Erev Shabbat Sermon by Senior Rabbi Ben Spratt
Parshat Vaetchanan
August 8, 2025 | 14 Av 5785
There are few images more haunting than the face of a starving child.
Earlier this month, Time magazine featured on its cover a devastating image: Gazans holding up empty cooking pots. A truly heartbreaking portrait of starvation. For millions of readers around the world, it became the visual shorthand for the suffering in Gaza—a symbol of hunger, of desperation, of abandonment.
But days later, German investigative outlets such as Bild revealed that this photo was staged.1 The photographer, affiliated with Turkey’s Anadolu agency, had directed Gazans to pose with empty pots in a vacant lot—not at a food distribution site. There was no aid line behind them. No imminent meal. Just the illusion of one.
And yet, this orchestrated scene graced the cover of one of the world’s most influential magazines, with a global print and digital reach in the millions. It shaped hearts and headlines. It became real because it was seen.
This is the power of the image.
And this is the danger.
At the same time, The New York Times published a front-page photo of an emaciated toddler, Mohammad Zakaria al-Motawaq, portraying him as a victim of Gaza’s starvation crisis. The caption claimed he had been “born healthy” and was now wasting away. But it soon emerged that Mohammad suffers from a rare genetic condition present since infancy. His condition was not caused by famine. In fact, he had already been airlifted out of Gaza by Israel two months earlier for urgent medical care and was recovering in Italy at the time of the article. The Times eventually issued a quiet correction.
Two stories. Two images. Two visual narratives that shaped global perception.
And both, as it turned out, missed the deeper truth.
More revealing still was how the world reacted.
For many, these images served as confirmation of long-standing beliefs: that Israel is not just negligent, but intentionally cruel. That it is weaponizing starvation. That Israel’s very existence must end for justice to be achieved.
Others, confronted with the corrections, swung in the opposite direction. They insisted there is no hunger in Gaza. That the crisis is a fiction manufactured by Hamas. That Israel bears no humanitarian burden—only victimhood.
Two extremes. Both dangerously flawed.
One distorts pain to demonize.
The other denies pain to exonerate.
Neither leads us closer to justice.
And both lose sight of a deeper truth: that real human suffering exists and it cannot be flattened into talking points.
Yes, Hamas bears grave responsibility for the humanitarian catastrophe—for hoarding aid, embedding weapons in civilian infrastructure, refusing to return to the negotiating table while intentionally starving hostages, and holding its own people hostage to its militant strategy.
Yes, Israel bears responsibility for this crisis as well—through continued military operations in densely populated areas, through restrictions and delays on aid deliveries, and through policies that may prioritize tactical gain over civilian protection.
And yes, the international community has largely failed—with wealthier Arab nations offering minimal humanitarian assistance, Egypt refusing aid across its border with Gaza, and much of the world far quicker to vilify Israel than to mobilize care. We have seen little parallel outrage in other humanitarian crises—no global protest for the starvation in Sudan or Syria, no calls for the dismantling of regimes whose brutality far exceeds what is seen here.
And yet, even amid these failures, real efforts persist: Israel has facilitated medical transfers, coordinated food convoys, and airlifted patients to receive care. International aid groups risk their lives daily to deliver food and water, facing danger both within Israel and in Gaza. And families on both sides continue to pray for the safety and survival of their children.
These truths do not cancel each other out. They coexist—uncomfortably, painfully, necessarily.
And when we reduce our ethical lens to a single narrative—when we accept only the stories that suit our ideology—we don’t uphold justice; we obscure it.
But there is another danger we must name.
When we spend all our energy assigning blame—when we rage at the surface story—we protect ourselves from the deeper and more agonizing truth: that people are still suffering. Right now.
Regardless of who is to blame.
Hostages are still in darkness. Children in Gaza are still starving.
The grief is not theoretical. It is present. It is real.
And when we fixate on the politics of fault, we shield ourselves from the pain of empathy. We trade the discomfort of compassion for the clarity of outrage.
We now know that Israeli hostages like Evyatar David and Rom Braslavski remain alive—but with grave and deteriorating conditions. Both have endured intentional starvation in captivity, losing over 40% of their body weight. In newly released footage, Evyatar is shown digging what he fears may be his own grave, gaunt and whispering that “time is running out.” Rom appears writhing in agony, begging for even a crumb of food.
These are not rumors—they are verified realities of slow, deliberate torment, used to glorify inhumanity. And yet—no global outcry. No front-page coverage. Their suffering remains mostly unseen and unheard.
Rachel Goldberg Polin, mother of Hersh Goldberg who was murdered in Gaza, offers precisely the prophetic reminder of this moment. To recenter our focus on those who suffer. She wrote this week:
“We are waiting for people across borders, political lines, and religious views to decide to stop blaming and to start aspiring to be the best that humans can be… Enough of the hostage families trying to convince the world that stealing our children is not an option. Enough of innocent people suffering from lack of resources: water, food, clothing, medical care. Enough of leaders who use their people as props.”
And she pleads:
“Just let us be. Don’t do this stuff in our names. … Give us back our 50 hostages. Some are alive and some are only alive in our souls. Let the innocent people who are in Gaza have a chance. We are tired. We are done. We are children of God. Stop playing with us and our lives.”
This week’s Torah portion, Parshat Vaetchanan, speaks directly to this spiritual challenge.
As Moses recounts the moment of Revelation at Sinai, he tells the people:
“Adonai spoke to you out of the fire; you heard the sound of words but perceived no shape—nothing but a voice.” (Deuteronomy 4:12)
No image. No form. Just a voice.
The Torah’s foundational lesson is this: do not mistake what you see for what is true. Do not assume that the surface tells the whole story. The danger of pesalim—graven images—is not only about idolatry. It is about how easily the visible becomes a substitute for the real. How quickly we stop listening once we think we’ve seen enough.
Our tradition calls us not to consume the image, but to listen for the voice beneath it.
Rabbi Menachem Mendel of Kotzk once asked: “Where is God?” His students replied: “Everywhere.” He said: “No. God is wherever we let God in.”
We let God in when we stop mistaking simplicity for truth, or castigation for courage.
When we admit what we don’t know.
When we listen for the voices who suffer, and let them break open our hearts. And when we hear God whisper to us, “What will you do? Not what will you demand of others. What will you do yourself.”
Because this is not only a matter of listening beneath the surface. It is a matter of being.
At our Passover seders, in Jewish homes throughout the world, we name our ancient story of slavery and suffering—and let it be an ethical call for today. We rise in our homes and say:
“Let all who are hungry come and eat.”
This is not an abstract principle. It is a directive for living. It is an invitation to turn our pain into generosity, our tables into sanctuaries, our homes into havens, our hearts into vessels wide enough to carry the ache of another.
But when we spend all our energy excoriating and demonizing from half a world away, we may feel the heat of righteous zeal—but we risk saving ourselves from doing the actual feeding. From calling real voices into our real homes. From listening. And acting.
Release the hostages.
Feed the hungry.
End this war.
Establish leadership that reaches for the safety and security of all in the region.
Yes, all of that. And as those voices, as those human cries for food and safety break open our hearts, we are obligated to the agency of our own hands and homes.
Tonight, over 100,000 children right here in New York City will go to bed not knowing when—or if—their next meal is coming.
For everyone with broken hearts, wringing their hands, wondering, “What can I do?”:
Each of us—wherever we may be—can feed those right around us. We can ensure that no one in our building, no one in our neighborhood, our city—no one within arm’s reach of our compassion—should remain hungry.
And when we have the power, the means, the access—when it is possible to feed those in Gaza, in Sudan, in Syria, in Yemen, in all the far reaches of our world where suffering rends the soul—then we do so. And when we as a congregation have an effective and viable way to do so, we will.
Not because of the headline.
Not because of the viral image.
But because we are part of an ancient lineage that hears the voice—and lets it call us to action.
These broken hearts we carry—they ask something of us.
To feed whomever we can.
To offer what we have.
To be the ones who open the door.
Perhaps there was a time when public outcry was enough to sway the hearts of global leadership. I grow ever more skeptical that such action is either persuasive or sufficient. Telling other people to open their doors and homes is not the same as doing so ourselves. And this, the need to both hear the voice of suffering and personally feed the hungry, is the behavior of our tradition.
Raging and blaming and castigating may feed our own hunger for righteousness.
But they do not directly fill the suffering stomach.
They do not save a life.
They do not bring redemption.
Only we can do that.
Shabbat Shalom.
