It is an ancient realization, always relearned in resistant, recalcitrant ways, that we cannot receive what is new without relinquishing something of what is old. The anniversary of Tikkun is a time to notice that Tikkun, from the outset, has advocated receiving what is new for Israel and the Palestinians.
The Hebrew Bible is saturated with that learning. Abraham and Sarah had to “set out” in order to receive the new land. The Egyptian slaves had to “depart” to the risk of the wilderness to get to their new place. And Isaiah (43:18-19) reminded the generation of deportees that a “new thing,” a restored Judaism, required the relinquishment of old, treasured miracles:
Do not remember the former things,
or consider the things of old.
I am about to do a new thing,
now it springs forth, do you not perceive it?
In sports parlance, it is “No pain,...
