D’var Torah: Talk of Sinat Chinam is not enough

Written by Rabbi Josh Levy — 28 July 2023

There has been much talk this week of ‘sinat chinam’ – ’causeless hatred’, identified by the rabbis as one of the causes of the destructions of the temples in Jerusalem, and now being cited in reference to the current situation in Israel.

There is a problem with this broad-brush explanation which became evident to me this week.
Everyone is using it.
But to mean different things.

We may be speaking about sinat chinam, but so are those seeking to change the nature of the modern day State of Israel.
They are also talking about sinat chinam – but they are referring to those who protest. ‘If only those who are protesting, would stop hating us, stop dividing us, stop objecting to what we are doing’. For them, the causeless hatred is attributed to those – our friends and colleagues – who are on the streets.

Ultimately, sinat chinam – like the ideal of shalom bayit – can be used to suppress dissent, to clamp down on disagreement.

And to avoid taking a position on key issues. So, this, from the most senior representative of Orthodox Judaism in this country: “the political animosity on display today, leaves [Israel’s] supporters… feeling the great pain of unprecedented division”. But no sense of what the cause of that division might be, or how to move forwards.

As a congregational rabbi, I have been critiqued for not taking sides. But sometimes you have to.

On Monday something happened with deep consequences not only for Israel but for all of us who care about it. A fracture occurred; a line was crossed. It was crossed not by those on the streets but by those who in the Knesset.
And we have already seen its implications this week – the move from United Torah Judaism to propose a basic law by which Torah study is equated with serving in the army as a form of national service; the suggestion that the attorney general’s role be redefined; Ben Gvir’s visit to Temple Mount stating, ‘We need to return and show our governance here’.

In the face of this, it is not enough simply to despair, to complain of sinat chinam.  Because it is not chinam – the pain of what is happening in Israel is not without cause. Division has not just emerged.

Rabbi Abraham Isaac Kook, first Chief Rabbi of Israel, famously wrote that if the Second Temple was destroyed through sinat chinam, then rebuilding must be through ahavat chinam, causeless love.

But love is not enough. This is not about love and hate, it is about the deliberate use of power to fundamentally change Israel’s nature. As Mick Davis wrote this week: “It is an attempt by extremists who have a hold on this government to gerrymander the constitution to enable them to do extremist things.”
As an Israeli colleague said to me this week, “We can’t love racism, we can’t love the burning of Palestinian villages, we can’t love the taking away of our democracy.”

I am sorry on this Shabbat Nachamu, this Shabbat of Comfort, that this is such an uncomfortable message. But this is not a week for comfort, it is not a week for neutrality, it is not a week for simple Talmudic maxims.
It is a week for resolve for the struggle that is to come.