(JNS) I recently came across a quote from Socrates: “The difficulty, my friends, is not in avoiding death, but in avoiding unrighteousness.”
Socrates was not sitting safely in a study when he said this. He was on trial, accused by Athens of impiety and corrupting the youth. He was found guilty and sentenced to death. Yet his concern was not simply whether he would survive, but whether he had acted righteously.
I immediately thought of Rosh Hashanah. As the piyyut says, “Today is the birth of the world. Today all the creatures of the world stand in judgment.”
Those words have particular resonance this year because Israel itself seems to be on trial. Not merely an Israeli government, prime minister or military operation; increasingly, Israel and Zionism are in the dock. The story of Jewish return is recast as colonialism and Jewish sovereignty as something requiring apology. The accusation has moved beyond whether Israel has done wrong to something far more fundamental: Israel itself is the wrong.
That distinction matters. Israel should be criticized. Governments should be held...
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