"Im Tirtzu - If you will it, it is not a dream.”

Okay, so the Herzl museum was not a favorite of the group (too corny I think). We have, however, taken his message to heart.  “If you will it, it is not a dream. But if you do not really want it, then all that I have told you about it – a mere story it is and a story it will remain.” How many stories have we heard and sites seen that prove how much we can accomplish if we want it badly enough and work to make it so. At the Ayalon Institute we learned that the Haganah built the underground factory in only 22 days start to finish.  About the Six Day War, we learned how the feared “second Holocaust” was overcome and how Israel won one of its greatest victories. We saw a stone in the tunnel section of the Western Wall that was too big to be moved by today’s most powerful cranes and somehow was quarried, carved and placed there by masons 2,000 years ago. At Yad Vashem, at Herzl Museum, in the skyline of Tel Aviv, in the desalination technology developed here in Israel, and, yes, in the accomplishments of Sarah Kate, Daniel, Jonah and Sam. None of this was a given and all of it could have remained a story.  But, Im tirtzu…

(photo: Sam teaches us from his d'var Torah in the memorial hall of Ammunition Hill)

"Ad Hayom" - Wisdom from Adi

Towards the end of the day’s itinerary, after touring the mystical city of Safed and exploring the slope of the Golan Heights and Kibbutz Ayelet HaShachar, and after a quintessential Israeli shopping mall food court lunch, our bus rolled north across twentyish miles of the Golan plateau.  It is beautiful but mostly bare territory wherein we saw the heaviest military presence so far: tanks and artillery, army bases and combat soldiers with Israel’s latest best gun, the TAR-21. Along the way, Julie explained Golan, Part 2: The Yom Kippur War.

   The lead up to the Six Day War had seen Israel digging thousands of graves in public parks across the land to inter the victims of what many knew would be a second Holocaust.  The speed and extent of their victory over so many enemies and the closing of those emergency graves empty left a coat of hubris over the land.  Israel thought it was indestructible and did not consider how its enemies might lick their wounds, bide their time and return stronger.  Julie told us the phrase that Israelis commonly use to describe the mindset of the time: “We were prisoners of the conception.”  Adi, our bus driver, finished her sentence, “…ad ha-yom (still to this day).”

   Adi had captured one of the most important lessons of the day. Like a liturgical refrain, we could add, “Ad HaYom” to so much of what we had seen and learned.  Nearly all Jews present before 1948 took up arms or contributed to the defense of the state or establishment of its institutions; men and women...  Ad HaYom. The famous draining of the Hula Valley swamps removed malaria and allowed settlement and agriculture but disrupted the ecosystem extinguishing species and leaving environmental challenges that remain unsolved…. Ad HaYom.  Abu Mazen (current Palestinian President) was born and raised in Safed until his family had to flee in 1948.  In the 1990s, as Israel and the Palestinians were negotiating, Abu Mazen had asked, as a condition for further talks, that he be allowed to return to his birthplace and tour the city.  The Jewish mayor of Safed, now an all Jewish city, refused.  No Palestinians would be allowed to do such a thing. It goes back to 1974, when a Safed Junior High School group traveled to the town of Maalot. While they slept in a community center, a PLO terrorist cell crossed the border from Lebanon, seized the building and held them hostage. When all was done, nearly 25 of Safed’s young teens were dead. It had been over 20 years, and now a larger, national peace process was unfolding, but such wounds run cut deep and the pain remains strong… Ad HaYom. Here's Adi, reflected in the bus mirrors.

   The trip continues to be great and our itinerary is packed.  With a professional tour guide, a rabbi and a group of incredibly intelligent, cultured people we learn something everywhere.  But we keep our eyes and ears open for the unscheduled and unexpected insights that bespeak the Rabbinic teaching: “Who is wise? The one who learns from all people.” True that… Ad HaYom.

To become a leader

Today, during our jeep tour of the Golan Heights, Daniel gave the first of our bar mitzvah teachings. It was particularly moving to have Daniel teaching us about the Six Day War while standing on the Golan Heights within feet of the ruins of a Syrian bunker from pre-67 days. The fact the our tour leader, Avrahami, had been an IDF officer tasked with clearing that same bunker on Day 5 of the war only added to the unique opportunity we had to learn from our newest Jewish leader-teacher.  Here's what he taught us:

As the topic for my Bar Mitzvah, I have chosen to talk about the Six Day War.  This conflict interests me because I am fascinated by Middle East politics, history, and geography, and the Six Day War involves all three.

The Six Day War marked a significant turning point in Israeli-Arab-Palestinian history.  On the one hand, it showed the power of the Israeli military and gave the Israelis territory and added security from a future Arab attack.  It also gave Israelis and Jews throughout the world a great sense of pride.  On the other hand, it caused Israel to have a significant Arab population within its borders, forcing Israel to choose whether it wanted to remain a democracy, Jewish state, or an occupying power.  We live with the results of this war today – a more secure Israel in terms of territory, but an Israel that occupies territory acquired by war and governs several million Palestinians who want an independent state.

When Israel was founded in 1948, all the Arab armies attacked it.  Israel was forced to defend its borders, and won.  In 1956, fighting broke out between Egypt and Israel in the Sinai over the rights of Israelis in the Straits of Tiran and the Suez Canal.  Once again Israel held off the Egyptians.  As a result of this war, a United Nations Emergency Force was placed in Sinai and Gaza to keep peace.  However, 11 years later, in May 1967, Egypt’s unpredictable dictator, Gamel Abdul Nasser, removed the United Nations forces and massed Egyptian troops in what had been a demilitarized Sinai.  Jordanian forces also began to gather in the West Bank, and Syrian forces were hunkered down here in the Golan Heights.  Other countries like Iraq also gathered airplanes for an attack.  In mid-May 1967, the Egyptians provoked an incident by shutting down the Straits of Tiran so that no ships could go to or from Eilat.  For several weeks, Israel worked with the United States to seek a diplomatic solution to this violation of international waters, such as having the United States and other countries send ships to Eilat.  But the international community could not agree on any action.  And President Johnson would not publicly assure Israel that the U.S. would defend it.

On the morning of June 5, 1967, fearing an Egyptian attack, and believing they could prevail quickly if they struck first, Israeli Defense Forces bombed the Egyptian air force in Sinai and eastern Egypt.  They decimated the Egyptian airfields and airplanes within an hour, and Israeli troops then invaded Sinai on the ground.  In the first few days of the war, the Israelis advanced in Sinai more quickly than anyone had expected.  The Egyptian commander, ‘Amer, and his generals, decided that, in order to retain their national pride, they would tell their citizens that Egypt was winning the war, destroying the Israeli air force, and advancing on Israeli cities.  They also claimed that Israel’s attack on their air fields resulted from British and American intervention and aid to Israel.  This accusation became known as the “Big Lie” during the course of the next few days.  Nasser’s generals also were too scared of Nasser to inform him of their increasing losses.  The success of the Israeli forces exceeded all expectations, and they pushed within three days to the Suez Canal, crushing the Egyptian military.

Meanwhile, in the West Bank border, the Israeli government was concerned about the international backlash if it attacked West Bank cities and East Jerusalem.   Jordan, however, had entered a treaty with Egypt, and with the Egyptian government’s false reports of early victories, King Hussein did not want to be accused by Arab countries of not supporting the war effort, so Jordan entered the fray.  With the Sinai campaign going better than expected, Israeli opened a full-blown front on the second day with Jordan.  Casualties were greater on this front for both sides, but Israeli airplanes again dominated the skies, bombing Jordanian tanks and positions.  Israel’s goal was to capture the rest of Jerusalem and the Biblical cities of Bethlehem and Hebron.  By the fourth day, after intense fighting, the Jordanians were defeated and Israel controlled all land up to the west bank of the Jordan River.

In the last two days, Israel opened up its campaign against Syria.  During the first four days of the war, Syrian gunners on the Golan Heights had bombarded Israeli farmers.  Moshe Dayan, the Israeli defense minister, opposed attacking the Syrians because he did not want a third front.  By Day 4, with the Sinai campaign and Jordanian front under control, and with Israeli farmers complaining about the bombardment, Dayan gave the order to attack, and within two days Israel captured the Golan Heights.

Starting on the third day of the war, when the Egyptians could no longer deny their losses, the U.N. started to talk about a cease-fire.  The Arab countries and Israel were aware that new borders would be drawn based on where the Israelis had advanced when a cease-fire was agreed to.  Beaten badly, the Egyptians were the first to agree to a cease-fire, and the Jordanians and Syrians followed, hoping not to lose more territory.

The war had both positive and negative effects on Israel and its Arab neighbors.  On the one hand, there were significant benefits to Israel from the territory captured in war.  Israel had captured the West Bank, Gaza, Sinai, and the Golan Heights.   It had more than doubled its size and it now had buffers separating it from the Arab countries, which gave it more security.  Israel understood that the gains in territory could be later traded for peace and recognition.  That is what occurred in 1979 when Israel traded Sinai back to Egypt.

On the other hand, millions of Arabs, Palestinians, and other non-Jewish people were now under Israel’s control.  As political analyst Thomas Friedman wrote in his book, From Beirut to Jerusalem, Israel had to decide between being a Jewish state, a democracy, and an occupying power.  With the new Arabs under its control, Israel could not be all three.  In the past 45 years, Israel has had to decide whether to give the new Arabs under its control basic rights, like the right to vote, or whether Israel should still be a democracy.  The dilemma created by Israel’s victory in the Six Day War continues today. 

The Six Day War also affected Zionism and Jews’ view of the State of Israel.  Israel’s rapid military domination united Jews across the world and made it clear that Israel was a country that would not disappear.  With a strong and permanent State of Israel, Judaism became not just a religion, but a community with its own country.  Our connection to Israel, knowing that it is a country we can always move to, is now as big a part of being Jewish as the customs and prayers.

The Six Day War also helps us understand the problems and possible dangers of what is occurring today around the world.  Nasser provoked the Six Day War – he closed the Straits of Tiran, blockaded Eilat, removed the U.N. Peacekeeping Force from Sinai and Gaza, massed troops in Sinai, and coordinated the war build-up with Jordan, Syria, and Iraq.  But Nasser did not want to fire the first shot.  He believed that if Israel fired first, the international community would condemn Israel and that the Soviet Union would enter the war on Egypt’s side.  Nasser seriously miscalculated.  We can learn lessons from this.  This same type of problem might be occurring with Iran today.  Iran is possibly trying to provoke Israel to preemptively strike it in order to turn world opinion against Israel.  The Six Day War shows how it is not always easy to figure out your enemy’s plans and what it is thinking.  The Six Day War also demonstrates that while it may be a good military choice to attack first if you believe a country is a serious threat to your existence, you will live with the results – both good and bad – for years to come.

Finally, a few thank yous:

First, I would like to thank Rabbi Roos for leading this trip.

Second, I would like to thank my parents for taking me to Israel and giving me such a great experience, and my sister Rachel for putting up with my practicing my Torah portion and prayers outside her room constantly.

Third, thanks to everyone here for sharing this trip with me and for listening to my speech no matter how tedious and boring it may sound!

Last, I would like to thank my tutor, Ronny Tabeka for teaching me my Torah and all the prayers.  I would never have been able to do this without him!

For more information on the Six Day War, Daniel recommends Michael Oren's book, Six Days of War.

"This is Not The Best Place"

It's been a full day - leaving Tel Aviv, exploring Caesarea and discussing so much there, lunch at Aroma Cafe, seeing Haifa and driving to Kibbutz Kfar Blum, wedged into the northeastern corner of Israel between The Golan Heights and Lebanon. The bus conversation is as stimulating and educational as the sites we stop to see.  Today on the bus we covered: Housing and Land ownership in Israel, Adapting Biblical Laws to Modern Israel (with a focus on Jubilee and Sabbatical Year Laws), Israeli organized crime families, the Israeli Social Protest movement, Energy policies and natural gas, the fragile eco-system of the Hula Valley and attempts to restore balance there, Ikea, and a thousand other topics.

The best part of the day was Yemin Orde Youth Village, a place that (ironically) tells each of its resident students, "This is not the best place to be."  It is a residential educational, counseling and training campus located on a hilltop outside Haifa.  They house and serve about 500 students, mostly high school aged but some younger, who come mainly from immigrant families.  The bulk of the population are from Ethiopan, Russian and FSU families with very serious challenges. The place was founded and operates on the principle that no Jewish child should be abandoned, left to suffer or be deprived the opportunity for a good, safe, productive life.  They give their residents hope, skills and the understanding that they can and should change the world to make it better.  They focus on Tikkun Ha-Lev (repairing the hearts of the child) and Tikkun Olan (teaching the children to repair the world).  The story of Bat-El, one of the counselors who gave us a tour, is a gripping story about Zionism and the will of the Jewish State to protect Jewish people no matter how far or foreign they are, give them a home and help them to thrive. It's a story about family struggles, aliyah, Jewish identity, unlikely friendship and love, personal rediscovery and the important, powerful role that the American Jewish community can play in developing Judaism everywhere. Sounds ridiculously overstated? Too Broadway? You can't make this stuff up. It was truly incredible.

See more photos from the Northern Leg of our Adventure here.

New Photos!!

Click here: https://picasaweb.google.com/RabbiRoos/SinaiIsraelTrip2012?authuser=0&feat=directlink

or watch it here:

The Jewish Way: Lessons from Tel Aviv

When Itzik, the tour guide at Israel's Independence Hall, noticed some people shivering and whispering underneath the A/C vent during his talk, he knew they were uncomfortably cold and made a little joke.  He invited them to move to a different spot or to respond "In the Traditional Jewish Way," which he explained was to suffer and accept it while murmuring to ourselves.

In reality, we learned throughout the day, the real "Jewish Way" is best exemplified by Tel Aviv and what happened here on May 14, 1948.  At every turn, those involved with the Declaration of Independence made pragmatic choices to best serve the end goal.  They overcame obstacles and never let inflexible commitment to traditions or grand plans stop them.  There was fear of an air attack so they held the ceremony in a safe room partially underground.  There was only about a day's notice to prepare the room and no budget, so the building superintendent borrowed chairs from the cafes in the surrounding neighborhood and convinced a recording studio to lend them sound equipment in exchange for advertising space on the mic stand. Jerusalem was the biblical and eternal capital of the Jewish world, the natural place for such an event, but the siege of the city blocked the leaders from the ancient city. Tel Aviv would have to do.  The text of the Declaration had been finalized only an hour before the ceremony so the signers affixed their names to a blank piece of parchment with the declaration text on white paper clipped to the top.  The calligraphy script was added later above the signatures.  The Jewish Way was not and is not to suffer quietly, to accept our lot and to murmur only amongst ourselves.  The Jewish Way is to overcome obstacles, to embrace flexibility, and to get it done.


Tonight we join with the Israeli Reform Congregation Beit Daniel for services and dinner at their Jaffa Center - Mishkenot Ruth Daniel. We will be meeting with Rabbi Talia Avnon Beniste and Rabbi Meir Azari before the services to learn about the work of the Reform Movement in Israel and the struggle for religious pluralism here.


Shabbat shalom,

Israel Likes Potatoes

As much as I think I know Israel, it only takes a few hours to remind me how much I really don’t.  Sure, there’s always a Hebrew conversation that I start with a taxi driver that quickly hits the wall as I am unable to keep up with almost any response to my opening.  But there’s more than the slipped up Hebrew.  On this trip, for example, I already have a new sense of the potato in Israeli dining.  Sure, the potato seems insignificant compared to the question of deporting illegal African residents from Tel Aviv or the impact of the Egyptian election on Camp David.  But it was over the potato – twice in twenty four hours – that Israelis and I had the most interesting exchanges.

On the menu at last night’s dinner was “Mediterranean Salad,” which was described as “Hot whole potato,” served atop chopped salad. It didn’t seem right. What was “Mediterranean” about a whole hot potato? And featured on an entrée salad? Like chicken on a Caesar? Who does that? Schooled in textual analysis, I checked the Hebrew side of the menu for a possible mistranslation and then asked our waitress. Not sure what our question was really about, Etti ultimately told us that she had never actually seen one of these salads.  Mysterious, no?  I ordered one and it was, in fact, a giant bowl of chopped Israeli salad with a big scoop of labaneh in the middle of it and a fist of steaming, peeled potato placed on top of the labaneh and sprinkled with zatar. In my family we call this kind of previously undiscovered yet delicious food combination an act of “food genius.”

This seemed to confuse the waitress even further who said flatly, “In Israel…. many people…. like potatoes.”

Maybe something was lost in translation.  Maybe she meant nothing by it.  But I sensed that, over this potato, I had come to be seen as one who knew almost nothing about Israel.  Or perhaps worse, I was an uncivilized idiot who didn’t even grasp how commonly used was this most popular spud. I tried to walk back the cat but it was done.  Etti had hit the nail on the head.  No matter how much I read, engaged Israel and lead groups of people here, nothing compares with living here to understand what this place is really like. It’s likely too late for me, but you never know. Even coming here almost yearly, it turns out there’s a lot for me yet to learn and there’s still reason to say at the seder, “Next Year in Jerusalem….  And would you please pass the potatoes.”

Wish You Were Here: Photos from Israel

Photos will be posted here on a Picasa photo album on a regular basis.

Sinai Israel Trip 2012

Lifting Sinai

"Moses led the people out of the camp toward God and they took their places beneath the mountain," (Exodus 19:17).  When the Torah describes the scene at Mount Sinai with that verse, it says that the Israelites stood "b'tachtit ha-har" usually translated, "at the foot (or the base) of the mountain."  The Talmud, however, translates it as "beneath" and imagines something radical:

'...they took their places b'tachit ha-har (beneath the mountain).' Rabbi Avdimi b. Hama b. Hasa said: this teaches that the Holy One held the mountain over them like an overturned tub and told them: 'If you accept the Torah - well and good; otherwise, you will be buried here.' (BT Shabbat 88a)

It's a radical understanding of the covenant in that talmudic rabbis understood that any contract made under duress was invalid.  Reading the verse in the same way, we can imagine a different implication of why we were beneath the mountain. The Torah says we stood there (vayityatzvu), consciously and purposefully "taking our places."  We positioned ourselves beneath the mountain for one reason: to lift it up.  There is no such thing as "cheap grace" in Judaism.  Like Nachson entering the waters of the Sea of Reeds, we must take the first steps and we must work to bring about the covenant and the world we envision. We stood beneath Sinai because somebody needed to lift it up.  The call hasn't changed since then. We need to take our positions beneath Sinai - literally and metaphorically - because somebody needs to lift it up.

This blog will feature stories from and about Sinai, starting with our congregational family trip to Israel.  Please share it with your friends and anyone who may be interested in helping out with the heavy lifting.  Your comments, feedback and guest posts are welcome!