Minneapolis rabbi reflects on one year since Oct. 7 Hamas attack

CATHY WURZER: Today marks one year since Hamas's surprise attack on Israel, which killed 1,200 people. It was the deadliest day for Jewish people since the Holocaust. Across Minnesota, the Jewish community is mourning today and praying for the return of more than 100 hostages. This is all happening during the holiest time of the year for Jewish people. Joining us now to reflect on the heaviness of this day is Rabbi Arielle Lekach-Rosenberg, the lead rabbi of Shir Tikvah in Minneapolis. Rabbi Arielle, thank you for joining us.

ARIELLE LEKACH-ROSENBERG: Cathy, thank you so much for having me and for making space for these reflections on this difficult day.

CATHY WURZER: How are you doing today?

ARIELLE LEKACH-ROSENBERG: Oh, I mean, we just celebrated Rosh Hashanah, the New Year, the year 5785, last week. And my community, it feels like usually people come up to me and say, Rabbi, services were a little long, but they were beautiful. This year, I feel like every person has come up to me, has measured their experience in tears. People have just been very heart-open and very, very moved. And so I would say that this is a day of profound grief and of slow moving as we face this and mark this one-year anniversary.

CATHY WURZER: I was talking to a person of Jewish faith, and they said Rosh Hashanah is clearly a very holy time, and I believe apples and honey are part of the celebration to mark Rosh Hashanah and to denote a sweet New Year. But it's not very sweet this year at all for them, and for many people. What have you heard from congregants? What's been so difficult for them?

ARIELLE LEKACH-ROSENBERG: We talked exactly about apples and honey this year as a sense of, each of us has to be like the apple, bringing the sweetness closer. That we can't just wait for sweetness to come, but instead sweetness in justice and in working for peace has to be worked for and brought closer. I mean, I'm hearing from congregants, my community is comprised of people who have beloveds who are Israeli, family who are Israeli and Palestinian and Lebanese.

And we as a community have been facing the grief of this time, the tremendous grief of Israelis and the desire to have hostages brought home, a desire to be safe in their homes. And also facing the grief of Palestinians, the over 42,000 Palestinians who have been killed in Gaza and the West Bank, and grieving for the displacement of Israelis and Palestinians over this year, and now also of Lebanese families who have been displaced.

I would say that our community has been rocked by the extremity of the violence since even before October 7, but certainly the horrific attacks on October 7 and everything that has happened since. And as the justice-seeking community have been trying to find our footing, both in terms of how we care for each other, and also how we face the immense needs of this moment.

CATHY WURZER: And how do you navigate the wide range of perspectives? You just mentioned all the individuals who are affected. How does the Jewish community navigate these wide range of perspectives? Have you been navigating them? Yeah.

ARIELLE LEKACH-ROSENBERG: [LAUGHS] Humbly, I would say, and with full heart. In navigating this excruciating year together, it's been very clear to me that we need space for grief, to move slowly in our grief, and also to make sure that our grief is moving us towards empathy, that we notice the moments when we are braced or when we're tearing.

And certainly there has been tearing between our generations and in our community. But in the moments that we feel that brace or we feel that fear come up, that we take really concrete steps to be able to soften and turn towards one another. And that has been the sacred work at the heart of our community this year.

CATHY WURZER: Mm. You mentioned tension between generations. How has that been-- how have you had to look at that and try to maybe mend some fences, perhaps?

ARIELLE LEKACH-ROSENBERG: I think so much of the work is saying, what do we need our tradition to teach us? What is our tradition calling us to do? How is our tradition calling on us to live? And then asking each other for each other's wisdom, for the truth of each other's experience. People have had very different experiences in Israel and Palestine. People have had very different experiences in their families.

And so instead of pushing each other away, to be able to move slowly enough to say, what have you learned? What is true for you, and how can I be transformed by listening, and how can I also offer the fullness of my own experience, and ask you to come closer to me and to be accountable to me? And that has been work that I've seen people undertake very bravely in families, and in faith communities, and also in the wider community.

CATHY WURZER: What message do you want to send to the wider community that might not understand the situation fully, because they don't have the background that you have?

ARIELLE LEKACH-ROSENBERG: That's right. I mean, I would say that many Jews have been living this year experiencing a sense of real existential worry, fear for family, fear of what it will mean, what is to come. And it's also facing a true dread and an existential worry for Palestinians and a real sense of the disappearance of possibility of being able to live safely together.

Simultaneously, trying to seed relationships, to be able to grow and build bridges and work for justice, work for the possibility of ceasefire, work for the possibility of an immediate return of hostages. And so I think that what I want, what I would want the wider community to know is that people have been living with a tremendous sense of very real existential fear and needing care and also needing support in really being able to build those bridges.

CATHY WURZER: As you work for peace and justice, though, you're up against some very scary situations. I mean, just outside of Temple Israel in Minneapolis there was a man seen with a gun on Rosh Hashanah. And Minneapolis Police are stepping up security for the High Holidays, as you know, and there's been this huge rise in antisemitism. So what do you think about when you think about Jewish safety, as you are trying to mend fences and work for peace and justice?

ARIELLE LEKACH-ROSENBERG: Yeah, the question of communal safety has been at the heart of our work for many years-- that did not start on October 7, in terms of the experience. And I would say that both antisemitism and Islamophobia are on the rise, and that Shir Tikvah's belief is that communal protection comes through communal care, through the ways that we foster relationships both inside of Jewish community and in the broader community, and that our core commitments are to help each other feel safer, even in a world of escalating risk.

And that our responsibility is to create warm and inviting environments, and that we believe that we best fight antisemitism through solidarity, and by building resilient democratic institutions. But that our work in being able to counter antisemitism and Islamophobia is to be able to move slow enough, to be able to build relationships, to be able to dispel ignorance, and to show up for each other in those very, very scary, very, very scary moments.

CATHY WURZER: I understand tonight Adath Synagogue in Minnetonka will be hosting a commemoration of October 7. We'll have a reporter there for coverage. But tonight, are you doing anything to remember October 7 at all?

ARIELLE LEKACH-ROSENBERG: So Shir Tikvah gathered as a community yesterday. There was a communal fast day yesterday, and so Shir Tikvah gathered in our sanctuary as a community to make space to grieve, to ground in our sense of-- this is in the Jewish holy season of the High Holidays. One of our core commitments is tshuva, which means that we are committing to ask ourselves what has gone wrong in the year past, and how do we commit to acting in the year to come?

And so we gathered as a community yesterday in our sanctuary to commit to tshuva, to commit to tshuva through justice and through compassion and empathy and a real commitment to each other's safety, and to peace together. So our community will be both on the streets and in the sanctuary at Adath today, really calling for peace and for safety and in grief for this last year, and it wishes for a better year to come.

CATHY WURZER: We all wish for a better year to come. Rabbi, thank you so very much for this conversation, and I wish you and your congregation all the best.

ARIELLE LEKACH-ROSENBERG: Thank you so much, Cathy. Thank you for having me on.

CATHY WURZER: That was Rabbi Arielle Lekach-Rosenberg of Shir Tikvah. I mentioned the commemoration tonight at Adath Synagogue in Minnetonka. Tomorrow here on the program we'll be talking to the owner of Falastin-- that's a Palestinian restaurant, pretty new restaurant in Duluth-- about how they are reflecting on this last year.