As Jews around the world prepare for Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, many of us find ourselves grappling with profound questions about their faith, community, and values. Nearly a year after October 7th and the devastating war in Gaza that has followed, Jewish communities remain deeply divided about how to understand our tradition's call to justice in this moment. Noa Barash of the Jewish Liberation Fund spoke with Rabbi Alissa Wise of Rabbis for Ceasefire about how the organization is helping rabbis navigate the High Holidays during this crisis, the role of teshuvah (repentance) when complete repair may not be possible, and what it means to practice Judaism as a force for liberation.

Noa Barash: I'm joined today by Rabbi Alissa Wise of Rabbis for Ceasefire. Thank you for being here. Rabbis for Ceasefire emerged from this moment of crisis. What's your immediate vision for the coalition's work, how do you see it evolving longer term, and what kind of lasting change are you working to create within Jewish communal life?

Rabbi Alissa Wise: Rabbis for Ceasefire began in October 2023 in this moment where it felt very clear that Jews needed a reminder from Jewish tradition that we are all created with Selim Elohim in the image of the divine. The most sacred obligation in Jewish life is pikuach nefesh, the work to save a life. A coalition of rabbis across political denominations and religious denominations came together around those shared core Jewish values—the dignity of life and our obligation to save life.

From the beginning, our goals have been twofold. The first is to bring our moral power as rabbis to the fight for a permanent ceasefire. As the political context has shifted, we've iteratively expanded our call for ceasefire. We understood that, at first, we were defining ceasefire even before a ground invasion began, of stopping the bombing that was killing so many families, and include calls for an arms embargo. Calls to prevent what is now a famine taking hold in Gaza. We understood from the beginning that when Israeli members of Knesset—the politicians in Israel—were saying they intend to deny Palestinians in Gaza access to food, fuel, water, we believed them and understood the urgency of calling that out. Our role was to be part of that broader ceasefire movement fight.

But at the same time, from the very beginning, we understood that there's also a role for us to play as rabbis in safeguarding a future for Judaism as an ethical tradition that would be worthy of the coming generations. That continues as one of our goals—wanting to ensure a liberatory Judaism that affirms the dignity of life and that can endure and exist outside of a commitment to ensuring Jewish safety by the sword. We understand Jewish safety to be found by solidarity.

Noa Barash: Rabbis for Ceasefire brings together over 400 Jewish spiritual leaders in a wide coalition from Orthodox to Reform around calls for a permanent ceasefire and arms embargo. How do you navigate the theological and political differences within such a diverse coalition?

Rabbi Alissa Wise: One of the principles of coalition work that I've learned as an organizer over my career is that a coalition isn't always and usually is unable to be a political home. There's a difference between political home and a coalition. A coalition is where you come together on a very narrow shared agreement of a certain issue. In our case, it's this call for ceasefire. Part of the work of building a durable coalition and one of the core principles of organizing that I have relied on as an organizer is this idea that you meet people where they are, but you don't leave them there. Part of the role of these diverse coalitions that can come together in moments of crisis and movements of urgency where you have a strong agreement.

One of the things that Rabbis for Ceasefire has going for it is that Jewish tradition is the bond that brings all of our Jewish clergy together. We have this very strong shared commitment and resource of Jewish tradition. We are able to turn to that when all else fails. We have our textual tradition and our spiritual tradition that is motivating for all of us as Jewish clergy of how we understand and make meaning in the world.

Given that our values are deeply rooted in Jewish tradition, whether they be the idea of every human being made in the image of the divine, or the idea, the tamrut idea, that we can hold contradiction and we can hold disagreement, or the spiritual practices that we are now touching into in this season of Jewish time of teshuvah and the idea that people can and must make repair and do self-reflection and evolve in our thinking. On the one hand, this coalition is different than a lot of coalitions because we have this robust spiritual and ethical framework that we all are rooted in. We also do keep it to this narrow focus. We are focused on this call for a permanent ceasefire.

But we are also evolving that so part of the work is engaging this coalition in political education and learning in relationship building so that we could continue to push the boundaries of what it means to call for a ceasefire when we're almost two years in. Calls for a permanent ceasefire are insufficient in a time when we have a responsibility to engage the communities that we lead and engage our congregants and engage our community members in facing the hard and difficult and painful truths of Israel's actions and what they're claiming to be doing in our name.

Noa Barash: As we approach the High Holidays, how are you and other members of Rabbis for Ceasefire framing the themes of teshuvah and justice in your teachings? What does repentance look like in the context of Gaza?

Rabbi Alissa Wise: During the Jewish month of Av, which was the last month, is often the month that rabbis really start to dig into their preparations for the High Holidays. During that month, we offered weekly sessions for rabbis to come together for us to offer them political and spiritual frameworks as they began to write their sermons and their service outlines.

What we encourage rabbis to think about and engage in is a kind of four-part process of how to be the spiritual leaders that are needed in this kind of moment of crisis. For a lot of rabbis, it's hard because they're leading congregations that have a mixed multitude of political perspectives. Most congregations in the U.S. at this point do have people across a pretty wide political spectrum inside of them. That's a unique challenge for rabbis.

We have these spiritual tools in our toolbox. Teshuvah is obviously a big one. This is a practice that evolved in exile. Generally, it was born of the experience of diasporan exile, where Israelite religion used to, at this season, bring sacrifices to the central temple in Jerusalem. The rabbis of the Talmud had to institute a new practice to offer forgiveness and repentance because the temple was no longer there. They created this practice of teshuvah, of how to make spiritual repair.

One of the things that we really struggled with with the rabbis this year is the reality that there might not be teshuvah possible right now. It might not be that there actually is in this year of entering into 5786, that a complete teshuvah is really possible. But that doesn't mean that we're off the hook of beginning the process. What we've encouraged rabbis to think about is how do you take your congregants on that journey. The first step would be meeting people where they are. This is a core organizing principle. Honoring that people have shown up this year with a complex mix of emotions. Both about what's happening in Israel-Palestine and what's happening here in the U.S. Honoring that people are holding fear and grief and shame and rage and also, people are living their lives. They might have just welcomed a new baby or entered into a new relationship. They might be feeling joy at a new job or opportunity.

When we're still combating genocide and figuring out how do we mount enough pressure here in the US, which seems like the only power that can actually halt this genocide, we have to offer people a vision of a future that's compelling and that makes sense to them and that they want, that will be enough to motivate people to keep fighting. Then comes teshuvah. One of the things this year we really focused on in the practice of teshuvah, even if it's incomplete, even if a full teshuvah is not possible as a genocide continues to unfold, there are things that we could continue to do.

This year in particular, we were shining a light on anti-Palestinian racism, which is something that I think a lot of communities never really articulate. Understanding that at the root of what is allowing this genocide to continue is a complete dehumanization of Palestinians that happens on a communal level in the Jewish community and that there are ways for rabbis to integrate stories, not just of Palestinians as victims of genocide, but about their lives and their visions and their joys and their aspirations for the world and ways to integrate Palestinian life, not just Palestinian death.

Finally, we supported rabbis to think about what needs to happen in order for you to bring your communities with you. This was about how do we mine Jewish tradition for some of the midrashes or stories that are in our tradition that can help frame and inspire new ways of thinking. How do we integrate thinking with communities that we are in alliance with and in partnership with that we can link arms with in meaningful ways in this time to practice a bold solidarity.

Noa Barash: Last year, your Yom Kippur Yizkor ritual drew thousands online and in person and you're holding another one this year. As we approach that, how do you reckon with creating space for Jews to mourn all loss while refusing to let grief be weaponized for more violence?

Rabbi Alissa Wise: We're beginning our preparations for the mass public grief ritual of Yizkor. One of the things I've been thinking about in preparation is that we actually as a people, and this is not just true of the Jewish community, but I think all of us actually need to build our skills at grief because we are in a time where there's a lot to grieve and there will be a lot to grieve moving forward. A lot of what's going to happen on the other side of this genocide, on the other side of the Trump administration, there's going to be so much loss, and there already is. We're going to have to put down old ways of being and pick up new ones, and there's grief in that putting down.

Part of what we're thinking about is how do we build our skills. Grief is a practice and a skill that we actually need to be able to get comfortable in. We think that inside of Jewish traditions, Yizkor in particular is an Ashkenazi tradition. Sephardi Mizrahi communities have different ways that they do remembrance. Yizkor is an Ashkenazi practice. We're pulling on that practice in order to reimagine ways of grief in this time and for this time.

There are ways in which, when we hold on to grief, it blunts our ability at being creative and courageous and taking more bold risks. We are hoping that through this ritual and other rituals like it, we will actually be able to embolden people to take further action. The theme for our Yizkor, as it was last year, is we remember, we refuse, we recommit. We build off of the sacred act of memory and remembering, not just the lives lost, but actually what those lives represented and what those lives were about. We then move to refusal, where we say no to genocide, no to our tax dollars being used to fund the bombs that have killed so far over 18,000 children. Then we go to recommitment. This is the part where we need to not allow this grief to freeze us or allow us to feel disempowered. We need to be bolder in our commitments to linking arms in solidarity with all oppressed people, Palestinian people in particular.

Having the grief not be able to be used as a rationalization for perpetual war, for ethnic cleansing, for genocide, for annexation, for continued apartheid and occupation is, we believe, through that practice of grief and letting it move through us and clearing that space in order to take moral bold action, but also not letting it be used as a way to instill more fear. But instead, allow it to create more solidarity and compassion and a kind of vision for a world where this type of grief won't be as commonplace.

Noa Barash: Many Jews have been taught that supporting Israel is essential to Jewish safety. How do you, from a rabbinical standpoint, address those fears while making the case that Jewish liberation is bound up with Palestinian liberation?

Rabbi Alissa Wise: Part of what we need to do in this time is build our skills at holding spiritual complexity. There are two truths that seem that they can't exist together, but we actually have to be able to hold them together at the exact same time.

We could hold together an idea of safety through solidarity and that there is a path where we build relationships with our neighbors and with our communities that allow us to feel that we have each other's backs and that we can protect each other and the reality of the precarity of life and the reality of the harms that surround us. Both things are true, that there's harm and that there's a possibility of safety and that the reality is a more complex picture of we can't guarantee it. We can't guarantee safety. But what can we do? We can build relationships with our neighbors across race and class and religion and experience. We can figure out ways to protect ourselves in real ways that don't rely on policing. We can figure out how to show up for our neighbors and then allow and invite them to show up for us.

There are things we could do to minimize and mitigate, but we can't actually create complete safety. We can't guarantee complete safety. Part of the spiritual obligation of rabbis and spiritual leaders of all stripes is to help people being able to bear that complexity. It would be better to be able to say this is a certain path to safety. But as we see Israel is not a path to safety for Jews there and there isn't that possibility. I think having practice in holding spiritual complexity, being able to mitigate anxiety and fear with this sense of solidity and connection and community and practicing for this time, this more precarious and complex understanding of what safety can and should look like.

Noa Barash: You're both critiquing existing Jewish institutions and building new ones. What kind of Jewish future are you working towards, and how do you sustain this work during such a painful time?

Rabbi Alissa Wise: I do have a vision of Judaism and Jewishness for ethical living, as a scaffolding for ethical living, for meaning and connection. What that will take is new kinds of Jewish institutions that are really grounded in the principle of the dignity of life. This is about the genocide, of course, but it's not just about that.

There are so many ways that if we were living in a way that truly honored and practiced the idea that all people are divine and sacred. There's a lot of things about how we live in this world that would be different from how we house people, the healthcare people access, the food that people are able to buy in their neighborhoods, let alone the mass murder that's taking place.

What we need are new Jewish institutions that are built upon that premise of shared liberation, dignity of life. The truth is we don't have to try that hard in Jewish, those things are all at the surface of Jewish values that we can find very easily. The truth is one could open the Torah to rationalize any number of political positions. That's one of the complexities, but also beauties of the tradition. It's about wanting to choose to pull that thread. We need to choose to pull a thread of solidarity, of collective liberation, of honoring the sacred and all people, and we need institutions that are ready to do that.

Part of what that's going to mean is having, this rupture that's been under the surface in the Jewish community is going to have to come to some kind of breaking point. Throughout Jewish history, there have been schisms upon schisms. This won't be the first generation. Breaking and reinventing ourselves in different ways as Jews has been a survival strategy that we've employed. That's part of why Judaism has endured for as long as it has. In each generation, Jews are holding together the larger context that we live in and the Jewish practices. We continue to innovate and evolve them to meet our evolving needs. This goes back to why grief is such an important piece of skill building in this time. It's because there's going to be a lot of grief in that rupture and in the schism that is already happening, but I think that we actually need to lean into in order to ensure that there's something worthy of the coming generations.

Noa Barash: For progressive Jews feeling isolated in their communities or conflicted about their relationship to Judaism, how can they connect with this vision of Jewish life and your work at Rabbis for Ceasefire?

Rabbi Alissa Wise: There are a few ways. Most immediately around the High Holidays, we have put together an Open Communities directory. This can be found at opencommunities.info. This is a list of congregations that are welcoming of Jews in the ceasefire movement and are aligned around these values that we've been talking about of collective liberation, the dignity of all people. These are synagogues, mostly in the U.S., but in other parts of the world as well, that are eager to invite everyone to have a meaningful High Holiday experience in a values aligned way. I'm really excited that there are almost a hundred communities on the directory this year. More and more building all the time.

There is also, obviously, the Yizkor ritual in New York City in person. It will also be live streamed. There are myriad communities around the country and in fact the world that are living and practicing a Judaism outside of Zionism. Some communities are doing it more explicitly, meaning they are aligned foremost as being anti-Zionist formations and political formations. Some are more cultural communities that are just practicing Jewish culture outside of Zionism. There's an effort now, which I'm a part of, to coalesce all these projects and organizations and be able to claim our space as the future of Jewish life, which I really believe that we are.

We are going to be coalescing all these projects and organizations into a new Jewish movement for the future. People have opportunity to hear about that more. We are currently collecting names to keep people informed at aspramovement.org.

Noa Barash: Lastly, I want to ask you: how do the High Holidays call us towards justice for all people?

Rabbi Alissa Wise: One of the opportunities in the High Holidays is to understand it as a time of collective reflection and collective reckoning. Often we think about the High Holidays in the practice of personal self-reflection. But I think one of the other opportunities is to understand it as a time of collective reflection and collective reckoning. When we do our Viddui — the Jewish ritual of beating of our breasts for the wrongs that have been done — we do them in the collective. It's actually a time where we can challenge ourselves to name the harms that are being done together, that are being done as Jews, as a collective, understand what our responsibility is to right those wrongs as a collective, and also begin the process of repair. Those pieces of accountability and repair and collectivity are the building blocks of justice.