A Sermon from Before

On Yom Kippur 2023 Rabbi Pont delivered a sermon commemorating the 50th anniversary of the Yom Kippur War. In late September, it was widely viewed as one of the worst wars that Israel has had to fight in its 75 year history. We had no idea that the Jewish world was about to be changed forever.

This week you can listen to this same sermon, knowing now what would come to be just two weeks after Yom Kippur.

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Shalom, I am Rabbi Michael Pont, and this is For the Love of Judaism. This is a bonus episode. This is the sermon that I gave on Yom Kippur this past year, marking the 50th anniversary of the Yom Kippur War. Of course, Yom Kippur in 2023 was before October 7th, when the entire Jewish world changed. So it's interesting to listen to this sermon in light of what happened just two weeks later. On Yom Kippur, 50 years ago, the state of Israel was attacked on two fronts. It was attacked by Syria in the north in the Golan Heights, and by Egypt in the south, near the Suez Canal. And the Israelis were caught off guard, which is shocking. How could that possibly have happened? Only six years before, in June of 1967, Israel was victorious against Syria, Egypt, and Jordan in what's known as the Six-Day War. The Israeli Air Force battered their enemy counterparts, allowing the army to advance and secure a relatively easy victory. The young Jewish state, which had been at war since its inception, was euphoric. But this led to a kind of arrogance, to a kind of elitist attitude in the country. Israelis thought of Arabs as cowards, and leaders assumed that their enemies would never attack again. In the days leading up to the war in 1973, Israeli intelligence indicated that both the Egyptian and Syrian armies were preparing to attack. And even the King of Jordan, who did not want another war, he visited then Prime Minister Golda Meir to warn her that war was coming. Goldah never served in the army. She never served in the defense ministry. And so she deferred to her generals who assumed that no Arab country would dare to attack Israel after 1967. And in addition to this, the United States Secretary of State Henry Kissinger pressured Mair not to attack so Israel would not be seen as an aggressor. But tragically, Golda and her advisors were mistaken. And so at 2 p.m. on Yom Kippur on October 6, 1973, two Arab states launched their offenses. Israel suffered heavy casualties in the first three days. And the leadership felt that Israel's very existence was in jeopardy. And over the course of the battle that lasted over 20 days, the Jewish state turned the tide and won, but at a great cost. Over 2,600 Israelis were dead. Over 7,000 were injured, and some 300 soldiers became POWs. In a small country like Israel, almost every family was touched by the war. We call this day the Day of Atonement when we pray to God to forgive our sins. In Israel, the war is sometimes called the War of Atonement, as if it were a penance for arrogance and for the ultimate failure of the leadership. And so for Israelis, today's fast day and the dark anniversary of the war are intertwined, never to be detached. Since 1948, Israelis have felt a sense of isolation that aside from America, they have few or no friends. And this was the case in 1973. The French did nothing. The British trained Egyptian fighter pilots. The Soviet Union gave Egypt surface-to-air missiles, which crippled the Israeli Air Force. Israel had helped African countries in many ways, yet none of them aided the Jewish state. But amid all of the horrors of war, there can be miracles. And so today I want to share an inspiring story of redemption of an unlikely hero, the musician and poet Leonard Cohen, who performed for soldiers on the Egyptian front. And so we can wonder how is it that a Canadian singer and performer wound up in Israel at one of the nation's most difficult moments. There is no official account of the concerts, and Cohen himself spoke very little about his experience. The Israeli journalist Mati Friedman spent years conducting interviews with those who saw the artist, and Friedman read Cohen's notes from that time. His book about Cohen and the War came out last year. Leonard Cohen grew up in Montreal and rebelled against the traditional Judaism of his parents. He was a kind of tortured artist, and he was battling drug abuse and depression in the early 70s. In 1972, he toured Israel, and although Leonard struggled and he cut shows short, he connected with his audience in Tel Aviv. He called Israel his quote, myth home, unquote, though it's not exactly clear what he meant by that. In October of 1973, he was living on the Greek island Hydra with a woman named Suzanne and their son, Adam. At 39, Cohen thought his career was over. He told one reporter, I just want to shut up. He heard about the war and he decided to travel to Israel. But why? It wasn't to be a soldier. Cohen had no training with a gun. What inspired him? It wasn't to play music, he didn't even bring his guitar with him. It was common at the time for Westerners to work in Israel so that soldiers could go and fight. And it's likely that Cohen meant to do that to work on a kibbutz. Maybe he thought that this selfless act would save his soul. Because Cohen did not really want to shut up in 1973, but he needed a way out of what he felt was his own dead end. Israel was a place where he believed that that could happen. As he said, this is a place where you can begin again. On his third day in Tel Aviv, he went to a cafe looking for a woman that he knew from the year before. An Israeli singer recognized him and said that she was going to Sinai to perform concerts with a band of three other artists and would he join them? Cohen resisted, he said, No, my songs are really too melancholy, it'll just make everybody depressed. But the Israeli artists persisted, as is the way of Israelis. They persisted and Cohen finally agreed. Somehow, in the midst of the chaos of a war, somebody found him a guitar and off they went to the Sinai front. Friedman noted that just as our ancestors were inspired at Mount Sinai, maybe Leonard Cohen thought that he would be rejuvenated and inspired at the Sinai as well. Now, Israelis knew some of Cohen's songs. They knew Suzanne, they knew So Long Marianne, they knew Bird on the Wire. But it's not like he was a household name. Many of the soldiers had no idea who he was. He didn't speak English. Most of the soldiers did not. No, I'm sorry. Let me switch that. Cohen didn't speak Hebrew. Most of the soldiers did not know a word of English. But nevertheless, in interviews, soldiers said that Cohen's presence touched them deeply. He didn't ask for any special treatment. He ate army rations just like the soldiers. He slept where they slept, sometimes in a sleeping bag on the floor. He performed right at the front lines, not at some venue a mile away. As one pilot recalled, the experience was forgetting everything and going to another world. One that wasn't all of us racing around and the dead people and the fear. I recall it as a formative event. This soldier felt that Cohen came in the middle of the war, amid all the chaos, bringing us some quiet and the sound of something else. Friedman wrote as that as a result, Israelis have adopted Cohen as one of their own. Because at one of the country's darkest moments he came when few others did. After the war, Cohen returned to Hydra renewed. And in March of 1974, he wrote in one of his notebooks the following Who by fire, who by water, who in the sunshine, who in the nighttime, and who shall I say is calling? It's clear that Cohen was riffing on the Unitana Tokev prayer that we chant during these holy days, Miy Kya Umiamut, who shall live and who shall die, a prayer that Cohen must have known well as the grandson of a famous rabbi. One reason that Cohen and the soldiers bonded is because they both understood, they all understood that death, death was real, and Cohen's music could be the very last thing that the soldiers hear before they die. Who shall live and who shall die we wonder? Only God knows. Skipping ahead to 2009, Cohen discovered that his manager had stolen his entire savings, and so he decided to go on tour at age 75. His last stop was Israel. Some fifty thousand people came to see him in Tel Aviv, and many described the concert as a religious experience. And after the encore, around midnight, when Kohen was completely depleted, he had given everything he had and the audience wanted more, he gave them all he had left. He raised his hands, he spread his fingers apart, the act of the Kohanim, the priests, and he blessed the people in Hebrew. He said, the translation is May God bless you and protect you, may God be kind and gracious to you, and may God favor you and grant you peace. And he left the stage. And I think what this teaches us, what Cohen teaches all of us, is that even a broken, cracked vessel can still be a conduit for God's blessings in the world. And that's what Cohen was. He died in 2016. And so on this holy day, to honor the memories not only of our loved ones, but also of those who made the ultimate sacrifice for the Jewish state, let's sing together. Let's sing just the first verse of Cohen's famous poem, Who by Fire, the song that was inspired by the war. We'll do this twice. If you know the song, please join me. If you don't, try your best, but then join me confidently when we sing it a second time. The cantor will join us the second time as well. This is Cohen's the first verse of Who by Fire and Who by Fire and Who by water who in the sunshine and who in the night time Who by higher deal Who by a common trial? Who in your merry merry month of May Who by very slow decay and who shall I say is calling got it? Okay, let's try it together. Here we go, let's try it together and who buy fire and who buy water who in the sunshine who in the night time who buy higher deals who buy a common trial who in your merry merry month of May who by very slow decay and who shall I say is called I mean maybe you're maybe you're at a difficult time in your life right now, or you know someone who feels like they're at a dead end. I hope that this incredible story of Leonard Cohen will lift all of our spirits and give us renewed hope going into the new year. I also want to announce that on October 17th, MJC in partnership with the Jewish Federation is hosting a community commemoration of the anniversary of the Yom Kippur War here in this sanctuary. So please join us for that October 17th. Everyone, thank you for listening. Gamar Chatima Tovah. May we all be sealed for goodness and for blessings in the book of life. Amen.