Rabbi's Reveries

At the end of my vacation last month, I was trying to recharge the battery on my rental car (a Tesla) before returning it to the airport. Knowing that charging takes time, I left for the airport four hours before my flight. I started with a Tesla charging station, but I couldn’t figure out how to start charging because there was no screen and there were no buttons. Then I went to another station, but it didn’t have the right connector. The third station had the right charger, but it wouldn’t connect properly. After multiple attempts to reconnect the charger and get it to work, plus 45 minutes actual charging time, the charge had increased only 15%—not nearly enough to be considered fully charged.

But it was now less than 90 minutes before departure time and I was getting anxious about returning the car, potential lines at the airport, getting dinner, and getting to the gate, which all would have been stressful enough. Except that Yuval had just woken up from his nap and was hungry. And he needed to go to the bathroom, except that he wanted to use the little travel toilet that was already packed instead of the public bathroom. And then he wanted to take a walk and run around. And he didn’t want to sit in his car seat. And he didn’t want to be buckled in.

Yuval had no clue how stressed I was or the urgency with which we needed to get to the airport. But I was ready to lose it. So I snapped at him and barked at him to stop playing, get in his seat, sit quietly while I buckle him in, and stop whining. Which, of course, made him cry.

In Pirkei Avot (Teachings of our Ancestors), Hillel says, “If I am not for myself, who will be for me? And if I am only for myself, what am I? And if not now, when?” Between the cars and the chargers and the kid and the airport, I needed to take care of myself—there's a reason why on airplanes, they always tell you to put your oxygen mask on first. If you are not taking care of yourself, no one else will, and you won’t be able to take care of anybody else.

I took a deep breath to try to reset my nervous system a bit and reminded myself that the fee for not recharging the car was going to be less than missing my flight. “If I am not for myself, who will be for me?” Certainly not Yuval, who, like most three-year-olds, is completely oblivious to anything that’s not centered around him.

“If I am only for myself, what am I?” Focusing on my own needs was not enough—I had just snapped at a little kid who was behaving like a normal little kid until I (from his perspective) yelled at him out of the blue. He thought I was angry at him and didn’t know why. I had to apologize, use my (calm) words to help him understand what I was feeling, and ask for his help in getting to the airport quickly and quietly. And if I didn’t do it then, the situation would only have gotten worse.

This 2000-year-old teaching is still so applicable today and has been particularly urgent since the horrific attacks by Hamas on October 7. “If I am only for myself, who will be for me?” We can and should prioritize and be concerned for ourselves, our family, our friends, the people we care about, the larger Jewish community, and the people of Israel. They are us, and we are right to focus on our needs, to demand the safe return of the hostages, and to push for aid to protect and rebuild the lives of our people. We have to stand up for ourselves and our safety. The last month has shown us that there are not a whole lot of people who will stand up for us if we don't do it ourselves.

“And if I am only for myself, what am I?” It’s not “who am I” but “what am I.” Complete self-centeredness causes us to act inhumanely. We cannot let our own anger, our own frustration, our own pain and hurt and agony blind us to the humanity of innocents on the other side. Palestinians are also experiencing harm and terror and pain. They also deserve life, safety, and freedom. To ignore that would be to lose our own humanity.

We can and must hold both fundamental truths together. While different situations will require us to prioritize care for ourselves at times and, at other times, to prioritize care for others, we cannot let ourselves be swept or pushed into choosing only one or the other.

Hamas depends on forcing the world to choose between Israelis and Palestinians. If we are forced to choose, only Hamas will win. We cannot and must not allow them that power. Instead, we need to show that we will stand up for ourselves and our people AND defend the rights and safety of Palestinians. We need to show that the goal is to restore hostages to safety with their families and to prevent future attacks on Israel AND that we care that this is done with the least harm possible to Palestinian civilians. And the time is now—for us, for our people, and for our world.