The opening words of this week’s haftarah are among the most shocking in the Bible:
“Hear the word of the Lord, rulers of Sodom;
give ear to the teaching of our God, people of Gomorrah.”
Isaiah is not addressing Sodom and Gomorrah. He is speaking to Jerusalem—to its leaders and its people.
They attend the Temple, offer sacrifices, observe Shabbat and the festivals, and raise their hands in prayer. Outwardly, they appear deeply religious. Yet God rejects their worship:
“What need have I of all your sacrifices?”
“Your incense is an abomination to Me.”
“Though you offer many prayers, I will not listen—
your hands are full of blood.”
Isaiah’s accusation is not that they have abandoned religion, but that they have corrupted it. They preserve its rituals while betraying its moral demands. They invoke God while tolerating injustice, corruption, and bloodshed. Their worship does not redeem their conduct; it makes that conduct even more offensive, because religion has become its disguise.
Isaiah therefore turns directly to the nation’s rulers:
“How has the faithful city become a harlot!
She was full of justice; righteousness lodged in her—
but now, murderers.…
Your rulers are rebellious, companions of thieves;
all of them love bribes and pursue payments.”
He describes a leadership that places power, personal interest, and political survival above justice and national responsibility—a leadership that speaks in the name of God and the nation while using religious language to conceal moral decay.
It is difficult to hear these words on Shabbat Chazon—the Shabbat on which we begin to confront the destruction of Jerusalem and the Temple—without thinking of what many Israelis now call ממשלת החורבן—“the government of destruction”.
Destruction does not begin when the enemy breaches the walls. It begins much earlier—when leaders corrupt public institutions, deepen internal divisions, evade responsibility, tolerate injustice, and sacrifice the national interest for their own survival.
Israel is currently led by a prime minister standing trial for bribery, fraud, and breach of trust, including allegations that he sought favorable media coverage in exchange for governmental benefits.
His governments permitted vast sums of Qatari money to enter Hamas-controlled Gaza in the hope of buying quiet and preserving Palestinian division. That policy helped sustain the regime that was preparing to massacre our people.
During the judicial reform, security officials warned that the government was tearing Israeli society apart, damaging military cohesion, and projecting weakness to our enemies. Those enemies watched our internal disintegration while the government continued to deepen it.
Along the Gaza border, young female surveillance soldiers repeatedly warned that Hamas was preparing for war. Their warnings were dismissed because they contradicted the prevailing assumption that Hamas was deterred. The army and intelligence services bear grave responsibility for the massacre of October 7, but the leader who shaped national policy, strengthened Hamas, divided the country, and built his reputation upon Israel’s security cannot wash his hands of the catastrophe that occurred on his watch.
Yet, Netanyahu still has not accepted personal responsibility. Military and intelligence leaders acknowledged their failures; some resigned. The prime minister has blamed the army, the intelligence services, previous governments, the protest movement, and political opponents—virtually everyone but himself.
Nor has he agreed to establish an independent state commission of inquiry, despite having demanded rigorous accountability from Ehud Olmert after the far less devastating Second Lebanon War. Instead, the coalition has promoted an inquiry whose composition and mandate would be influenced by the very politicians whose conduct must be investigated.
The indictment extends further. Netanyahu placed Itamar Ben-Gvir in charge of the police while murder and organized crime ravage Arab Israeli society and extremist hilltop youth attack innocent Palestinians with virtual impunity.
But the most severe indictment came the other day.
For almost three years, Israeli reservists have served hundreds of days. They have lost businesses, missed precious years with their children, strained their marriages, and repeatedly risked their lives.
Yet throughout that same period, the coalition has worked relentlessly to preserve mass Haredi draft evasion. And on Tuesday, in an act that many will regard not merely as injustice but as a betrayal of the nation, the Knesset passed legislation temporarily barring the arrest and prosecution of Haredi draft evaders (although the High Court subsequently ordered a temporary freeze of this law).
If implemented, it is expected to prevent much of Haredi enlistment for the coming months, shielding tens of thousands who have ignored lawful call-up orders while Israel faces enemies on multiple fronts and an acute shortage of soldiers.
This is not merely a dispute about religion and state.
It is a matter of blood.
To one group, the government says: You will serve longer. You will return to Gaza, Lebanon, and the other fronts. You will leave your families again and risk injury and death again.
To another group, it says: You will not even be arrested for refusing to appear.
The burden on those already carrying it grows heavier, while those whose political representatives preserve the coalition are protected from sharing it. Some reservists are now saying that they are finished. Whether or not they ultimately refuse to serve, the fact that devoted soldiers have been driven to contemplate such a step should terrify us.
This law is not only unjust. It weakens Israel’s ability to defend itself. At a moment of grave military need, the government has chosen coalition survival over national security and the lives of our soldiers.
Can there be a more chilling contemporary echo of Isaiah’s words:
יְדֵיכֶם דָּמִים מָלֵאוּ—“Your hands are full of blood”?
Isaiah delivered this indictment in Jerusalem in the late eighth century BCE, as Judah faced corruption within and danger from Assyria without. His warning began a prophetic trajectory that culminated, more than a century later, in the destruction of Jerusalem by Babylonia.
The meaning of Shabbat Chazon is that we do not commemorate destruction merely to mourn what happened long ago. We read Isaiah so that we may recognize the forces that produce destruction in every generation: corrupt leadership, hollow religion, social injustice, internal hatred, the abandonment of responsibility, and the elevation of political power above human life. In doing so, we hope to prevent its recurrence.
On October 27, we will have the opportunity to replace the current government of destruction with one committed to responsibility, solidarity, accountability, and rebuilding.
We must exercise our right at the ballot box not merely as citizens choosing between political parties, but as a people who understand the warning of Shabbat Chazon—and who recognize that the future of this country is at stake.
Shabbat Shalom.
