Opinion

The very opening line uttered by the chazan on Kol Nidrei concludes with: “We give way to pray with the transgressors among us.” This is based on the Gemara (K’risus 6b): “Any fast that does not include the transgressors of Israel is not a fast.” The meaning of this is that the Jewish people are the sum of its parts. To be whole, we cannot discount any of our parts, even if they do not match the rest of the body, unseemly as they may be.

I will be taking off to Israel for a family wedding in a few moments. But I wanted to get this thought in before I left.

In the early 1970s, a major controversy rocked the entire Queens community. Through a federally sponsored program known as “Scatter Site Housing,” the government decided that the best way to advance the poor is to build public housing for them in middle-class communities. The first site they chose was Forest Hills, a major Jewish community at the time. A 12-story monstrosity was proposed right at the edge of the community where the Grand Central Parkway and the Long Island Expressway meet.

If, say, 20 years ago, I told you that an Orthodox rabbi is making it his mission to call out Religious Zionist leaders for encouraging murder and terror, you would assume it would be someone from the very right-winged anti-Zionist frum community – most likely from Brisk (of the yeshivah world) or Satmar (from the chasidish world).

Here I am in Israel after about a week’s time, following the marriage of my nephew Shmuel Koppel to Esther Litvak. The wedding in Beit Shemesh and the sheva brachos in Yerushalayim were beautiful.

I participate in a rabbinic email chat that is composed largely of right-of-center Orthodox rabbanim. Last week, one of the rabbanim asked the chat if anyone had an idea for a spiritual message as a takeaway from the deadly fires in Maui, Hawaii.