Friday July 25, 2025 – כ״ט תַּמּוּז This week, we read one of our people’s most disturbing episodes. We read about it in the news and in this week’s Torah reading. In Parashat Matot, Israel is commanded to wage war against the Midianites in response to the events at Baal Peor. We learn that the Israelites then executed a brutal campaign: For example, “And they destroyed by fire all the towns in which they were settled, and their encampments.” (Numbers 31:10) Upon returning, Moses is not only untroubled by the violence, but he shockingly rebukes the officers for sparing the women and children. The biblical passage offers us no easy moral reckoning. It’s a moment of raw, unsettling truth: sometimes our sacred text mirrors human rage, vengeance, and the moral confusion that accompanies war. As we attempt to internalize and understand the challenging events of Parashat Matot, we recognize that they may not offer us comfort. Still, they do provide a prism through which to comprehend the limits of moral purity in times of war. When Moses reacts harshly to the soldiers sparing the Midianite women and children, it’s not because he delights in violence. Rather, he believes they’ve missed the moral logic of the war: these women had seduced Israel into idolatry and plague. The line between combatant and civilian, seducer and seduced, was blurred. Moses demands clarity, even if it is harsh. Today, we see something tragically similar in Gaza: Hamas terrorists embed themselves in schools, homes, and hospitals. The IDF faces impossible choices — to act risks civilian casualties, to abstain invites further bloodshed, rocket fire, and hostage-taking. If these ancient Torah verses disturb us — as they should — perhaps their message should be about confronting the moral and human costs of warfare and violence. Moses is not modeling an ideal; he is laying bare the tormenting decisions that arise when ideology meets war. We must do the same when we speak about the unspeakable starvation and senseless killing that his happening in Gaza. Grieve the deaths. Question the policies. Demand restraint, accountability, and ultimately end the war. But do not reach for metaphors that erase nuance and obscure absolute, human horror on all sides. To look at modern Israel’s actions in Gaza and label it “genocide” is to misunderstand both the moral terrain of war and the uniquely complex bind in which Israel finds itself. The ongoing debate over the legal interpretations of the term “genocide” and whether or not they are applicable now is the wrong question. It’s a debate that leaves people with too blunt an instrument. The term “genocide” tends to be a word that closes a conversation rather than opening one. When many Israelis and more politically conservative folks hear that word, they often then shut off any debate and assume that the user of the term is an Israel-hater, and possibly an antisemite. Along the same lines, it is often he case that those who are more politically liberal/progressive hear resistance or objection to the term “genocide,” they might then assume that the objector is taking a position of “all’s fair in love and war,” potentially justifying the acts of the Israeli government, claiming that if it’s not genocide, then it is therefore acceptable behavior. And to complicate matters further, we must put ourselves in the place of hostage family members who have been tirelessly advocating for their loved ones to come home, and who, 658 days later, are still being held captive by Hamas. Israel’s actions — however flawed, however painful — are responses to a terrorist group sworn to Israel’s destruction; a terrorist group that operates from within its own civilian population. That distinction matters. It doesn’t absolve moral failure, but it defies simplistic narratives and knee-jerk phraseology. With that, the scale of devastation in Gaza goes far beyond what can be justified militarily in attempting to eliminate Hamas and bring home the hostages. It appears driven on one level by trauma-fueled vengeance rather than strategy, on another by political and personal impetus, and yet on another level by a sheer lack of planning, coordination, and inclination by the government to take the time to figure out how to provide feasibly for the needs of hundreds of thousands of people, with the collaboration of all the aid organizations. It’s clear that we must support our soldiers in harm’s way, demand the release of hostages, and remain exceedingly skeptical of Hamas’ reported figures. Denying basic humanitarian aid, however, crosses a moral line. Blocking food, water, medicine, and power—especially for children—is indefensible. Shooting near aid seekers and confining civilians en masse furthers a wrong that stains Israel’s reputation and moral standing. The devastation in Gaza has gone beyond the pale. The horrifying images from Gaza shown in the international media, the Haaretz newspaper (the sole Israeli media showing them), and on placards and posters of Tel Aviv protesters are reminiscent of the ones many of us grew up on, of 1980s famine-stricken Ethiopia or Sally Struthers’ style ‘Feed the Children’ commercials. As Times of Israel editor David Horovitz wrote, “according to unverifiable UN figures, more than 1,000 Gazans have been killed trying to get hold of aid, at GHF (Gaza Humanitarian Foundation) and other sites, in the two months since the GHF began working. The IDF acknowledges that troops have opened fire in many instances, claims that the death tolls are falsely inflated without offering numbers of its own, and insists it is ‘learning the lessons’ of its failures.” No child should die from hunger or lack of medicine. We must urgently restore our moral compass and prioritize civilian protection wherever and however possible. After nearly two years of fighting against bloodthirsty, murderous terrorists, we find ourselves in a deeply troubling place. This path we’re on can’t be the right path. It’s devastating, destructive, and eating away at us from the inside. There has to be another way — a different path that leads toward achieving the same goals, but without this unbearable toll on our hearts, minds, and souls. The road we’re now walking is excruciatingly painful. The pain is too much. We can no longer hold back our instinct to cry out in the name of humanity. Israelis are taking to the streets in protest. This letter from MK Rabbi Gilad Kariv to the Minister of Defense and the Chief of Staff protesting actions by the Government of Israel and the Israel Defense Forces in light of the scale of the humanitarian disaster in the Gaza Strip must be seen and supported by Jews around the world.  To read Parashat Matot alongside the news from Gaza is to be reminded that Torah does not always comfort. Sometimes, it confronts us with the very brokenness of the world it seeks to repair. Shabbat Shalom V’Hodesh Tov – “מִשֶּׁנִּכְנַס אָב מְמַעֲטִין בְּשִׂמְחָה” (משנה תענית ד:ו)