Elul is coming

One of the minor truths of this ghastly year is that as the situation ratchets up, there’s very little new to say about it.

Until recently, at least it was possible to write an editorial about the situation in Israel without risking the alienation of about half its readers. That hasn’t been possible about American politics for at least a decade. Before that, to take one side in any political debate would be to irritate many readers, but that irritation would be mild. And there was no pressing reason to take any political side anyway. Readers didn’t come to a Jewish newspaper for confirmation or disapproval of their politics.

Then American politics became so toxic that to venture any opinion would evoke such rage that it hardly seemed worth it. Certainly it was unwise. People could get their politics elsewhere. Jewish newspapers were for community-building.

Now, though, as the war in Gaza has continued and the last hostages are starved and kept underground in dungeons medieval warlords would have envied, feelings in the Jewish world have erupted. Entirely true positions are in opposition to each other. Meanwhile — and this seems too true not to be able to say it — Israel’s position in the world has deteriorated. The mid-20th-century vision of the country as Paul Newman and Sabra ads, a country of stunningly beautiful, oddly tall people, is as dead as Paul Newman himself. Even the early 21st-century idea of Israel as the start-up nation, the creator of miracles in test tubes, is gone.

So now it’s Elul. The month that leads to Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur. The month that’s meant to be a time of introspection, repentance, and hope. It starts this year on the evening of August 24.

It’s also the end of summer. As any early-morning dog walker knows, the day breaks noticeably later than it used to, and evening begins earlier. The light is taking on the gold that means late summer. Back-to-school sales have been picked over. The new year approaches.

Maybe, maybe, somehow, maybe this coming year will be different. Maybe we’ll learn somehow to get along with each other. To realize that getting along doesn’t mean agreeing, it means disagreeing without hating.

There’s enough hate in the world. Enough of it is aimed at us. We don’t have to add to it. We can do better than that.

—JP