It’s a Long Drive

We left Tel Aviv and headed south again. This time away from the coast and Gaza and into the Negev. The surroundings turned beige and dusty green. The city to our right was Beersheva; we were headed to the Research Center at Ramat HaNegev as the sun became more and more demanding.

The center is one of those miracle makers. It seeks ways to improve agricultural processes in the desert. One of their specialties is cherry tomatoes – the kind that pop in your mouth with the sweet juices of growth, the kind that if you bite off a piece you are guaranteed to have tomato juice on your shirt a stain of honor. But there is more. There is a strawberry story and an electric power grid story. A million mirrors facing a tower reflecting light to create heat and then steam, powering the generators so that with the other two solar methods they provide four percent of the national power needs. But I am not a scientist so the most scientific truth in this paragraph is that the tomatoes were delicious.

It was a healthy antidote to the day before when the stories we heard didn’t point to the future but were a reflection of what happened on October 7th and what didn’t. Our contact person at Kibbutz Nir Oz was Yiftach. His anger against the government and failures of the IDF were stunning. (Like in a stun gun, the shock going right through you.). His description of what occurred and the visuals of the burnt houses seared your soul. His recounting of the brutality of Hamas competed with his deep and raging questions directed against the Israeli political and military establishment. It was not the Israel story we grew up with.

But I can’t leave you there. From the kibbutz we went to the site of the Nova Festival. There is little festive there but there is hope. Look up the heroism of an Israeli Bedouin police officer who saved hundreds of lives that morning. His name is Ramo Alhuzeil and he saved many scores of young participants by “commandeering “ a car and driving back and forth into the slaughter at considerable risk to his own life. Look up his name and learn what the word hero means.

I want to go back to the research center and the solar power plant and even the tomatoes. It is hard to make miracles in the desert. It is hard to know what the Israel of tomorrow will look like. But I believe in hope and in miracles, and I believe in the power of the collective us. I believe in the light that is the Jewish people. Together we will prevail.