Rabbi's Musings

In the second installment of The Hunger Games trilogy, there’s a moment when main character Katniss Everdeen’s mentor Haymitch gives her a piece of advice before she enters the arena to fight for her life: 
You just remember who the enemy is. That’s all.

Katniss is a participant in the Hunger Games, in which different “tributes” are forced to fight one another to the death on camera, for the entertainment of the rich, spoiled population living in the Capitol.

(For those who haven’t read/watched the story: think ancient Roman gladiator games + modern American reality TV)

The Games are played in a hi-tech arena, where crafty gamemakers invent all kinds of creative and cruel life-threatening conditions to force tributes to kill each other or die.

But at the end of the story, just as she did in the first book, Katniss refuses to play the game “their way,” and turns the system — and her entire world — upside down.

How?

By realizing that her true enemy was not the other tributes in the arena.

Sure, many of them were literally trying to kill her, but the real problem wasn’t them. The real problem was the evil oppressive system created and perpetuated by the Capitol and its gamemakers.

Last summer, as I was gathered with other rabbis and Washington DC to discuss the problems Israel was confronting with the putative judicial reform and it’s large popular uprising against it, I asked a State Department official how the issue would be resolved. He looked at me and said, Rabbi, you have to remember who the true enemy is. It isn’t the left or right in Israel, it isn’t terrorist in the territories. It is and always has been Iran.

It was hard not to think of this statement after October 7 when everyone knew Iran was the main supporter of the Hamas terrorists. It’s even more important to remember this fact after the unprecedented attack by Iran against Israel this past Shabbat. As terrible as the escalation is, there is one silver lining, which is the games are over and truly the real enemy is revealed in all its horrible nihilistic behavior.

The next stage of the war will be difficult to ponder. Part of me is relieved that Iran cannot hide behind its proxies. Certainly, we should all agree that Iran cannot be permitted to achieve nuclear capability. Israel continues to face unbelievably difficult situations, lest we forget, beginning with the hostages in the war in Gaza. But I hope that most people in the west can understand who the real enemy is. As we read in the Haggadah, in every generation there are those who arise to destroy us -- with must keep the faith that the Jewish people must always fight back.