AILSA CHANG, HOST:
Wednesday night at sundown, many Jewish people will begin their observance of Yom Kippur. It's considered the holiest day in the Jewish calendar, and it's generally a time of reflection and contemplation. This year marks the second time the High Holidays have come amid the ongoing war between Israel and Hamas in Gaza - a conflict that has ignited a growing ideological divide in Jewish communities. And so we wanted to know how faith leaders are thinking about all of this. We called up Rabbi Sharon Brous, who joins me now here in studio at NPR West. Welcome back to the show, Rabbi.
SHARON BROUS: Thank you so much for having me, Ailsa.
CHANG: Well, first of all, Happy New Year.
BROUS: Thank you. Thank you.
CHANG: (Laughter) Yom Kippur is, of course, a day of atonement. Observers typically fast - right? - from sundown to sundown. And I wanted to ask you, as we're watching the ongoing famine in parts of Gaza, if that custom of fasting is resonating any differently with you and with your congregation this year.
BROUS: So the fast on Yom Kippur is a 25-hour fast, and the reason that we fast on Yom Kippur is so that we can focus our attention fully on the spiritual work of that deep soul accounting that happens. And when we think about the first pangs of hunger that come to us over the course of that day, which for me will be at 9:00 a.m. because I'm that kind of eater...
CHANG: (Laughter).
BROUS: ...There's no way to separate that from the ache of those who are hungry in the world, including those people in Gaza who are starving after two years of real devastation there. As a Jew, I am absolutely horrified by the decision that the government of the state of Israel made in the spring of '25 to seal off the Gaza Strip and restrict all humanitarian aid and food. And witnessing the devastation that that has wrought on the people of Gaza over the last several months has been absolutely heartbreaking. And that's why it is so essential to me that we use our Jewish voices to speak and to call for a different way forward. This is our work now.
CHANG: And that's what I want to ask you about because I'm listening to you speak so passionately about your feelings about what's happening in Gaza. How do you comfort and challenge with a divided congregation?
BROUS: This is incredibly difficult, and I don't think that any community is spared of this right now because everything is so fraught. We've really worked hard over the last 21 years in our community to build a culture of respectful disagreement and curiosity and compassion, so that when we don't see things the same way - because we don't want to live in a small-tent environment...
CHANG: Sure.
BROUS: ...Where everybody see things exactly the same way. We're able to sit together and challenge one another and hear one another. And at the same time, not every view and every perspective is welcome in our community because there are people who advocate violence, and there are people who work hard to dehumanize the other. Those views do not get a seat at the table in our community. So the way I've been thinking about it is we're trying to build a medium tent. That's a very important value for me as the rabbi of a community.
CHANG: So how do you find a message that resonates with everyone in that medium tent, regardless of where they stand on this war?
BROUS: We root in ancient wisdom and in core values. I speak about how every single person is created in God's own image, and that means that the death of any innocent is a moral catastrophe. I think that there's been a kind of atrophying of our moral muscles in this time, and I see it in my own Jewish community, in which people have been so afraid because of potential harm and real harm that has come to Jews around the world that they've stopped speaking out when Israel's government behaves in ways that are fundamentally antithetical to our Jewish values.
Our tradition's been around for thousands of years and did not survive exile and pogroms and gas chambers so that we could quiet the moral muscle the moment we have power. We need to be applying the strictest moral analysis to our own behavior. That's what our history has taught us to do, and that's what our tradition calls us to do.
CHANG: Rabbi Sharon Brous, the founder of IKAR, a Jewish congregation right here in Los Angeles. Thank you so much, Rabbi, for being here.
BROUS: Thank you, Ailsa. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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