Israel

The Sinai Lesson

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Tonight is Shavuot (at least as I am writing). It is the holiday on which we celebrate the first fruits of the Spring harvest and the revelation at Sinai. It is one of the least observed of our holidays even though it is Biblically mandated and has an important message. It reminds us that at our core we are a people with a mission. We are a people who listened and accepted the revolutionary idea that there is meaning to our being beyond the limits of our bodies. Whatever you believe about the narrative in Exodus that recounts the Sinai experience complete with a golden calf and shattered tablets, we have accepted its truth and its commandment: that there is a higher law whether filtered through historical writings or delivered from a Divine Source right into the hands of Moses our teacher.

Some people think there is only one way to live the mission: black hats, black coats, covered hair, fidelity to ritual and halacha. I think every individual has the right to find their own way and there are many paths that lead to Sinai. When Tom O’Brien and I taught at FAU Lifelong Learning, we would end our session with a slide with an image of a path in the woods with the words: “Walker there is no road; the road is made by walking.” I don’t remember where we found it, but it has always spoken to me about how we make our way through life by living it with appreciation and purpose. Life is a gift. It might also be an accident but it’s still not to be taken lightly.

The Sinai lesson is that the paths we forge are not for our sole passage but that the generations that came before us and the generations that will come after us are depending on how we walk and where we put our feet. The Shavuot story reminds us that we all stood at Sinai; we all heard the words and accepted the obligations. We are called Israel – the one who struggles with what it means to be human or to put it in traditional language – what God wants from us. And If truth be told, we are having a hard time with it right now. How to defend ourselves and still look ourselves in the mirror, How to stand up to hatred without hating back. How to listen to the voices in our community and nation that we don’t agree with and not write them out of our circles.

You know I am speaking about Israel and her current government. You know I am speaking about the United State and our current administration. You know I am writing this to myself because this holiday we begin tonight says: We can do better.

Oranges, Olives and Lemons

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It feels like every year there is a new item to add to your Seder plate or a new reading to insert before the second cup or the eating of answering of the four questions or the telling of the story. This year its lemons. Lemons for their color; lemons for their taste; lemons for the hostages sitting still in darkness and wondering if they will ever see the light. I like how the tradition grows and how it adapts. I like that it is not frozen in time or place but that it is living and breathing.

Yes there is an order to the Seder. And I follow it more or less. And the words written centuries ago take on different meanings almost every year it seems. Like the word “enough” – in Dayenu – it would have been enough. Yes. the poem/song lists all the things we have historically experienced as a people from leaving Egypt to discovering Torah and Shabbat, from building the Temple to entering the Land. Any one of them would have been enough. But there’s another way to roughly translate Dayenu. (Hebrew scholars look away!) It is enough. Enough with war; enough with Hamas terrorism; enough days the Hostages have lived in tunnels; enough bombings and death of the innocent both Palestinian and Israeli; enough tariffs, enough ICE, enough presidential privelege and power grabbing; enough shirking of congressional responsibility in leading this country.

The trick in leading a Seder is to balance the ritual, text and free flowing discussion. People sometimes tell me that they went to a “real” Seder where they read the whole Haggadah and even went back after the meal. If I could rewrite the order of things I would put Elijah before hard boiled egg – Elijah is the harbinger of hope and promise – that opening of the door isn’t just to welcome a spirit to sip the wine. that opening of the door is an act of faith that we can make tomorrow better than today.

Of course we’re not doing so good with today. Hence the lemon. The piece I saw says put the lemon on the Seder plate and slice it right before Maror. Add it to your Hillel Sandwich – so the bitterness of slavery and sweetness of freedom are integrated with the sharpness of the hostages’ fates.

At LabShul, one of the out there congregations in our country has a heading on their Seder instructions which I love. SEYDER: Say More/Read Less. So here’s my take: This is all about a discussion. It is not about slavishly following the text. It is reacting and intereacting with the tradition. It is about interrupting the leader. it is about questioning the rituals. It is about lemons, oranges, and olives.

I Was Cautiously Hopeful

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I’m not surprised; I am disappointed. I’m anxious and hopeful at the same time. I’m reticent to even write these words, after all I am living relatively securely in Florida and the things that worry me do not include missiles raining on my head from as close as Gaza and as far away as Yemen. The cease-fire news yesterday was a blessing. But even then, I feared optimism was somewhat premature.

Maybe we know too much; maybe we think what we know is really not the truth. As of this writing, Netanyahu is saying that Hamas is reneging on part of the deal and the Israeli cabinet meeting to discuss and hopefully ratify the agreement has been postponed. That was 14 minutes ago according to the Times. What will happen next is unknown to me although given President Biden’s announcement last night of the work that his administration has been constantly doing to achieve cessation of hostilities and a return of the hostages it is hard to imagine that it will fall apart again.

But there is Monday and the inauguration of President Elect Donald Trump. It so echoes Carter/Reagan and the freeing of the Americans from Iran in 1981. Who wants to give whom what? Who is afraid of whom? Is Netanyahu ready to give Trump the gift of making the deal? Is Hamas afraid of Trump’s threat to bomb the hell out of them?

Sad. Disheartening. I hope by the time you read these words, my fears, anxiety, disappointment will be something of the past and there will be a new day dawning with the hostages returning home and guns silencing as hints of a permanent peace rise out of the darkness. It’s probably going to take something the Bible would call a miracle. It’s immensely risky because the forces of evil are real in this world and everything I know says that its name is Hamas.  It’s definitely going to take courage and faith. But I am not so sure there are any other good alternatives  – so read these words as a prayer.

A prayer for peace; a silent petition to all that is good or God in the world for sanity; a petition for joy to come in the morning even though we all know it will be tinged with sadness for all those whose deaths we mourn.

Israel Diaries 8

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At the Mount of Olives

Waze was having a tough time finding a better route to the airport. There was a demonstration on the road. Every Saturday night, as Shabbat ends, they begin to gather. Drums, signs, flags, young, old: Make a Deal Now; Bring Them Home Now. All the vehicles were being channeled into one lane as the demonstrators made their way to the residence of the Prime Minister. We were eventually returned to our hotel and sent to the airport through East Jerusalem. No worries (except we did) and we got to the airport on time. Of course the VAT office on the main floor was closed but it seems there is always some reason you can’t get your Value Addeed Tax refunded. I hope my donation goes to a good cause.

But back to the demonstration. This what I love about Israelis. There is a concept of civic engagement and a belief that your voice is important. You can make a difference no matter how much the cards are stacked against you through a convoluted and probably outdated political system. They are not alone -we have our own peculaarities in our democracy: think Electoral College and the lunacy that winning the majority vote doesn’t guarantee one the Presidency.

We came in hard times. Don’t think we didn’t think twice about postponing. There were plenty of reasons to do so including United Airlines cancelling all our flights two days before we were supposed to leave. But we couldn’t have come at a more important moment. Time after time people thanked us for being there. They need to feel and see our support. I am not talking politics when I say “support”. I mean Jew to Jew – people to people – you are not alone.

So I am going to leave you with that enigmatic picture above. According to Google the letters are in Mandarin Chinese and mean “Jesus Is”. They are Christian pilgrims following the footsteps of Jesus. A few moments later, they took out their shofars blowing long and loud blasts with an admirable amount of expertise. Some lay on the ground; several had visible tears. It was surreal and also reassuring.

Just like our visit. It was a hard time, a strange time, an important time, a sad time. Leaving Israel with lots of questions and a fear for the future but with love and hope and most of all the blessing of having been together three generations – what a gift.

Israel Diaries 4

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Our security guard put on Tefillen.

We are on our way to the Gaza Envelope. That means we are visiting the sites that were directly attacked by Hamas on October 7th. They are within miles of the Gaza border. We have Rafael (our security guard) with us today; we have helmets with us today; we have had a security briefing on what happens if there is a red alert. (Siren that warns of incoming mortar or missles). Perhaps I am totally naive, but I am not overly anxious.

Why are we going? To learn; to bear witness; to show solidarity; to understand what was and what is; to experience a small piece of the nightmare of 10.7. As we were driving down from Tel Aviv, Rafael put on a Kippah and Tefillin. My guess is that Rafael is in his twenties; when Eileen was introduced to him, she said, “You’re too cute to be a security guard.”  I am going to try and ask him how he identifies religiously.

It is many hours and many experiences and many tears, anger and laughter later. We are back at our hotel in Tel Aviv. I need time to process it all. Our first stop was Kibbitz Nir Oz and then the Nova Festival Site. Both were ground zero for the morning of October 7th and visiting them you mourn, remember, witness the pain and have too many unanswered questions.

At the end of the day, we visited an Army base, home of the engineer corps of the IDF. They asked us not to take pictures of their faces or parts of the base. They are responsible for exploring, discovering and clearing the tunnels in Gaza. We walked through one of their training facilities and provided and shared a barbecue dinner. The picture above is one of the volunteer cooks and me. Quite an experience and a better way to end our day – showing our appreciation and gratitude to these young men and women who are on the front line defending Israel and us.

There are signs all over Israel: We Are Stronger Together.

 






















































































































































 

 

Israel Diaries 2

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Israel Diary 2

 

Under Their Vines

It is early in the morning (like I mean middle of the night), and I thought that by sleeping till 6:30 AM yesterday I had conquered the jet lag. Hubris. I actually played a game with myself when I woke a bit ago; I guessed what time it was without looking at the clock and I agreed to be satisfied if it was past 4:00. I lost.

The rest of our crew arrived yesterday at various times. They spent the morning sleeping and we went to visit an old friend who used to live in Nahariya and is now in a “Mishan” (Assisted Living Residence) in Ramat Aviv, just outside of Tel Aviv. She Is a textile artist and specialized in Judaica. We discovered each other when we were searching for someone to create a wall hanging in memory of Eileen’s mother, Beatrice. When we shared with Adina Bea’s life and her values and told her that Bea’s Hebrew name was Brachah (Blessing), she proposed to create a piece that incorporated the prayer for peace that includes as part of the text her Hebrew name. The prayer’s text is surrounded by vine and fig leaves as in “And everyone shall dwell under their own vine and fig tree, and none shall make them afraid.” (Micah 4:4). It hangs on the north wall of Temple Israel’s sanctuary.

The weather is beautiful in Tel Aviv. So we sat outside on her patio only big enough for two chairs and a table – but there was room for a small garden between the privacy wall and the patio. There was a vine growing. It looked like zucchini to me but Adina who had only lived there for 3 months thought it might be watermelon. We agreed we would just have to wait and see.

And that is somewhat the mood among so many of the Israelis we have met. It is a wait and see but live your life praying for peace and unafraid, at least on the outside. The beaches of Tel Aviv are full of young people playing soccer and soccer volleyball, running, surfing, enjoying life. The restaurants are full even if the hotels are not. This may be an observation that is skewered by my living in Palm Beach County but I have seen more pregnant women in our two days here than I see in a month in WPB. And there seems to me to be pride in their swelling bellies almost a statement about the future.

Tomorrow we meet our tour guide and head start our “tour”. We will be in Jaffa; we will be examining the grafiti wall art that has been created since October 7; we will be in Hostage Square meeting with families; we will welcome Shabbat there and pray again for a better future.

Let’s see if I can go back to sleep.

Hanukkah is Over

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Hanukkah is over and I can’t sleep. It took me forever last night to fall into sleep. Very unusual for me since I am usually unconscious in minutes after finding whatever is the right position on the pillow for that moment. It was the news. Specifically, it was the report that the IDF confirmed that three of the hostages held by Hamas were killed by what we used to call (in Vietnam at least) friendly fire. That means that in the fog of war, they were mistaken for the enemy and shot to death by those whose mission was to save them.

I hate that phrase “fog of war”. I understand it but I still hate it. It makes me think of scenes from a war movie – when the smoke from tear gas or the airborne dust from a recent bombardment or the mist from the English Channel in a WWI trench scene is obscuring your vision and it is tough to determine foe or friend. It makes me ask if the fog is physical, emotional, intellectual or all of the above. It makes me wonder where does this all end; what is success; when and how do we say: we won?

Don’t yell at me yet; don’t get me wrong. I am not voting with the UN for an immediate cease fire. I ask again and again: why is there no worldwide demand for the immediate return of all the hostages? Hanukkah is over and I am just sad. For all the lives lost – Children and women, mothers and fathers, grandparents and babies, Israelis and Arabs and innocent people whose light has been extinguished by the hatred ignited on October 7th. That means there would be no fog of war if Hamas hadn’t slaughtered, raped, maimed, kidnapped, tortured, over a thousand people in their rage of death. They showed their true face – evil. And they forced Israel to respond. Too bad we can’t invent a bullet that only targets bad guys.

I could go on and on and you are very kind to let me vent. But I have no solution. Yes, “two states” sounds good on paper. Cease Fire are pious words. But not now, not yet – bring them home first. Bring them home. It’s too late for there to be no missing candles; too many have died, and their light has been snuffed out. But let’s light with what’s left.

Breaking News: “And one was holding a white flag”

A Prayer in Prose

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It is almost Thanksgiving. And over this weekend, our immediate family (minus the two on their Honeymoon) will all be together; we will have turkey and my mother’s Ritz cracker stuffing on Thursday and some alternative to turkey for Shabbat dinner on Friday. We will light am extra set of candles for the hostages that remain in darkness and fear. My head is hoping, praying that by some miracle more than 50 will come home; my heart is just broken when I allow the reality of this madness to settle in.

And it is almost Thanksgiving. I almost feel guilty; there are so many blessings that surround me. I have so much I am grateful for. They are the usual: family, friends, bounty, freedom; safety and security; home and hearth; our fractured, imperfect but better than most country, and even a new car. Not everyone has this all; not everyone in our own United States, not everyone for sure in Israel or Gaza. And none of this should be taken for granted.

And it is almost Thanksgiving. When I was in elementary school it was all about the Pilgrims and the Indians. It was about corn and cornucopias and friendship between the Native Americans and the survivors of the Mayflower. We called them Puritans as if they were pure and innocent. It didn’t even dawn on us that the new land they were settling belonged to someone else. But myths are powerful and the story even if flawed contains enduring truth. Like gratitude.

And it is almost Thanksgiving or is it Black Friday. But of course, given our amazing capitalistic system, Black Friday is now a week, a month. And we continue to live, to buy, to celebrate, to count down or up to the “Holidays” and gift giving. I know the gift I would like to give – the gift of sanity to a world gone insane; the gift of wholeness to a world fractured by hatred and war. A friend of mine who is a child of survivors remembers his mother who survived one of the concentration camps saying: “There is real evil in this world. Make no mistake. And it must be confronted and contained.” There is and we saw it on October 7th. There is and we cannot let evil win. We cannot take goodness for granted. And we can’t allow ourselves to become callous to the pain and suffering of all who are hostage to the horrors Hamas unleashed.

But is it almost Thanksgiving. And I am so grateful for all my blessings and with a heavy heart I say: Amen.

Simple Truths That Are Very Complicated

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I don’t think I have ever reposted something on this Blog. But this needs to be said and read and reread and remembered and told time and time again. The attack on Israel yesterday is not business as usual. The attempt to blame a failure of Israeli intelligence may be fair but it is premature. The explanation that Hamas is using a perceived weakness in the fabric of Israeli society because of the demonstrations against the current government may be true but it is irrelevant. The pontification that this attack 50 years after the Yom Kippur war is linked to the nascent Saudi – Israel “deal” is speculation. We all want to make sense of the senseless. This is what is true. Hamas wants to destroy Israel. And that means kill Jews.

So I am reposting an article by Bari Weiss. This is from “The Free Press”, described by Bari herself as “A new media company built on the ideals that were once the bedrock of American journalism.” It is described by others as conservative and progressive, controversial and incendiary. It always gives you something to think about. I am a paid subscriber – just so you know where I am coming from.

An aside: On Friday night I was at Temple Israel. The Rabbis were unrolling the Torah Scroll in the Social Hall and we were all standing in a circle as the parchment reached around the room and came into our white gloved hands. We were celebrating the Torah’s unending gift of ancient stories and moral truths, poetry, exhortations, unpleasant facts, history and ritual that some call God’s truth. I was joking with the person next to me that we were going to run out of Torah or that here I am standing on the outside of the Scroll. We thought that either of these were good Blog titles.

And the next morning we woke up. And our enemies (yes – our) reminded us of one of the oldest truths. But not now – now – read this and know:

ISRAEL AT WAR.

“You are about to withstand a barrage of lies about the war that broke out today in Israel.

Some of those lies will be explicit. Some of them will be lies of omission. Others will be lies of obfuscation. Or lies of minimization. Lies told by people who are simply too afraid to look at such an ugly, barbarous reality. And lies told by people whose true beliefs are too ugly to quite say aloud. Turn on cable news and you can hear some of them right now.

So let’s get some facts straight.

Israel was attacked last night. It was attacked by Hamas terrorists who streamed over the border from Gaza. They came on foot and on motorbikes. They came by truck and by car and by paraglider. They came to Israel to murder and maim and mutilate anyone they could find. And that is what they did.

It is impossible to know the numbers of the dead or the missing or the injured. 

The official numbers as of this writing: 300 Israelis dead; 1,590 wounded. And dozens—maybe many more—taken hostage into Gaza. They include women, elders, and children. 

But none of those words or numbers capture the evil of what unfolded today. 

Young festival-goers running for their lives. Teenage girls dragged by their hair by terrorists. An old woman forced to pose with a Hamas rifle. A mother—a hostage—cradling two redheaded babies in her arms.

I have friends in Israel. Each one of them has a story of someone they know who is missing. Or injured. Or killed. This was not a tit-for-tat. This was not a justifiable military response, or just another day in a cycle of violence. This was the slaughter of innocent civilians.

New York City’s Democratic Socialists of America today announced a protest in honor of the attacks. It’s called All Out for Palestine: “In solidarity with the Palestinian people and their right to resist 75 years of occupation and apartheid.” The anti-Zionist group IfNotNow explained the attacks as Israel’s fault and said of the dead Jews: “Their blood is on the hands of the Israeli government.” 

You will see a lot like this in the coming days. Ancient lies told in new language whose end is always, strangely, the same: a justification for genocide. 

Think about 9/11 and the kind of shock and terror we felt. That is what Israelis feel today. That is the level of devastation Israel is now experiencing. 

We are left with so many questions:

How did this happen?

Who is to blame for this catastrophic security failure? 

How will Israel respond? How will the country save the hostages in Gaza? 

What was the extent of Iran’s involvement in this sophisticated operation? 

Will this change the Biden administration’s policy toward the Islamic Republic? 

And so many more.

Those are the questions that require answers. But for today, while others offer mealy-mouthed pablum, we want to do something simple: to tell the truth—plainly—about a catastrophic day.

https://www.thefp.com/?gclid=Cj0KCQjwpompBhDZARIsAFD_Fp9zEvxIiuApM6gQQ_JXMwKwGgwYXs4lJMUmFLJDT5b3Ndvxm0YXn9MaAs7vEALw_wcB