“On Rosh HaShana it is written, on Yom Kippur it is sealed: Who shall live and who shall die…”

This is a day that is about making life and death decisions.

God, or so the prayer in the Mahzor tells us, sits in judgment of every human being, reviewing our deeds, and deciding our destiny.

Individuals also have to make some critical choices that can determine if we will live, or if we will die.  We examine our life styles, and we decide if we are satisfied with the choices we have made for ourselves: Are we eating the right kinds of food?  Are we doing enough exercise?  Will we choose to start smoking – or decide to quit?  Will we do drugs?  Will we get behind the wheel of a car after we’ve been drinking?  Will we engage in un-safe sex?  And some of us will struggle with other kinds of life and death decisions: Will we put a DNR order into a loved one’s file?  Will we ultimately decide to stop all treatment for a terminally ill relative?  Will we agree to “pull the plug” when all reasonable hope is gone?

Perhaps those are the issues that some of us will be wrestling with on this long day of prayer, fasting, and meditation.

God is struggling today with who shall live and who shall die, as do many serious individuals.

But nations also struggle with life and death decisions.  Yom Kippur in Israel has two meanings: It is, as for all other Jews around the world, the Day of Atonement, a religious holy day.  But in the State of Israel, it is also the anniversary of the day in 1973 when Egypt and Syria attacked the Jewish State, and began the war in which 2,800 Israeli soldiers died, and Israel came very close to being defeated, and destroyed.

On this Yom Kippur, I’m trying to imagine what the Prime Minister of Israel must be thinking about.  No doubt he’s remembering what happened 36 years ago – in the Sinai desert, and on the Golan Heights.  But he must also be thinking about the future – the very near future – when Iran will become a nuclear power.  To be the Prime Minister of Israel means never being able to rest easy; how much the more so is that true on Yom Kippur – when decisions about Life and Death of millions of people hang in the balance.

Iran has made no secret of its nuclear intentions.  Reactors have been built, centrifuges installed, enriched uranium acquired.  The critical question is: What is Iran’s ultimate goal?  Is it trying to reclaim the ancient glory of the Persian empire by being at the forefront of science and technology?  Is it looking to gain a place as the leader of the Islamic world?  Is it to provide its 70 million people with all the energy it could possibly need?  Is it to protect itself from a nuclear armed Pakistan to its east?  Is it to warn a US backed Iraq to its west not to meddle?  Or is it, for something far more sinister, from a Jewish perspective?

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has hinted at his country’s goal on several occasions over the last four years.

In October of 2005 he said: “We cannot compromise over the issue of Palestine… the occupying regime must be wiped off the map… we will eliminate this disgraceful stain from the Islamic world.”

In July of 2006, he stated: “The basic problem in the Islamic world is the existence of the Zionist regime, and the Islamic world and the region must mobilize to remove this problem.”

In December of that year he added: “…just as the Soviet Union was wiped out and does not exist anymore, so will the Zionist regime soon be wiped out…”

In June of 2007, he said: “In the near future, we will witness the destruction of the corrupt occupier regime.”

In June of 2008, Ahmadinejad stated: “Israel has reached the end of its function, and will soon disappear off the geographical domain.”

Iran already has the military capacity of delivering a bomb over 1,000 miles with its Shihab 3 missiles.  And with Hizbulah in Lebanon, and Hamas in Gaza, it has terrorist proxies who are just across the border from Israel, ready to attack at a moment’s notice.

If you’re the Prime Minister of Israel, what do you do?  Your sworn enemy repeatedly states that they will wipe you off the map.  They already have the missiles, and in anywhere from three months to two years, they will have nuclear weapons.

In 1981, Prime Minister Begin ordered the Israeli Air Force to bomb and destroy the Osirak Nuclear Reactor built by Iraq’s Sadaam Hussein.  In 2007, Prime Minister Olmert sent the I.A.F. to bomb a Syrian facility that, according to military intelligence, was being built by North Korea as a nuclear plant.

And tonight – Yom Kippur 2009 – what is Prime Minister Netanyahnu thinking?

The first question he must ask is: Can Israel successfully destroy Iran’s nuclear facilities?  How do you get the fighter planes there and back – a distance of 3,000 miles round trip?  How could they fly over Arab countries without being detected?  Where and how could the planes re-fuel?  Iran, learning the lessons of Iraq, has built its nuclear sites in several different places; if one is destroyed, others are still viable.  And these sites have been built underground, sheltered by thick concrete, so that even if the planes make it there, and even if they hit their target, the bombs may not take out the facility.

Israel also has submarines armed with cruise missiles, but subs would have to sail through the Suez Canal, and into the Persian Gulf, and wouldn’t have the precision, the proximity, or the speed of fighter planes.

Others have speculated that Israeli computer hackers could disable Iranian missiles or the nuclear reactors – but that seems more in the realm of science fiction.

What happens if the Prime Minister weighs the options and decides that it’s too risky to take out the Iranian facilities with a military strike?

He could, of course, hope that diplomacy, or sanctions would cause Iran to back down and halt its nuclear program.  But Russia, and China, and the European Union aren’t inclined to confront Iran, or to assist Israel.  There’s too much money in it for them in selling gas and other goods to Iran.

He could hope that somebody else will decide to strike Iran.  Saudi Arabia and Egypt, among others, are deeply worried about a nuclear Iran and the power it would wield in the Middle East.  But it’s hard to imagine them attacking a fellow Muslim nation, and they don’t have anywhere near the sophisticated military capacity that Israel has.  America, of course, is already over-extended in Iraq and Afghanistan.  A U.S. attack on Iran would undermine President Obama’s attempt to reach out to the Islamic world.

The Prime Minister could rely on Israel’s arsenal of Arrow missiles, which are designed to intercept and destroy incoming ballistic weapons.  But as recently as July, the tests of the Arrow System resulted in failure.  And even if most of the Iranian missiles were shot down, if just one got through – it would mean catastrophe.

The Prime Minister could rely on “Mutually Assured Destruction” – the concept that kept the U.S. and the Soviet Union from using their nuclear arsenals.  Each side knew that if they attacked the other, it would end with everyone obliterated.  So too, even if Iran had nuclear bombs, the doctrine goes, it would never dare to use them against the Jewish State, because Israel would retaliate and in doing so, totally devastate Iran.  But that assumes that logic and rationality hold sway in Iran.  Ahmadinejad, like all Shiites, believes in “the 12th Imam” – a Messianic figure descended from Muhammad.  He is called “the Hidden Mahdi”.  The 12th Imam is biding his time, before appearing on Earth.  He will come just before the end of the world, and his appearance will be preceded, according to Shiite belief, by three years of horrendous world chaos.  Ahmadinejad claims he was directed by Allah to pave the way for the Mahdi, by bringing the world under Muslim control; perhaps he sees his role as instigating the world-wide horrors that must be in place for the Mahdi to bring peace.  A nuclear war with Israel the Little Satan, in which millions die, is exactly what is required.

What happens if the Prime Minister gives the “go-ahead”, and the mission is a failure – if the planes are shot down, or if they fail to destroy the target.  In the Arab world, anything short of total Israeli success is seen as a great victory for the Muslims.  As was the case with the wars in Lebanon, Israeli prestige would suffer, emboldening the Arabs and inviting retaliation.

And what happens if the attack succeeds?  Perhaps the best-case scenario is that the nuclear program is set back a few years.  But that might make the Iranians even more determined to get revenge – if not today, then somewhere down the road.  Perhaps we imagine that the Iranian people would rise up against the Ayatollahs and Ahmadinejad, and a secular, democratic Iran might emerge.  But it’s more likely that the Iranians would be united by an attack on their nation and their honor, and would give the current regime their full support in a war against Israel.

Perhaps Iran would retaliate by shooting conventional missiles or those with chemicals or biological war heads against Tel Aviv, and Dimona – site of Israel’s nuclear reactor.

Or perhaps Iran would push its proxies – Hizbulah in the north and Hamas in the south – to rain tens of thousands of rockets upon Israeli cities, sending the entire country into bomb shelters for weeks on end.

Or perhaps Iran would initiate a world-wide campaign of terror against Israeli interests in Europe and Asia (like El Al planes, and Israeli embassies) or against Jewish sites (such as synagogues and museums) all over the world.

Perhaps Iran would choose to close the straits of Hormuz, cutting off much of the world’s oil supply, resulting in gas prices going through the roof and leading to a collapse of western economies.

And one other thing the Prime Minister has to take into consideration.  There are 20,000 Jews living in Iran.  What will happen to them if there is an attack?  Pogroms?  Imprisonments?  Executions?

Other Israeli Prime Ministers have had to make life and death decisions.

In 1976, as Arab and German terrorists prepared to execute Israeli hostages in Entebbe, Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin decided to send a commando force to Africa to rescue the Jews.  Failure would have resulted in 200 dead hostages and soldiers.  Operation Thunderbolt was a success – with only two hostages and one soldier killed.  The soldier, of course, was Prime Minister Netanyahu’s older brother, Yoni.

In 1973, Prime Minister Golda Meir learned of the impending surprise attack a few hours before Yom Kippur.  She had to weigh a preemptive strike on Egypt and Syria, which would have resulted in a world-wide condemnation of Israel, vs. doing nothing, absorbing the initial attack, and thus retaining the political and military support of the United States.  Her decision not to strike first cost Israel over 2,000 of its sons.

In 1948, as the British prepared to abandon Palestine, Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion had to decide whether or not to declare a sovereign Jewish state.  The Arabs threatened war if he did, and the US State Department warned Israel not to.  Ben-Gurion’s military advisors reported that the Jews had a 50-50 chance of prevailing if the Arabs attacked.  Ben-Gurion replied that these were the best odds that the Jews had had in 2,000 years.  If the fledgling army didn’t win, at least 200,000 civilians would have been slaughtered.  Israel declared its independence, and it won the war, at a cost of 6,000 dead.

It’s two o’clock in the morning in Israel right now.  I’m imagining the Prime Minister lying in bed, unable to sleep, wrestling on this Yom Kippur with a terrible decision:

Attack Iran, preventing a future nuclear war and the destruction of Israel, but suffer the consequences of retaliatory conventional and terrorist wars that would claim thousands of lives, or Don’t Attack, hoping that diplomacy would somehow prevent Armageddon, but thus leaving open the strong possibility that in the future, our enemies will strike and bring about the destruction of Israel.

How do you make such a decision?  Bring in your top advisors, ask them for a cost-benefit analysis, weigh all the options, ask them to vote Yes or No, and go with the majority?  Or, in the final analysis, do you just go with your gut, and do what you think is right.

Each of us struggles with our own Life and Death dilemmas – but none of us carries the fate of the Jewish people on our shoulders.

Whether you like the Israeli Prime Minister or not, our prayers have to be with him, on this Yom Kippur.

It would be presumptuous, irresponsible, and stupid for any Rabbi to stand before you and preach to Israel what to do about the Iranian Threat.  “Attack before it’s too late!” or “Wait – allow diplomacy to solve the problem.”

But every Jew throughout the world – whether or not they live in Israel, or have relatives there – every Jew must be terrified about what the future might bring.  The man who claims that the Holocaust never happened, threatens to bring about the death of the six million Jews who, today, live in Israel.

It’s at such moments, with such decisions to make that we, and the Prime Minister, need to remember that when we’ve exhausted every other resource, we still have one more place we can turn to.  A few moments ago, just before the Amidah, we uttered the Hashkee-vey-nu prayer.  It’s a Tefila Jews recite as darkness falls.  But given our fears about Iran’s nuclear weapons, it takes on a new layer of meaning.  Tonight, as we sit terrified about Life and Death decisions, we offer this prayer:

“Adonai!

Help us lie down at night, in Peace, and assure us we will arise, in the morning, to Life.  Spread over us, Your Shelter of Peace.  Save us, Protect us, Remove from us Our Enemies, their Weapons, and all Sorrow.  Watch over us, in all our comings and goings.  Give us Life.  Give us Peace.  We praise you, Adonai, for spreading a Shelter of Peace over us, and over all of Israel, and over Jerusalem.”

And let us say, “Amen”.