Posted on: Wednesday, September 26, 2001

Attacks leave some rabbis pondering what to say

Advertiser Staff and News Services

Michael A. Latz has spent a week staring at a blank computer screen. Try as he might, the assistant rabbi of the Bellevue, Wash., Temple B'nai Torah is at a loss for what to say in this year's sermon on Yom Kippur, the most sacred of Jewish holidays.

"I had a sermon that was pretty much raring to go before — and pitched it," he said. "It just didn't work anymore. I'm now struggling to find the right words, or at least, words that will offer something."

As Americans reel from the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, Jews — including the estimated 10,000 in Hawai'i — face a challenge specific to their faith and the timing of the tragedy.

Starting with Rosh Hashana, which began at sunset Sept. 17, and culminating with Yom Kippur, which begins at sunset today, the High Holy Days are a period of forgiveness.

And forgiveness may be hard to come by when the number of victims in the suicide-hijackings is still being added up.

"Forgiveness always comes with contrition, with atonement," said Rabbi Morris Goldfarb, resident scholar at Temple Emanu-El in Nu'uanu. "How am I going to ask these terrorists for their atonement?"

Although true forgiveness of this specific act may be impossible, Goldfarb and Rabbi Stephan Barack, who is preparing remarks for Temple Bet Shalom, which meets at Honolulu's Church of the Crossroads, agree that the innocent must not suffer.

"I think that the terrorists should be sought out and punished, but not at the cost of one innocent life," Barack said. "What this means is that the forces which are used are going to have to be precise in their work, and be sure to hit the perpetrators of the violence against the U.S., and not one person who was not involved. Of course, it goes without saying that no person of Arab or Muslim descent should be harassed in this country because of his/her background."

Elsewhere, leaders echo these thoughts.

"There's a threshold beyond which the evil is unforgivable," said Daniel Weiner of Seattle's Temple De Hirsch Sinai. "This is one of those thresholds."

The challenge is to seek justice but not harbor grudges against the perpetrators, said Weiner, senior rabbi of the largest synagogue in the Pacific Northwest, made up of members of about 1,400 households or families. Instead of dwelling on the terrorist attacks in his holiday sermons, Weiner plans to discuss the core meanings of Yom Kippur.

Jewish teaching sets aside the 10 days between Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur as a reprieve. On Rosh Hashana, the Jewish New Year, God has recorded his judgments in the Book of Life. But those who repent in the days before Yom Kippur can be granted a good and happy new year.

Goldfarb applauded the outpouring of kindness in America, but added a sad postscript: "Do we have to wait for such a tragedy to do these things?" he said. "Why can't we live in respect for other people at other times, without these horrors?"