of Jewish children just like them!

For our B’nei Mitzvah children, we once again begin a year-long journey for  pre-teens and their parents in which we explore what makes us responsible adult Jews in our community and on this Earth.

And for our adults, we have the usual variety of programming. I would like to highlight the  upcoming “Our story: Filling the gaps in our shared Jewish history.” This course was created (together with the Jewish Federation of Edmonton and Jewish Family Services) to do the work of knowing ourselves, since we realised many of us have gaping holes in knowledge of Jewish history and geography. This “Swiss cheese” situation is making us weaker from the inside and weaker on the outside. It is exacerbating our pain and breaking down our cohesion as a people, and cohesion is essential for healing and flourishing, especially in times of trauma and inner strife.

My blessing to us for the upcoming year is that we will see the hostages returned home and peace return to the land of Israel. And, I hope for all of us, that this is a year of  revival. I urge us to allow ourselves time for introspection and deepening education in order to rediscover our history and shared story. And I ask that we allow ourselves time to foster strength and cohesion within Am Yisrael, our own community, and each and every one of us.

Shana Tovah.

Rabbah Gila Caine is the spiritual leader at Temple Beth Ora, the Reform Jewish congregation in Edmonton.