Between the Shofar and the Sirens: Hineini in Ukraine

This Rosh HaShanah, I kept returning to one word: Hineini-"Here I am." I spent the holiday with Kyiv's liberal Jewish community, where I had the honor of reading part of the Akedah, the Binding of Isaac, from an old Iraqi Torah scroll and offering a short sermon. In that setting, Hineini did not feel abstract. It sounded less like a statement of location and more like a promise: I am present. I am listening. I am prepared to respond.

The war was present before services even began. On Friday night, shortly before we gathered, a drone was destroyed near the synagogue. We heard bursts of gunfire and then a loud explosion. There was no pretending that sacred time existed apart from the world outside. And still, people arrived. We prayed, sang, listened, and welcomed the New Year together. The next morning, the sound of the shofar joined the sounds of war. For me, that contrast carried a distinctly Reform Jewish message: tradition is not an escape from life, but a dive into whatever reality we know at that moment. Torah asks us to meet the present moment honestly and to bring our values into it. We allowed air raid sirens to coexist with our prayers. Jews have done something comparable to this for hundreds of years during wars, pogroms, and the Holocaust. It is an affirmation of Hineini.

After the holiday, I traveled to Sumy to visit friends. Sumy sits only about 22 kilometers from the Russian border and is among the most embattled places along Ukraine's frontline. I know the city and the surrounding area from 2022, when I served there as a civilian volunteer with a combat and defense unit. Returning was personal, but it was also part of my current work. With special accreditation from Ukraine's Ministry of Defense, I am documenting the systematic destruction of civilian infrastructure and writing about crimes against humanity. The city is now draped with nets intended to protect civilians from small drones. Air-raid sirens sounded roughly every thirty minutes. Ordinary conversation, travel, and friendship unfolded beneath that constant warning.

Getting there was not simple. The day before my trip, Ukrainian Railways suspended service to Sumy after drone attacks on trains in the area. My own train to the nearest town was evacuated several times because of drone threats. I could have turned back. Instead, I thought again of Abraham saying Hineini and continuing into uncertainty-not because every command is easy to understand, but because moral presence sometimes requires us to keep moving. From a Reform Jewish standpoint, that does not mean accepting suffering passively or reading the Akedah without questions. Reform Judaism teaches us to engage tradition with conscience, to wrestle with the text, and to translate prayer into ethical action. For me, being with Jews in Kyiv and friends in Sumy made that responsibility immediate. Hineini meant standing with a community that refuses to disappear. It meant bearing witness to attacks on civilians. It meant allowing the shofar to call me not only to renewal, but also to responsibility. This year, I heard its sound as both comfort and disruption: be present, tell the truth, defend human dignity, and do not let fear have the final word.

Being in Ukraine helped me see that comfort and disruption can coexist, and that we can also build security within ourselves by drawing on Abraham's model of being present and ready, no matter the challenge. I also saw the important work that the World Union for Progressive Judaism is doing in Ukraine, and it has inspired me to spend my career devoted to smaller communities outside the United States that face risks from war, upheaval and conflict.

Doug Hauer-Gilad is a fourth-year rabbinical student at Hebrew Union College. He served as a civilian volunteer for a unit of the Ukrainian Armed Forces and a humanitarian organization from July to December 2022. He is currently accredited by the Ukrainian Ministry of Defense to engage as a journalist at the front lines and in areas hardest hit by the war. Doug's particular training as a lawyer allows him to report on potential violations of international humanitarian law and allegations of crimes against humanity in border areas where civilians are most severely impacted. He is also accredited by the Military of Finland to report broadly on military preparedness and related issues.