Mah Tovu

An Extraordinary Bar Mitzvah in Germany, and Impressions of Prague

2011-08-13T05:00:00.000-07:00

An Extraordinary Bar Mitzvah in Germany

Dear Friends,

I am in the midst of a brief but deeply moving and fascinating trip to Germany and the Czech Republic, and I want to share some of my experiences and observations with you all. This post is fairly long, so please take your time, and I hope you find it worthwhile.

The purpose of this 5-day jaunt to Europe was to officiate as Solomon Bloch, son of Gale Wolfe and Dr. Dean Bloch, became a Bar Mitzvah this past Shabbat. Solomon chanted from the Torah in the restored synagogue in the picturesque village of Floss, Germany. Floss was the hometown of Solomon’s Opa (grandfather) David Bloch, of blessed memory. David became a Bar Mitzvah in that same synagogue in 1923. The last Bar Mitzvah to take place in that sanctuary was that of a Bloch cousin, Willy Ansbacher, in 1933. The synagogue, built in 1815 after the previous synagogue burned down, was ransacked and scorched on the night of November 9, 1938, when across Germany thousands of synagogues and Jewish businesses and schools were destroyed in a government-sponsored pogrom that became known as Kristallnacht, the Night of Broken Glass. The Floss synagogue remained desolate until the official Jewish community of the wider region took on its restoration in the 1970’s and again just a few years ago. The synagogue is beautiful, with a high vaulted ceiling painted blue and covered with stars. The original, large granite stones that make up the floor guarantee cool temperatures. A museum display in the women’s balcony remembers the Jewish girls’ school that thrived nearby until the Holocaust. But the synagogue is mute – there are no longer any Jews to fill it. This past Shabbat Solomon became the first Bar Mitzvah in Floss in 78 years. There is much to tell, and with Solomon’s and his parents Dean and Gale’s permission, I will share some of this many-layered story with you now.

David Bloch was born in 1910 in Floss. His family had lived, worked and prayed in Floss for several generations. The Jews were restricted to the Jewish part of town up the hill from the river, while the Christian residents lived down by the river. By David’s time there were about 400 Jews in a town of perhaps a couple of thousand.

David Bloch’s life has an epic quality to it, both as a personal story and as a story emblematic of European Jewry’s desperate and chance–driven scramble to survive the Nazi era. Even after all the history and personal accounts that I have read and heard about the Third Reich and the Holocaust, it remains difficult for me to grasp the insane terror of that regime. David was a man of great resilience, physical strength, and love of life, qualities that would serve him well on his journeys. I am fortunate to have gotten to know him a bit during his last years, and I can attest that he always had a twinkle in his eye, even in very old age.

David lost his hearing in infancy, and his parents died shortly thereafter. His maternal grandparents raised David, but he spent much of his youth away at boarding schools for the deaf, where he learned to sign and to read lips. David was a gifted artist, and art was his calling. In 1938 David was rounded up and sent to Dachau. One night he had a dream that he was being released, and the next day he indeed was freed from the camp, thanks to the efforts of an older half-brother. But David was now one of the hunted, and just before the jaws of the Nazi machine closed the gates of Europe, David bundled up his canvases and paints and brushes and he ran. He didn’t have the money or the papers that could get him to the States, so he traveled overland down to Venice and grabbed the last boat to…China. Through the Suez Canal (during Passover, as he would later recall), around the horn of Africa, and finally to Shanghai, David escaped with his life.

Shanghai was (as it still is) a freewheeling, business oriented port city, and a Jewish community was well established there. As Jewish refugees from Europe began arriving in Shanghai, the Shanghai Jews assisted as many of them as possible. David settled in Shanghai, painting and etching, managing fairly well on $10 a month from his American cousin. At the deaf club in Shanghai David met Lily (of blessed memory), a stunning girl from a property-owning Chinese family. They married. But as the Communist revolution in China gained strength, David once again had to run. After a long, long wait for a visa, David sailed in 1949 for San Francisco, and six months later Lily managed to follow. They continued east and settled in Mount Vernon, New York, where Lily converted to Judaism. Dean and his brother Daniel (of blessed memory) were born and raised there.

In 1977, after 40 years away, David decided to journey back to Floss. In Floss an old Christian acquaintance recognized David, astonished to see him alive. That acquaintance was the uncle of the daughter that David did not know he had. It turns out that when David was forced to begin his life on the run, he left behind in Floss a Christian girlfriend who was carrying his child. This woman gave birth in 1938 to Lydia, David’s daughter. According to the notorious Nuremberg Laws passed in 1935, Lydia had Jewish blood and was therefore Jewish. Desperate to conceal Lydia’s Jewish heritage, her mother hastily married a German Christian, and gave Lydia his last name. But Lydia had always wondered about her actual father. By 1977 Lydia’s parents were both gone, and when her uncle told her that David Bloch was alive, Lydia knew that she must meet him. And so it was in 1985 that Dean found himself sitting at the kitchen table in Mount Vernon across from Lydia Abel, who explained to him that she was the sister he never knew he had. Lydia met her father David when she was 50 and he was 75, and David welcomed her, as was his nature. David and Dean and Dean’s family subsequently made many trips to Germany to visit their new found family, Lydia, her husband Willy, their son Rainer and his four children. These trips included a number of visits to Floss, where David would show his childhood haunts. When David passed away in 2002, Lydia, a committed Christian, moved bureaucratic mountains so that a stone could be placed for him next to his parents and grandparents in the old and jumbled Jewish cemetery in Floss.

A couple of years ago, Dean suggested to Solomon that perhaps Solomon could have his Bar Mitzvah in Floss. Solomon was game. Thanks to Dean and Gale and especially cousin Rainer’s persistence in making arrangements all of our paths converged in Germany this past week.

I landed in Nuremberg on Friday, where Lydia lives. My overwhelming associations with Nuremberg are related to the Third Reich. Nuremberg was the city selected by Hitler for enormous annual nationwide rallies of the Nazi Party; Der Sturmer, the most hateful and damaging anti-Semitic newspaper, was published in Nuremberg as the organ of the Nazi party beginning in 1923; The infamous 1935 Nuremberg Laws that I mentioned above made into law the pseudo-scientific concept of German “blood”, and thereby stripped Jews (and other groups) of their German citizenship and all legal rights; and of course the Nuremberg Trials, at which the Allies tried many of the Nazi leaders after the war. The Americans insisted on Nuremberg as the site for the trials because of Nuremberg’s notorious importance in Nazi party history. (And those trials set the precedent for the expectation that any national leader can be tried for crimes against humanity.)

So, I landed in Nuremberg filled with these gruesome thoughts, and forced myself back into the present, to see what I might see. I have found in my recent trips to Germany and Austria that this internal wrestle between the past and the present is both unavoidable and necessary for me, and I am learning a great deal as I travel. Dean met me at the airport and we took a quick metro ride to meet Lydia and Willy at their simple home, along with Rainer and his twins Jan and Tim. Jan and Tim were immersed in iPads and ice cream cones with their Bloch cousins Simon, Sid, Solomon and Sadie. We piled into vans and cars and drove to Weiden, a town near Floss, which had the nearest hotel. Weiden is in the heart of Bavaria and has a well-preserved, lively and incredibly picturesque medieval city center. Beer, bread and meat appear to be the staple of the Bavarian diet. We enjoyed our evening there, and in the morning we made the short drive to Floss.

The Burgermeister (mayor) of Floss met us in front of the synagogue. A burly, friendly man, born and raised in Floss, he was tremendously proud of his village. As the keeper of the synagogue key, he let us in, and we quietly took in the beautiful sanctuary. Everything in this 200 year old building is intact and in excellent repair, but there is of course no Torah scroll in the ark. I had brought a miniature Torah with me in my suitcase, which, though not “kosher”, would have to suffice. I had prepared a short service on photocopies which I distributed to the assembled: the Blochs, their cousins the Abels, Steve Bock and his daughter Isabel, who had taken this journey with the Bloch family, the Burgermeister and his wife, and several other townspeople in attendance. Rainer translated my explanations of the service into German so that everyone could participate. We were short of a minyan, but I decided to bend the rules, given that we had made it this far. And then I sang. The acoustics of the room were magnificent. I had no idea how long it had been since Hebrew chant and davenning had filled that space, so I lifted my voice to the heavens and made certain to let the sounds ring and linger. Solomon chanted the beginning of Devarim, Deuteronomy, from the little scroll: “When you sit in judgment, hear out every person fairly, whether they be rich or poor, Israelite or stranger…” These were good words from Moses to fill the void that the Nazis created when they murdered and expelled the Jews from Floss and the rest of Europe. We recited kaddish in memory of all the Jews of Floss who were murdered during the Shoah (Holocaust), and then I concluded the service with two songs: “Gesher Tzar Meod” – “The entire world is a very narrow bridge, and it is essential not to be stopped by fear” – and “Ani Maamin” – “I believe with all my heart that an era of peace and justice will come, and even if that time is delayed, I still believe”. As you may know, many Jews sang that declaration of faith even as they walked to the gas chambers. One might say that to be a Jew is to still believe, despite everything, that humanity can rise up to its highest potential.

The Burgermeister and his wife seemed deeply and genuinely moved by the ceremony, and I embraced them both. The Burgermeister then led us to the Rathaus, the Town Hall, where he spoke with pride about his town, about Floss’ huge investment in photovoltaic solar panels and wind generators. He presented a specially minted silver coin to Solomon, along with a brief testimonial. And then he showed us a very large, gorgeous, panoramic painting of Floss hanging on the wall, and directed us to the signature: David Ludwig Bloch, 1976. Dean and Gale had never seen this painting, did not even know of its existence, even though it had been hanging in the Floss city hall for more than 30 years. Lydia excitedly explained: her father David had begun this canvas while still living in Floss in the 1930’s. He had rolled it up and carried it with him to Venice, to Shanghai, to San Francisco and to New York. Somehow David Bloch hung on to that canvas. He only completed it in 1976, and when he first returned to Floss, he presented it to the town. It has hung in the Town Hall ever since. That canvas of David Bloch’s hometown had literally traveled around the world with him, as he sought a home. Now his children and grandchildren, all standing together, had seen it, and another journey was complete.

For our final stop, the Burgermeister led us to the unused Jewish cemetery, more than 400 old gravestones climbing a steep slope. We scrambled up to the very top row, where we found David Bloch’s small marker. Near it stood the grave of Simon Bloch, David Bloch’s father, for whom Gale and Dean’s first-born Simon is named. I honor Dean and Gale for their huge commitment and effort to connect their children with their Jewish past. I don’t know who the next person will be to visit that cemetery, or when, but we left stones on the graves to say, “we were here”. And that means the world to me: even though a huge swath of our people and our culture was obliterated, we Jews are still here to remember our dead and honor their lives. We are still here, filling that old synagogue with life. We Jews are still here.

Impressions of Prague

Prague is just a 2-hour drive from Floss, which lies near the Czech border, and I accompanied the Blochs and the Bocks for a couple of days of exploring this vibrant city. Prague is a wonder. As I begin this piece, it is early evening and I am sitting on an island in the middle of the Vltava River, looking out at the splendid, bustling city of Prague, capital of the Czech Republic. I have spent the day wandering through the city, taking in as many sights as I was able: the Prague Castle with its colossal St. Vitus cathedral, the Strahus Monastery with its 800 year old library; Petrin Park, a hilltop park created for the 1891 world exposition, replete with an Eiffel-esque tower, a house of mirrors, families strolling the paths and young lovers embracing on the lawns; the enormous medieval “astronomical clock” in the old main square, with its mechanical whirring figures and bells and crowing rooster all announcing the hour. Just now a rain shower has sent me under a café umbrella, where I seek refuge with other strollers. The sounds of a band playing Beatles’ covers on the far riverbank float past my ears. Around me spreads a cityscape covering the past millennium: castles and cathedrals, footbridges lined with baroque statues, spires and impossibly steep towers topped with flags, cobblestoned squares, and the “New Town”: grand 19^th century Parisian streets and buildings punctuated by the curving façade of a Frank Gehry creation, all mingling in a glorious architectural cacophony.

My fundamental “American-ness” is showing: my only reference points for this sight are Disneyland’s Magic Kingdom and, more recently, Harry Potter movies. But Prague is not a theme park or a movie set; Prague is real. Somehow this great European city has survived fundamentally intact for 1,000 years, all the more remarkable after the massive destruction of two World Wars and then 40 years of Communist neglect. I understand that when Czech students toppled the Communist regime with their “Velvet Revolution” in 1989, Prague was in a state of terrible disrepair. But the coming of freedom unleashed a torrent of energy to repair and remake this amazing city, and today Prague stands clean and functioning and proud, catering to masses of tourists, young people and artists from all over the world who fill her streets and squares with energy day and night. How magnificent that Prague has survived.

Because Prague survived, its ancient Jewish Quarter survived as well, and this makes Prague a unique repository of European Jewish history. The survival of the Jewish Quarter is perverse: even though Hitler eliminated the Jews of Prague, whose history in this city also dates back 1,000 years, he apparently planned to preserve the Jewish Quarter as a museum, depicting the “History of The Extinct Jewish Race”. Jewish ceremonial objects that had been confiscated from all over Czechoslovakia were catalogued and stored in the now vacant synagogues, and thus survived the war. The Communist regime that followed certainly was not interested in highlighting the history of the Jews, but since 1989 the remaining Jews of the Czech Republic, with local and international help, have poured their resources into restoring the history and the architecture of the famed Jewish Quarter of Prague. The quarter is now a truly unique extended museum of Jewish history and life. Here one encounters the oldest synagogue in Europe, the Altneushul, in continual use since the 13^th century. One walks through the Jewish cemetery, an impossible jumble of gravestones (it must be seen to be fully appreciated) where Jews were buried for centuries. Here one encounters the traces of the 16^th century Maharal, Rabbi Judah Loewe of Prague, leader of the Jewish community and reputed creator of the Golem, the clay creature brought to life by the Maharal’s esoteric wisdom, who is said to have protected the Jews of Prague. And here one walks in the footsteps of Franz Kafka, who spent most of his life in this Jewish Quarter, and is emblematic of the great intellectual and artistic impact the Czech Jews had during the late 19^th and early 20^th century heyday of Prague as the European center of the avant-garde. The Pinkas synagogue now stands as a memorial to the Czech Jewish victims of the Holocaust; the synagogue walls are everywhere covered with names, the names of every victim who has been identified. Upstairs in the Pinkas Synagogue is a heart-wrenching exhibit of the artwork of Jewish children made during their stay in Terezin. Terezin (also called Terezienstadt) was the “model” concentration camp near Prague that the Nazis created in order to show foreign visitors that the Jews were being treated well in captivity and were permitted to engage in educational and cultural pursuits. Most of the Jews of Czechoslovakia passed through Terezin on the way to their deaths. The Spanish synagogue and the Maisel synagogue are now museums of the history of the Jews of the region, from the 10^th century to the present. The communal funeral building depicts in wonderful detail the work of the Chevra Kadisha, the burial society that cared for the dead and maintained the cemetery through the centuries.

My visit was powerful, enlightening, and very moving – the Jewish Quarter is a treasure. Just as I felt in Floss, however, there is everywhere the deep sense of absence: the Jewish community being remembered is gone, destroyed. What can we say? Words simply cannot encompass the tragedy. But the act of remembering these Jewish communities is an act of survival and healing. As we Jews refuse to sacrifice our past to the monstrous forces of obliteration, we retain the threads of connection that keep our culture alive. I cherish the Jewish commitment to remembering and passing on our story. Ever since the Torah commanded us, “And when your child asks you, ‘what is the meaning of this Passover ritual’, you shall tell them how we were rescued from slavery in Egypt”, we Jews have been committed to transmitting our collective memory from generation to generation. This commitment can be obsessive at times, and a burden as well, but it is our affirmation of the life of our people, a life that is worth preserving and passing on.

Because of that stubborn commitment of ours, the Jewish Quarter of Prague that Hitler intended to be a museum of the “History of The Extinct Jewish Race” is instead our museum, a museum of the living memories of the Jewish People. I hope each of you has the opportunity to visit one day.

Shalom,

Rabbi Jonathan Kligler

On the Egyptian Uprising

2011-04-02T19:41:00.000-07:00

(This piece appeared in the Woodstock Jewish Congregation newsletter last month. It is therefore dated, but still relevant. -JK)

Dear Friends,

As I write these words in early February there is one story dominating the airwaves around the world. The people of Egypt have risen up against their authoritarian government. The situation changes every day, and I am certain that by the time you read these words many more dramatic changes will have taken place in Egypt and around North Africa and the Middle East. I am amazed by the power of the Internet and satellite television and cell phones to circumvent centralized control of information and to galvanize popular uprisings against authoritarian regimes. In certain ways the “information age” in which we live is truly revolutionary, and it is still only in its infancy.

From the Jewish perspective, there are two subjects, one political and one religious, which I wish to raise in relation to the current tumult in Egypt. The political issue, of course, is what impact these sweeping changes in the Arab world will have on Israel. Israel has maintained a peace agreement, however lukewarm that agreement might be, with Egypt since the Camp David Accords of 1978. That means that for the past 30 years Israel has done business with Hosni Mubarak, Egypt’s de facto dictator. Mubarak has maintained control of Egypt by running a police state and by brutally suppressing dissent, and Egyptians cannot wait to see him go. Now that Mubarak is or will soon be gone, who will emerge as the new leadership in Egypt and what form of government will they espouse? Will this new leadership choose to continue the current relationship with Israel? As part of the backlash in Egypt against Mubarak, Israel may very likely find itself demonized even further in Egypt than it is today. And how might this wave of popular uprisings across the Arab world affect international recognition for Palestinian national aspirations? I wonder if we will see a continuing acceleration of nations recognizing Palestine as a sovereign nation. Is their any way for Israel to be diplomatically nimble enough to ride this tidal wave of change in the region, or should Israel only brace itself as it waits for the worst? I wish I knew. (And if I did know, I wish everyone would listen to me!)

The Jewish religious perspective directs us toward Passover, coming soon, and to the story of Pharaoh’s unwillingness to free his slaves. As Rabbi Arthur Waskow writes: “This story is not just an antiquarian tale. It is an archetypal vision of what happens, again and again, when top-down tyranny becomes addicted to its own power, at first unwilling and then unable to change.” Our archetypal liberation struggle is set in ancient Egypt, but its actual setting is wherever power is abused. Ironically, the President of modern-day Egypt, Hosni Mubarak, is now in the spotlight as the Pharaoh of the moment. Rabbi Waskow continues, “We have seen hundreds of thousands of Egyptians face down their own modern Pharaoh - dictatorial, repressive, and corrupt.” At Passover each year we reaffirm our ancient faith that tyranny will ultimately crumble, and that repression of the human spirit will always ultimately be overturned.

Israel is also party to repression, as it seeks to control the Palestinian population under Israeli occupation. Israel is also guilty of Pharaoh-like behavior. Of course, Israel has real and dangerous enemies, and, as they say, lives in a very bad neighborhood. But as Passover approaches, we Jews are asked to wrestle with the moral implications of the abuse of power, including our own complicity. As Jews, politics is both a strategic and a moral enterprise, and we must never lose sight of those twin goals. Otherwise, if the story of Passover is correct, and I believe it is, we may find ourselves one day staring as uncomprehendingly as Pharaoh at the ruins of our once great endeavors. I pray for the individual and collective wisdom to balance strategic security and moral purpose, so that we can ultimately always side with the cause of human dignity and freedom.

A Final Miracle in Tel Aviv

2011-01-17T09:41:00.000-08:00

Tel Aviv from Jaffa (Photo by Steve Pittelman)

Dear Friends,

Tel Aviv was the final stop on our tour. During the morning we visited the Jaffa Institute, an impressive non-profit organization that does its best to support at-risk youth, and poor and underserved populations in the greater Tel Aviv area. The Jaffa Institute’s spokesman was Mitch Chupak, a lovely man who, even though he has been an Israeli for almost 40 years, has a Bronx accent so pronounced that some expert could probably identify which block in the Bronx Mitch grew up on. We helped out by moving cartons of food that they were preparing for distribution to needy families.

We then enjoyed a lunch break in Jaffa. This ancient port commands a view northwards up the Mediterranean coast, taking in the sprawl and ever-heightening skyline of metropolitan Tel Aviv. Tel Aviv celebrated its 100^th anniversary in 2009; it was founded by Jewish pioneers who wanted to move out of the confines of Old Jaffa. There is a famous photograph of these founders standing on the sand dunes of their future city as they choose building plots by lottery. Today a metropolis covers every trace of those dunes.

Our next stop was Independence Hall. Israel’s Independence Hall occupies the former home of Meir Dizengoff, one of those founders standing in that 1909 photograph. Dizengoff was the first mayor of Tel Aviv. After his retirement, he donated his home to be the first art museum in this young city. On May 14, 1948, the art gallery was hastily transformed into a meeting hall. Standing at the podium that day, David Ben-Gurion announced the creation of the State of Israel. The Declaration of Independence was then signed in that room, which henceforth was known as Independence Hall. The museum guide set the stage for us, and we listened to the famous tape recording of David Ben-Gurion’s declaration, and then we all stood and sang with the scratchy recording of the assembly singing Hatikvah, the Israeli national anthem: “We have not lost our hope, our hope of 2000 years, to be a free people in our own land, the land of Zion and Jerusalem.” And despite all of the problems and dangers and uncertainties, here we are.

It was time for dinner before heading to the airport, but first we had an unplanned detour. One of our first-time Israel travelers, Kay Marmorek, knew that she had a prominent Zionist ancestor named Alexander Marmorek, who had a street named after him in Tel Aviv. We all agreed that we needed to find Marmorek Street so that Kay could get a photo of herself standing under the street sign. Marmorek Street, it turns out, is a major thoroughfare. Dudu found the first place where he could pull over without blocking traffic, and Kay grabbed Steve Pittelman and asked him to take her photo. They hopped off the bus. A minute later they climbed back on the bus…with Luke Brenowitz! Luke Brenowitz is the older son of Nathan Brenowitz and Laurie Schwartz, the founders of the Woodstock Jewish Congregation. Luke was the impetus for the founding of the WJC – his parents wanted a place in Woodstock where he could become Bar Mitzvah. Nathan and Laurie succeeded beyond their wildest dreams in imparting a Jewish identity to Luke. Luke recently finished his Masters in Middle Eastern Studies at Tel Aviv University, and is moving back to New York soon.

So, the miracle: out of every street in Tel Aviv, we were looking for Marmorek Street. Out of the full length of Marmorek Street, we pulled over in front of the café in which Luke was sitting. Out of the 30 people on the bus that Kay could have chosen, Luke would have recognized only 3, Steve and Elise Pittelman and myself. Kay chose Steve, who is a founding member of the congregation, and whom Luke has known his whole life. When Luke climbed on the bus, I hugged him and didn’t want to let him go. He felt to me like our lucky talisman, the embodiment of why the WJC came into being, fulfilled now on a street corner in Tel Aviv. As the Kabbalah teaches, everything is imbued with purpose; life is an unfolding tapestry, and each of our lives is a purposeful thread in the pattern. On Marmorek Street that evening we were graced with a glimpse of the Mystery that weaves our lives together. In that moment, at the culmination of our journey, the Woodstock Jewish Congregation and the Land of Israel twined together and our hearts were entwined as well.

Wishing you all miraculous moments,

Rabbi Jonathan Kligler

Around the Galilee: It's Complicated...

2011-01-17T09:32:00.000-08:00

Israeli soldiers thanking Faye "Toots" Pittelman, 94, for her many years supporting Israel (photo by Steve Pittelman)

Dudu

On our Israel tours a bus driver is assigned to us for the entire trip. Our driver this time was Dudu. Dudu was a tall, handsome and well-groomed man from a family of Kurdish Jews. Dudu possessed breathtaking skill at maneuvering a full-sized bus through streets that had never been intended for cars, let alone busses. What Dudu didn’t possess was the ability to ever acknowledge when he made a wrong turn or didn’t know where he was going. Dudu was one macho Israeli dude. The bus driver and the guide work as a team, and Aliza had her hands full with Dudu, but Aliza was tough. Since I sit in the front of the bus, I enjoyed listening to their spirited banter, glad that arguing with Dudu was not my job. Dudu was really tested as we climbed into the small mountaintop city of Ts’fat (Safed). Somehow he backed the bus up the winding alley to our hotel, and we settled in for the night.

Ts’fat: Painful Contradictions

The next morning, we wandered the alleyways of Ts’fat on foot. We began our day visiting the studio of Avraham Loewenthal, an artist originally from Detroit whose spiritual seeking led him to this holy Jewish city some years ago. Avraham is a sweet soul who is part of the community of artists and seekers that give Ts’fat its bohemian air – like Woodstock in certain ways, but where the spiritual tradition is Kabbalah, and where 400-year-old synagogues are named for the spiritual masters who once communed with the Infinite within their sanctuaries and out in the fields below the town. Avraham gave an excellent thumbnail introduction to Kabbalah: Kabbalah is the level of Judaism that sees Divine purpose in everyone and everything. From the limited perspective of each of our individual lives, this Divine purpose is mostly not apparent. But with practice we can become more adept at imagining and trusting the Divine perspective, and from that broadest (or deepest or most elevated) perspective, there is only God, animating reality at every moment. The faith and conviction of Jewish mysticism is that the infinite energy of Creation is love; God is a God of love. An inspiring piece of Avraham’s artwork will soon be hanging in our sanctuary. I’m really looking forward to having a bit of Ts’fat energy in our own synagogue.

Or am I? In addition to being a wellspring for the best of our religion, Ts’fat is also currently in the news as a source of the worst that Judaism has to offer. Ts’fat is home to the Ts’fat Academic College, a fast-growing regional college in the Galilee. The population of the Galilee is fairly evenly divided between Jewish and Arab citizens, and many Israeli Arabs travel from their villages to Ts’fat and enroll in the college, which boasts a very mixed student body. There is very little student housing at the college, so students look for apartments to rent. Recently Eli Tzvielli, an elderly Jewish man, rented a part of his house to three young Arab students. The chief rabbi of Ts’fat, Shmuel Eliyahu, happens to be Eli Tzvielli’s neighbor. In early December Rabbi Eliyahu published a religious ruling prohibiting the renting or selling of property to Arabs. His call was rapidly picked up by 47 other municipal chief rabbis who issued similar edicts in their small towns and suburbs around Israel. Not surprisingly, the religious rulings were justified by predictable expressions of racism, such as Arab men posing a “danger” to Jewish women. (Compare this, for example, to the rationale for the Jim Crow laws in the American South.) Israeli government officials’ response to this sickening course of events was tepid at best, and this lack of response predictably gave the green light for incidents of violence against Israeli Arabs around Israel, including in Ts’fat. In an encouraging response, more than 750 rabbis signed a petition circulated by Rabbis against Religious Discrimination that condemns the religious ruling. However, the ugly face of fear and racism in Israel had revealed itself, initiated from the traditionally holy city of Ts’fat. So which will it be: is our God a God of love or a God of hate? I know that it is up to us, not God, to answer that question.

On the Lebanese Border

Later that day we rode up to Kibbutz Malkiya, which hugs the hilly border with Lebanon. This is one of those scenes that will be difficult to convey in words, and why a visit to Israel is so worthwhile. The winter is quite chilly in these highlands. The fruit orchards and forested slopes of Kibbutz Malkiya extend right up to the border fence. In stark contrast the Lebanese side of the fence is a wide-open landscape, crosshatched with dormant opium fields. The drug trade is extremely strong in this weak and beleaguered country. The income from the cash crop of opium funds the various militias that vie for power in Lebanon. Among these groups is the Hezbollah, meaning the Party of God, who are sworn enemies of Israel. While the UN is theoretically in charge of the Lebanese territory adjacent to the border with Israel, the Hezbollah continues to arm itself with missiles in this region. Our group surveys the scene from next to an army pillbox that sits on a rise, from which we can see most of northern Israel, as well as a modest distance into southern Lebanon. We stand in full view of a concrete watchtower on the facing hilltop in Lebanon; the border is quiet these days, but always tense*.

We are here to meet some young Israeli soldiers who patrol the border. They roar up in their armored Humvees and are proud and eager to give us a demonstration. Removing their ammunition clips from their rifles, the soldiers act out an “action”, running, taking cover, and “firing” on the enemy. The entire scene makes me immediately queasy. I have never served in the army or even handled a rifle, and my entire life has been lived outside of any conflict zone. If I am to be honest with myself, I don’t even want to see this. Of course I understand and fully support Israel’s need for these boys to be ready to fight, and furthermore, we came to Israel to learn about the entire picture here, not just the feel-good moments. But that does not change my emotional reaction to the war game I just witnessed.

Fortunately, we now get to meet the unit. And fortunately, we have in our group our ambassador of good will, Faye Pittelman. Faye is 94, and is known to all as Toots. Toots is the oldest person I have ever traveled with, and the most consistently upbeat person I have ever met. Toots has no ambivalence about praising these soldiers. She thanks them eloquently, and they hug and kiss her. Toots explains that she has been working for the upbuilding of Eretz Yisrael for 80 years. 80 years! And now she sees her dream of a Jewish homeland realized, and she has brought her son Steve and daughter-in-law Elise, and her great granddaughter Rachel to see the dream come true. I say a prayer: Thank God for Toots.

I ask the soldiers to introduce themselves, and tell us from which countries their families originated: Latvia, France, Morocco, Kurdistan, Russia, Iraq… Israel truly is an ingathering of the exiles. There is also a Druze in the group. The Druze are a sect of Arabs who live in the region and practice their own religion. Druze who live in Israel regularly choose to serve in the armed forces. We then get to deliver our gifts, great quantities of chocolate and junk food, along with gloves and hats and t-shirts that our travelers had prepared for the soldiers. As night falls we are all mingling animatedly; I especially note the interest being paid by the soldiers to our wonderful contingent of teenage girls. Some things will never change.

*Lebanon’s recent history is extremely complex; just this week Hezbollah ministers abandoned the shaky governing coalition and brought down the Lebanese government. Israel has played a major role in some of Lebanon’s upheavals. It would require a detailed essay even to begin to do justice to the subject of Lebanon and Israel, and so I have chosen not to address the topic in this essay.

Masada

2011-01-17T09:23:00.000-08:00

Sunrise prayers on Masada (Photo by Steve Pittelman)

Dear Friends,

Wow. I am traveling with such a beautiful group of people, and we are having an extraordinary time together, even life changing for some of the participants. I hope some of you (all of you!) reading this missive will be able to join me on a future trip to Israel. I will describe some more of our experiences for you.

Yesterday was an exquisite marathon. We arose long before sunrise and rode the bus to the base of Masada. Masada is a flat-topped mountain on the edge of the Judean wilderness that overlooks the Dead Sea. The mighty and tyrannical King Herod built a magnificent desert refuge for himself on Masada (which means “fortress”) sometime towards the very end of the 1^st century B.C.E. In the year 70 C.E. about 900 Jews from Jerusalem took refuge there. They were fleeing Jerusalem, which had been destroyed by the Roman armies as they smashed the Jewish revolt. The fighters and refugees on Masada were the last holdouts in the revolt against Roma, and a Roman legion besieged the mountain for three years before finally breaching its defenses. According to the contemporaneous account of the writer Josephus, when the Romans gained the mountaintop they found that the Jewish zealots had committed mass suicide rather than have themselves and their children slaughtered or forced into slavery. The story of Masada was made famous by Yigal Yadin’s famous archaeological excavation in the early 1960’s. Because Masada is so inaccessible, and its climate so dry, much remained untouched from 2000 years ago, waiting to be discovered and reconstructed. Frescoes and bathhouses, massive water cisterns and grain storehouses, coins, weapons and written scrolls and clay shards all told a story that could be aligned with Josephus’ ancient account. Masada became a potent symbol for the young nation of Israel: never again would the Jewish People allow a Holocaust to be perpetrated against them. The Jewish People would fight.

We climbed to the top of a citadel and watched the sky brighten. At that early hour we had the place to ourselves, except for the fearless birds looking for crumbs of food. (I remember a few years ago on Masada one of those birds actually took a sandwich out of one of our traveler’s hands and flew off with it!) The view is spectacular: sandstone canyons all around, the Dead Sea below us, and beyond the water the mountains of Jordan. We did our Shacharit service at its intended time of dawn, and just as we completed the Shma Yisrael the sun burst forth on the eastern horizon. We watched in joy and awe, and each whispered his or her silent prayers.

By now, more groups had ascended, especially Bar and Bat Mitzvah groups. There is an ancient synagogue on Masada that has been partially reconstructed but left uncovered in this rain-free environment. Many families, especially from the United States, make the arduous trip to Israel and then to this desert fortress so that their child can be called up to the Torah on this site. We heard the sweet voices of 13 year olds chanting as our masterful guide Aliza guided us around the ruins. As we pondered the mass martyrdom of the Jews in the year 73 C.E., we reflected on the essential question of how the Jewish people have survived over the millennia. How do we decide when it is time to fight to the death, and when it is time to accommodate, to flee, to bend our heads and capitulate? We prayed for ourselves and for Israel to have the wisdom to be able to discern when it is time to swim against the current, and when it is time to let the current take us.

We descended Masada and visited the ancient oasis of Ein Gedi, a canyon of incredible beauty where fresh water springs bound down waterfalls and pools on their way to the Dead Sea. Then, of course, it was time to take a float in the Dead Sea. By now we were exhausted, and many slept as the bus took us all the way north to the mountaintop town of Tzfat.

Today we toured the Northern Galilee. Instead of sandstone canyons and salt seas, the mountains are rolling and green and the fresh water Sea of Galilee can be seen far below. Tzfat is one the most important centers of Jewish spiritual teachings in the world. In the 16^th century Jewish refugees who had been forced out of Spain by the Inquisition made their way to this town, as they spread out through the Ottoman Empire. The great spiritual master Rabbi Isaac Luria settled in Tzfat and a circle of disciples gathered around him. Here Kabbalah blossomed, and Isaac Luria’s mystical teachings and practices spread throughout the Jewish world. Here Rabbi Joseph Karo composed the Shulchan Aruch, the guide to Jewish conduct that has ever since been the standard for traditional Jewish practice. The stones of Tzfat hold their energy.

Of course there is much more to report, but my free time is very limited on this exciting and packed trip. I want to tell you about our moving and complicated visit with young Israeli soldiers on the Lebanese border, but that will have to wait for my next little window of time. Until then, I send you all my very best,

Rabbi Jonathan Kligler

Heading South

2011-01-17T07:39:00.000-08:00

"Dig For a Day" (Photo by Steve Pittelman)

Dear Friends,

I write this evening from my hotel room in the desert town of Arad. We will be rising at 4:15 in the morning tomorrow in order to ride the bus down to Masada, and plan to climb to the top in time to witness the sunrise.

This has been a magnificent and moving trip thus far. Our guide Aliza Avshalom is thoughtful, sensitive, and has an encyclopedic knowledge of both the ancient and the modern history of the region. Each of the participants in our group is having his or her own unique and profound experiences, and it is very moving to listen to them. We spent our first 4 days in Jerusalem, getting a crash course in the history and politics of that incomparable city. I will attempt to write more soon, but because I must get some sleep tonight I’ll just give an account of today’s activities.

We began with a briefing by an Israeli expert on security issues in the region. (At this late hour his name escapes me.) His report was grim: Iran’s growing influence and nuclear capabilities represent an existential threat to Israel, while the United States diminished influence in the region also contributes to growing instability. His assessment of the tribal and grudge-based politics of the Middle East rang true. He recommended that anyone interested in understanding the behind-the-scenes machinations of international relations in the Middle East read the Wikileaks documents pertaining to the Middle East.

By and large I trusted his assessment and agreed with most of it. The problem was that many of us felt bullied by his manner of presentation, and we felt frustrated by the lack of time for the promised question and answer period. We climbed onto the bus with a bad taste in our mouths, but to this group’s credit we discussed our thoughts and feelings on the bus in a measured and honest way, and were able to turn both our positive and negative reactions into good grist for the mill we are turning to process our experience of Israel.

The next stop provided the perfect antidote to the heaviness of the morning. We arrived at Bet Guvrin National Park, and participated in Dig For A Day, an opportunity to participate in an ongoing archaeological dig. Our guide was a young man who may be missing his calling as a stand-up comedian. We followed him down into one of the large, manmade limestone caves of this area, caves that are filled with artifacts from Tel Maresha, a large city that once flourished in the 2^nd century. Everyone received buckets and digging tools, and we began sifting the earth for treasures. The best finds were two beautifully glazed pieces of pottery that fit together, revealing a delicate handle of what once was a decorative bowl.

Our guide shared with us the greatest find yet made by one of their volunteer diggers. An inscribed stone tablet was uncovered that contains names that can be corroborated from the ancient Book of Maccabees: Antiochus IV and his tax collector Heliodes. This is the first external corroboration we have of the story of Chanukah, history brought to life by a volunteer digging in the dirt! As we left we were invited to grab a few pottery shards from a pile that were not of use to the archaeologists, and our guide suggested that next Chanukah we place these shards by our lighted menorahs and remember that we ourselves had dug up relics from the time of the Maccabees.

Following lunch we headed for our final activity of the day, a Bedouin “ranch” called Kfar Hanokdim. I have been here with WJC groups several times, including one memorable sleepover that doesn’t count as sleepover, since no one managed to sleep in the dusty, hot and well-lit tent in which we were supposed to spend the night. So this evening we only participated in the camel rides and Bedouin presentation and dinner, and then repaired to our comfy hotel. Our host was a Bedouin man with a Masters degree in ethnomusicology – not the “primitive” you might expect. I was particularly struck by our host’s description of traditional Bedouin life. They maintained wells that they dug throughout their very arid grazing territories, and they prize hospitality as a chief trait of their culture. They might as well have been describing the stories of Abraham and Sarah and Isaac and Rebecca. Abraham runs out to greet his visitors during the heat of day; Isaac digs anew the wells his father had dug, and Isaac’s shepherds get into disputes with neighboring clans over water rights. Truly, many of the customs of these indigenous shepherding nomads have not changed for thousand of years. Only now, with the advent of border fences, oil wells, and burgeoning populations across the Middle East the Bedouin are being forced to settle down, and their ancient nomadic lifestyle is approaching extinction.

I hear there is a snowstorm back home in the Hudson Valley – I hope all of you stay warm and safe, and enjoy the snow!

Shalom,

Rabbi Jonathan Kligler

Shabbat in Jerusalem

2011-01-17T07:23:00.000-08:00

A Shabbat Nap (Photo by Steve Pittelman)

(The following series of posts are a partial account of the Woodstock Jewish Congregation's most recent trip to Israel, December 21-31, 2010)

Having spent 3 intense days immersed in a crash course of Jerusalem’s past and present, I knew that Shabbat would be a special joy for our group. We gathered in the beautiful garden of our hotel as the sky darkened and we welcomed Shabbat with melodies and stillness. A long, cascading peal of church bells coming from the abbey on Mount Zion overwhelmed our silence: it was Christmas Eve! Then the muezzin’s call to prayer sounded from a nearby mosque. This is Jerusalem. We pulled our coats close around us; the increasing chill was worth enduring as we watched the stars emerge above us. I asked if anyone wished to reflect on his or her experience thus far. One by one people spoke about how moved they had felt since arriving in Israel, and tears would spring up and surprise the speaker: “I had no idea how deeply this place would touch me”; “I have never understood why being Jewish was so important to my mother until now”; “I’m so grateful to be here”. Shabbat had arrived at the perfect moment for our reflections, and we entered her gates gratefully.

The next morning I walked a good distance to Kehillat Mevakshei Derech, the original – and only – Reconstructionist synagogue in Israel. I was attending because Rabbi Jack Cohen was offering the D’var Torah (the sermon), and I wanted to pay my respects. Jack Cohen is 92 and slowing down after a hip fracture. He is a disciple of Mordechai Kaplan, colleague of Ira Eisenstein, and friend to many, including my parents. In 1960 Jack left his pulpit in New York and made aliyah to Jerusalem. For many years he led the Hillel at Hebrew University, and did groundbreaking work bringing Arab and Jewish students together. He also founded this congregation, which drew many academics and intellectuals into its ranks with its modern and intellectually rigorous approach to Judaism. For many years Mevakshei Derech was the only congregation in Jerusalem in which women and men participated equally, and most Israelis thought of it as simply bizarre. Today Mevakshei Derech belongs to the small but growing Movement for Progressive Judaism in Israel, and has some company.

I knew Jack was speaking because – and here is one of the reasons that being in Israel is so enjoyable for me – our youth guide on the tour was an enchanting young Israeli named Tamar Cohen, and she is Rabbi Jack Cohen’s granddaughter. Tamar’s close cousins are also dear old friends of mine. At the Kiddush I met Tamar’s mother who explained to me that she was a good friend of my sister-in-law Roberta, having been in the same class at Brandeis University. I like to say that I can’t even get to 6 degrees of separation in Israel – usually by the first or second degree we are already connected!

I walked back to the hotel to lead some Torah study with our group. We sat in the garden again, and we basked in the warm winter sunshine and in our good fortune to be able to enjoy it. The Torah portion was Sh’mot, the very beginning of the Book of Exodus. I explained that the Hebrew name of the Book, “Sh’mot”, means “Names”. The book begins with a listing of the names of the children of Jacob/Israel who had gone down to Egypt. And then a new Pharaoh arose who stripped them of their names, seeing them only as a teeming mass of potential danger and a swarm of potential forced labor. One’s name represents one’s irreducible and unique humanity, and by treating the Israelites as a nameless mass Pharaoh could in his own eyes strip them of that priceless value, and view them as mere utilities for his own gain. This is quite simply the dynamic of oppression. On Friday our group had visited Yad Vashem, Israel’s extraordinarily powerful national Holocaust memorial and museum. The Nazis had literally reduced the Jews to numbers, tattooed on their arms. Yad Vashem is on a quest to restore the names of the murdered dead; researchers have now identified 4,000,000 of the victims, and their records encircle the heartbreaking memorial room that one enters at the end of the museum. It is unlikely that every one of the six million will ever be identified, but the noble effort to restore each victim’s name continues. Here in Israel (along with everywhere in the world) the forces of fear and racism encourage Pharaoh-like behavior in all of us. Other groups get subsumed into mass identities: “Death to the Arabs” is now heard in extremist Israeli rhetoric, while “Death to the Jews” has long flourished in much of the Arab media and halls of power. I explained that in my opinion democracy, however flawed, is the best system we have created to insure that each person retains a name and is endowed with inalienable human rights. Democracy is designed to fulfill the Torah’s commandment that everyone be treated as a child of God, with dignity and respect. We Jews are not immune from becoming like Pharaoh. Israel’s democracy acts as a check against tyranny, insisting against great pressure that every citizen, Jew, Christian, or Moslem, must be treated as a full human being. And if you think that’s not hard enough, try doing it in the Middle East, where Israel is the only nation functioning as a democracy. (Remember the church bells and mosque call that I described the evening before? Israel is the only country in the Middle East that protects religious expression.) Now that the Jewish People have regained political power in Israel, we need to wield it wisely, so that we neither allow ourselves to ever again be reduced to nameless victims, nor ever become a Pharaoh to those under our control.

In the afternoon I went jogging. I jogged out to the Haas Promenade, a long ambling walkway with stunning views of the Old City of Jerusalem and its surrounding hills. Here I encountered another festival of impressions that make Jerusalem so fascinating. At the end of the Promenade I came to a beautiful overlook, and found myself catching my breath among an Israeli tour group. They were from a left-wing kibbutz near Be’er Sheva. Their guide was a very well spoken young Israeli man who is working for a solution to divide Jerusalem in an eventual two-state settlement. He laid out some of the well-known and reasonable proposals for sharing the city – but reasonableness has not been much in vogue for some time. Nonetheless, I enjoyed the interlude.

As I trotted back I came across several busloads of Nigerian tourists, Christians on their pilgrimage to the Holy Land. They were enjoying a picnic at another overlook. And then I passed three young women whose native country I could not guess. One of the women had a guitar, another was holding out a cell phone, and they were singing “Silent Night” into the cell phone at the top of their lungs. That made me smile.

I thought about all the Christian pilgrims in Jerusalem, following the footsteps of Jesus. And the Jewish pilgrims like our selves, tracking our sacred history among the ancient stones and walls of the Old City. And the Moslem worshippers, entering their holy mosques on the ancient Temple Mount, known to them as the Haram-al-Sharif, the Noble Sanctuary. Each of us walking in a different Jerusalem, our holy maps superimposed upon each other, crisscrossing and intersecting but never quite meeting. Earlier in the week our guide Aliza had taken us up a metal staircase to the rooftops of the old city, above the bustle of the shuk (market) below. From there we could see the highest spires, minarets and domes of the Old City, holy places all, crowded together in the one square kilometer contained within the ancient walls of Jerusalem. All those competing prayers rising up to the same heaven. The ancient Psalmist sings, and I still sing with him:

“I rejoiced when they said to me, let us journey to the house of YHVH!

Our feet would stand inside your gates, O Jerusalem,

Jerusalem, a city where all things converge…

Pray for the peace of Jerusalem, and may all who love you be at peace.

May there be peace within your ramparts, tranquility in your citadels.” (Ps. 122)

After sundown our group gathered one last time in the hotel garden to make Havdalah, and usher in the new week. Israel comes alive on Saturday night, and folks scattered to various restaurants and other activities. I went back to Mevakshei Derech; as it happens, that night they were having the 12^th annual Ezri Uval memorial lecture on Jewish Music. Ezri and his late wife Beth, who sadly just passed away, were dear friends of mine. I was hoping to see the 4 adult Uval children, whom I have known since they were little, and offer my condolences on their mother’s untimely death. The Uvals were there, as I had hoped, and my mission was complete. But now I would have to sit through an academic talk in Hebrew on the history of synagogue chant in Germany! To my unexpected delight, the lecture was brilliant, punctuated with musical examples, and I even understood the jokes.

Now that was a Shabbat.

Shalom,

Rabbi Jonathan Kligler

Bicycling from Jerusalem to Eilat, Part 3

2010-10-27T12:18:00.000-07:00

I made it! I sit this Monday evening on the veranda of a coffee house in Eilat, enjoying the evening breeze and looking across the Red Sea at the lights of Aqaba, Jordan. I surprised myself and bicycled 330 miles to get here, and though I’m tired I actually have worked myself into better condition over the course of the week. Here is a final installment on my journey.

I love soaring downhill on my bike. I have loved it as long as I can remember. I’m willing to bike uphill just to get to the downhill. And there were some really big, long hills to climb up and coast down in the Negev, along with good air and wide-open desert scenery. Flocking along with the group, I pushed myself to speeds I didn’t think I could sustain, drafting behind other riders and taking their encouragement. During the first four days I chose to ride with the fastest group, and just kept pedaling. Today I cut myself a little slack and joined the middling riders, opting out of a brutal climb that was part of the fast group’s itinerary.

During one seven-mile downhill stretch (!), the wind in our face was so stiff that we had to pedal downhill. That trip was a planned detour to a kitschy desert rest stop, so we returned the same way as we came, only this time with the wind at our backs. And now we sped uphill, with minimal effort! When a truck would pass us from behind, the wake of air currents that were stirred up behind sucked us along momentarily on our bicycles, while a truck coming from the opposite direction pushed through the air and the air pushed us backward. I learned how to ride in a line with other cyclists, and their bodies and momentum created a windscreen for me and I cut through the air while the lead rider took the brunt of the wind.

I “saw” that we live in a sea of air. The air, though unseen and not nearly as substantial as water, has real substance. Powering my bike with only my own muscles, so exposed and at the mercy of the currents and the swirls of wind, I could see in my mind’s eye this ocean of air that we inhabit.

Late on Monday afternoon we descended an enormous hill from the Negev highlands into the Arava valley, and we rolled into Kibbutz Ketura for the night. Ketura is one of a consortium of 10 kibbutzim that occupy the Southern Arava valley, on the way to Eilat. The Arava is extremely arid and hot, and it has taken a lot of persistence and ingenuity to make these kibbutzim flourish. Kibbutz Ketura is worth describing. Ketura was founded in the 1970’s by a group of young, idealistic American Zionists who had grown up in the Young Judaea youth movement. They were joined by a similar group of young Israelis seeking to make the desert bloom and to live communally.

As it happens, one of those early members, Richie Goldstein, is a dear cousin of WJC member Beth Abrams. Beth gave him a heads-up that I would be rolling into the kibbutz. Richie sought me out and invited me over to his veranda, where I spoke with him and his wife Ofra. Richie and Ofra have been members of the kibbutz for over 30 years – they met each other as young kibbutzniks - and have participated in every aspect of its development from a bare former army encampment into the green and flowering oasis that it has become today. Richie is now the comptroller of the date-packing plant that is run collectively by the area kibbutzim. Dates are the biggest cash crop of the area. Ofra is the gardener and arborist of the kibbutz, and the trees surrounding us were the products of her planting and tending.

You may be aware that in recent decades most of the approximately 160 kibbutzim in Israel have given up their collective lifestyle and ideology and have privatized. These kibbutzim still have members, but the members now earn their own salaries and determine how to spend their own resources. Kibbutz Ketura is one of about 20 holdouts that remain committed to communal living. Everything is collectively owned and all salaries and income generated by the members go into a common pool. All decisions about the future of the kibbutz are made collectively. Richie and Ofra explained that the remaining communal kibbutzim were forming a federation within the larger kibbutz movement: the Federation of Communal Kibbutzim. Since “kibbutz” means “commune” or “collective”, it is an ironic redundancy that these remaining communal kibbutzim need to identify themselves as such.

Listening to Richie and Ofra, it appears to me that Ketura faces two main challenges: how to remain a collective while responding to members’ desires for increased autonomy, and how to make a living. The first issue is a perennial and difficult debate. The members of Ketura have given up personal property and the pursuit of individual wealth in favor of their dream of a different way to live and to share with people. They make this choice in a world in which socialism has been long discredited and in which individual mobility and choice is championed. For the members of Ketura, any decision to alter their communal agreement becomes an assault on their very identity, and discussions are heated. For example, would it be a slippery slope if members were each given a monetary stipend, and were permitted to spend it as they see fit?

Which brings me to the second main issue: how does the kibbutz make a collective living? If the kibbutz were more prosperous, the ideological issues might relax somewhat – I don’t know. Since it’s founding, Ketura’s main sources of income have been agricultural: dates, vegetables and dairy products. The kibbutz members have assessed their skills and resources and have worked hard to diversify. Noting the number of educators on the kibbutz, the kibbutz has put much effort into the building of The Arava Institute and other educational endeavors. As we biked into the kibbutz we saw a huge array of pipes and grids; this, it turns out, is a method for producing and harvesting algae, which has a rapidly growing market as a nutritional supplement around the world. Could this be Ketura’s big break?

In fact, Ketura’s greatest resource may be sunlight. The intense desert sun shines almost every day of the year. Richie explained that thanks to a fortunate confluence of political timing and international climate treaties, Israel’s government had given the green light to the Arava Power Company, and Ketura’s first 20-acre field of photovoltaic solar panels was nearing construction. This field would eventually be dwarfed by future arrays, and the Arava Power Company could become a major source of electricity for the south of Israel and for neighboring Jordan.

I bid Richie and Ofra good evening and as I strolled back to my guest room I passed the dorms of the Arava Institute. The Jordanian, Palestinian, Israeli and American students sat in the grassy courtyard laughing and talking, a temporary idyll in a painful and dangerous world.

Monday morning we biked the final leg to Eilat. Lunch was served at the overlook on Mount Hizkiyahu. From this vantage point we could see the waters of the Gulf of Aqaba (also know as the Red Sea), and we could see the territory of four countries: Egypt, Israel, Jordan and Saudi Arabia. In Biblical geography, across the sea we were looking at the bare and jagged mountains of Edom and Midian. We then careened down, down, down to sea level in Eilat, and we waded into the Red Sea, our journey completed.

Bicycling from Jerusalem to Eilat, Part 2

2010-10-24T11:52:00.000-07:00

Unidentified Africans seeking refuge in Israel

I am pleased to report that my body is giving me the power I need to meet all of my cycling goals thus far. I rode 94 miles on Thursday, by far the longest I have ridden since an ill-considered 100-mile ride from Providence, Rhode Island to Martha’s Vineyard when I was 19 – on a 3-speed bicycle! I have an interesting suntan with various stripes and triangles where my skin is exposed during the day. We have spent this Shabbat resting in the desert town of Mitzpeh Ramon, and we will bicycle away tomorrow morning for the far south of Israel.

On Friday as we departed Ashkelon we rode past an enormous coal-fired power plant, one of the major sources of electricity in Israel. Israeli companies have recently discovered enormous reserves of natural gas in Israeli waters in the Mediterranean, so it is possible that within a few years Israel’s reliance on foreign coal will diminish, replaced by its own sources of cleaner-burning natural gas. Israel also has an ideal climate for harnessing solar power; we will be touring a solar installation later tomorrow.

A bit south of the power plant we paused at a holding reservoir for a kibbutz. We had by now entered the arid northern Negev, and the JNF (Jewish National Fund) has made a huge investment in hundreds of reservoirs for these southern communities. The very clean and potable water we were looking at is treated wastewater. Alon Tal explained to us that fully 50% of Israel’s agricultural water use is treated wastewater, and the goal is to continue to increase that ratio. As I bike through the desert and consume quarts of water a day, my appreciation for carefully managing water resources becomes especially acute.

Spread out beyond the reservoir, stretching north and south, was the entire Gaza Strip. There are approximately 1.8 million people essentially trapped in an area about twice the size of Washington, D.C., people lacking citizenship, people that no one in the Arab world, let alone Israel, has ever wanted to claim as their own. Only the tiniest percentage of Gazans can currently with much diplomatic effort even get out of Gaza, whether to Israel or to Egypt. Ashkelon, where we had just spent the night, was a frequent target of Hamas missile attacks from Gaza. In 2009, Israel launched a massive military campaign against Gaza, and since then the missile attacks have almost entirely ceased. Now Gaza languishes in political stalemate and semi-ruins, under an Israeli blockade and under its own repressive and corrupt Hamas leadership. It is a historically complex and humanly tragic situation that I will not attempt to analyze in this posting. As we bicycled southward parallel to the Gaza border, it was eerie and troubling to stare across the quiet open fields toward the urban clusters beyond.

The remainder of the day my attention was mainly focused on pacing myself and making sure my pedals were moving. As we headed south the landscape became more and more barren. In the late afternoon we arrived at Nitzana, on the Egyptian border. Nitzana is a fairly new community, founded 24 years ago by Lova Eliav, one of the unsung heroes and visionaries of Zionism. Eliav just passed away this May. Among many accomplishments in his long career, he championed human rights and immigrants’ rights. I became familiar with Lova Eliav through his book “New Heart, New Spirit: Biblical Humanism for Modern Israel”. He envisioned Nitzana as a new oasis, an educational community in the desert on the border with Egypt. Today there are groves of trees, reservoir ponds, an educational center, and greenhouses producing sweet fruits and vegetables. It turns out that there is a huge aquifer of brackish water under that part of the Negev that has never been tapped, and is suitable for agriculture. And there is a gorgeous swimming pool, in which I rested my weary muscles.

Nitzana sits on a rise a short distance from the Nitzana Crossing. This is the main commercial border crossing between Egypt and Israel. When Israel returned the Sinai Peninsula to Egypt in exchange for a peace agreement at the Camp David Accords, the Nitzana border crossing was created. The crossing is well used; an average of 200 trucks pass through a day, I was told.

Early Friday morning we headed out on our ride. We were permitted to ride on a road the military uses to patrol the border. This was a particular treat for a biker, as we encountered no cars for better than 30 miles, and cruised through wide-open desert landscapes. The border patrol is mostly occupied these days interdicting drug smugglers. Across the barbed wire fence bored Egyptian sentries perked up at our convoy, sometimes waving. We then climbed into the more mountainous southern region of the Negev. After a particularly brutal hill (I walked much of it!) we reached an overlook of the wilderness of Kadesh Barnea. The Torah states that this is where the Children of Israel camped for many years, where Miriam passed away, and where Moses struck the rock and water streamed forth.

Around the next bend my attention was jolted from the mythic past to the exigencies of the present. Six African men sat on the ground in front of a small military station. Our guide was David Palmach, the head of Nitzana and an avid biker. He explained that the Africans had walked across the border from Egypt during the night, and were looking for refuge. I had just been looking at the place where the Children of Israel, a band of escaping refugees from Pharaoh’s Egypt, had camped, and here I was looking at new refugees probably from the Darfur region in southern Sudan. You are likely to be familiar with the chaotic and shockingly brutal degradation and slow genocide that is being perpetrated against the Darfurians by Moslem militias from northern Sudan. I learned that an average of 30 Africans a day make their way across the border into Israel every night. Ironically, the word is out in East Africa that Israel is the safest place to go. According to David Palmach, the refugees make their way across Egypt at great risk – the Egyptians deport them or kill them. The refugees pay Sinai Bedouin to guide them to the border. Once here, if the individuals are from Kenya or other East African countries from which asylum is not considered a life-or-death matter, they are sent back to their home countries. But if they are from Darfur or Eritrea, the Israelis give them asylum. They are taken to a nearby camp where they receive free food, shelter and medical and dental care. If I understood correctly, there are several thousand Darfurians currently being given safe asylum by Israel.

We biked on through the day and rolled into Mitzpeh Ramon in plenty of time for Shabbat. Mitzpeh Ramon is a town created in the 1950’s as part of David Ben Gurion’s plan to settle the Negev. The town is perched on the edge of a stunning view of the Ramon Crater, a huge, deep gash into the Negev highlands. The first residents were new immigrants from North Africa, basically dumped in the middle of nowhere. When I first started visiting Mitzpeh Ramon 15 years ago with groups from our synagogue, the town was a depressed backwater. Today Mitzpeh Ramon has been discovered. As the center of Israel has become more congested, more affluent Israelis have spread out to the periphery, and Mitzpeh Ramon has grown into a very pleasant town.

I was tired, and thank God for Shabbat! Having worked my body so hard this week, I had a renewed insight into the meaning of Shabbat. When Shabbat was created in ancient Israel, nearly everyone lived by the sweat of their brow. Life was short and physically exhausting. What a revolutionary edict, therefore, to declare a day of rest for all. The 4^th Commandment states, “You shall remember the Sabbath and keep it holy. You shall do no labor: you, your children, your servants, your slaves, even your pack animals…” Every person, even those at the very bottom of the pile, merits a day of rest and recuperation, and no human can deny them that right. Even beasts of burden are set free one day a week. My work life is not physically exhausting, and the concept of “Shabbat rest” has become less clear to me. Today, Shabbat made perfect and blessed sense, and I gave thanks

One more experience before I close for today: this afternoon we listened to a panel of graduates from the Arava Institute for Environmental Studies. They were a beautiful group of young adults primarily from Israel, Jordan, and the Palestinian Territories. It was simply inspiring to listen to them. Barak, a mechanical engineer from Jordan with a charming sense of humor, spoke about spotting an advertisement in the Amman newspaper for an environmental scholarship. The ad didn’t say where the scholarship would take you, and that was intentional. Even though there is a peace treaty between Israel and Jordan, for Jordanians Israelis are simply “the enemy”. Fraternizing with them is simply not done. When Barak learned he was going to Israel, he almost bagged the entire idea. But he had relatives in Jerusalem whom he had never met, and he decided to come for a week, stay long enough to meet his relatives, and then leave. After the first weekend at the Arava Institute, Barak decided to stay. He is now working on his Masters degree in environmental engineering at Ben Gurion University, working on creating viable hydrogen fueled engines. Each story was equally moving, as idealistic young people have found a place where they can pursue both repairing the world and repairing, or should I say, creating relationships with “the other side”.

One reason for the Arava Institute’s documented success in creating relationships among its students that continue as personal friendships and professional colleagues is the required PELS seminar that is part of the curriculum: the Peace-building and Environmental Leadership Seminar. This is the “encounter group” of the program, and the participants are encouraged to express themselves freely. Obviously discussions become very heated at times. But these students are together for a minimum of 4 months, rooming and eating together on a kibbutz in the middle of nowhere, and so they must continue to deal with one another. The result is many lasting friendships, based on hard-won honest encounters. These friendships then extend into family visits, which are almost unheard of between Israeli Jews and Palestinians or Jordanians, and shared environmental projects, all supported in thoughtful ways by the Arava Institute. Wow. You can learn more about the Arava Institute at www.arava.org.

Sunday morning we bicycle down the switchbacks into the crater! I will write again soon.

Bicycling from Jerusalem to Eilat, Part 1

2010-10-20T12:42:00.000-07:00

With Rabbi Michael Cohen, Director of Development for Friends of the Arava Institute

Greetings to all from Israel!

Well, my trip got off to an unexpected and fascinating start. As I emerged on Monday afternoon into the arrivals hall at Ben Gurion airport, I powered up my cell phone and called my friend Melila, with whom I would be staying in Jerusalem. She told me that she was on her way to the monthly Sulha gathering hosted this month by Neve Shalom. Sulha is the Arabic term for a ceremony of forgiveness and reconciliation (like “selicha” in Hebrew), and Melila is a key organizer of this organization. Neve Shalom/Wahat al Salam is a unique Jewish/Moslem/Christian cooperative village, and it happened to be an easy taxi ride from the airport. I told her I would meet her there. I made my way to the Center for Pluralistic Spirituality, a modest building that is a project of the village. The village occupies a peaceful perch on the foothills of the Judean Hills, and despite my jet lag I enjoyed the sweeping view of the coastal plain and the setting sun.

For Israel, the most unlikely collection of people began arriving in a steady stream: Israeli Jews and Israeli Arabs from around the country, and Palestinians from the occupied territories. To help the Palestinians get into Israel, the Sulha organizers had rented vans that waited for the Palestinians to get through the checkpoints, and then drove them to Neve Shalom. To accommodate the travel restrictions that the Palestinians face, the event ended at 10 pm to assure that they could get back across the border before the 11 pm deadline. The Palestinians came from Ramallah and Bethlehem, Nablus and Hebron – all over the West Bank.

Over 100 of us gathered in the sanctuary, squeezed together on the floor. We began with music, as a collection of Arab and Jewish musicians played and we all sang enthusiastically in Hebrew and Arabic simple songs of peace and of the oneness of God. Then a couple of people shared why they felt moved to be there. Boaz, the Israeli Jew speaking, spoke about his son’s death in combat during the Lebanon War, and his decision to create an organization of bereaved families, Israeli and Palestinian, who work together to transform their grief into constructive work for peace. The Palestinian man, whose name I do not recall, spoke of how his relationships with his Israeli friends at these gatherings reminds him that there are good people on both sides, in spite of the intense repression he experiences under Israel military rule.

I should never be surprised about who I run into in Israel, but the next activity surprised me nonetheless. We joined hands and snaked out into a big circle around the campfire. There, Anna Halperin led us in beautiful, simple group movements. Anna Halperin, a vibrant 90, is a pioneer of modern dance whose work I have followed since I was in college. She is in Israel for a screening in Jerusalem of a new documentary about her life. After the dance, enormous pots of food were served and everyone sat cheerfully eating and chatting together. For the final activity of the evening, we broke into groups and answered the question “What events or aspect of your life led you to choose to be here this evening?” Each person’s response was of course unique, but it is fair to say that all of us feel compelled to reach past our fear and anger, and were moved to have the opportunity to be heard by “the other side”.

It is difficult for Americans to grasp how rare an experience this kind of gathering is for Israelis and Palestinians. Everything about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict mitigates against friendly, relaxed contact between Arabs and Jews. At the Sulha gathering I sat next to a sweet young Arab man named Ahmed who works room service at a hotel in Tel Aviv. A toddler came over to us and we each took one of his hands and danced together to the music. Thank God for children! The evening felt strange and wonderful. This event is happening under the radar, by email and phone and Facebook, with literally no funding. There were many young people there, eager and hopeful, ready to speak from their hearts. The Sulha won’t bring peace, but isn’t it good to know that there is a place where these young people can meet, eat, sing and dance together? If you want to support the Sulha you can contribute via this address: The Earthville Network https://www.networkforgood.org/donation/ExpressDonation.aspx?ORGID2=943374090&vlrStratCode=YBoslx4W36G%2bsUd4qe3hBfZwlHQFn2aT5TM8r7RVr2dzpVHUkxTlACf%2bVsdTEYaf

Tuesday was spent preparing for the bike ride, and at 6 am Wednesday morning 120 of us climbed on our bicycles and followed our police escort through the streets on our way out of Jerusalem. The riding was hard today: Israel is in the midst of an intense heat wave, and if that was not difficult enough, for a significant portion of the ride we were pushing into a ferocious headwind. It was grueling, but I was rewarded at the end of the day by an ocean breeze and a swim in the Mediterranean here in the city of Ashkelon.

But this tour is offering much more than bicycling. Alon Tal, the founder of the Arava Institute, offered us teachings and briefings throughout the day. Alon Tal is also the founder of Adam Teva v’Din (humans, nature, and justice), the premier legal advocacy organization for environmental issues in Israel, he is a Professor of Desert Studies at Ben Gurion University, and he is on the Board of Directors of Keren Kayemet L’Yisrael, the Jewish National Fund. In that capacity he chairs the committee in charge of afforestation, the ongoing planting of forests in Israel. He is clearly a powerhouse, perhaps the most important environmental advocate in Israel. I really want to share with you some of what I learned from him; despite the rancorous and largely dysfunctional Israeli governance structure, Israel is making real advances in addressing environmental challenges:

-All the beautiful forests and lush groves that we biked through on our way from Jerusalem down to the coastal plain were planted by hand since 1948: 2.6 million trees. Eyewitness accounts along with aerial photographs of the region taken in the 1930’s show clearly that the hills were completely bare. Israel has learned from its early mistakes of planting monoculture forests of pine trees – the pine trees invited pests that could destroy entire forests. Now varieties of native species are being planted that can better withstand parasites and insects. The JNF has begun a project in Rwanda to share their wisdom and experience, as Rwanda has been almost completely deforested in recent decades. As chair of the committee in charge of planting trees, Alon (whose name means “oak tree”!) has picked up the pace to complete the master plan for afforestation that the Israeli government set in motion in 1995. 75,000 acres of JNF plan are slated for planting over the next 20 years, and when the planting is complete, forests that did not exist in 1948 will now cover a full 10% of Israel. What an amazing accomplishment.

-Israel is addressing the rapid depletion of its aquifers by building massive desalinization plants. These plants take seawater and by osmosis remove the salts and minerals, making the water potable. The plants already on line have added about 10% to Israel’s fresh water supply, and more plants are under construction. Alon pointed out that this alternative fresh water supply will be critical to any possible peace agreement between Israel and the Palestinians, as groundwater supplies are simply insufficient to serve the entire Israeli and Palestinian populations, and the Palestinians’ water needs are at present unmet.

Bill Slott, a marvelous Israeli tour guide, also offered some meaningful teachings:

-As we bicycled past vineyards, wheat fields, and olive groves. Bill pointed out that these crops were for ancient Israel the “big three” of sustenance. They were celebrated in the ancient Temple: the lamp was lit with olive oil, the showbread was displayed on a table, and wine was blessed. After the destruction of the Temple in 70 C.E., these rituals were then transferred to the Sabbath table, and to this day we light the candles (which used to be lamps filled with olive oil), we bless the wine, and we bless the challah. In Israel, our rituals attain a whole new depth of meaning as we sanctify the indigenous crops of the land.

-As we neared the end of our ride, we paused at Kibbutz Negba, and Bill brought us into a cemetery with a very large sculpture of a farmer, a laborer, and a soldier depicted in the Socialist Realist style. Founded in 1937 as a hastily constructed wooden stockade, Kibbutz Negba was the frontier of Israel, when the Egyptian army invaded in 1948 following Israel’s declaration of independence. The Israeli forces there had almost no weaponry, as the Egyptian army advanced with tanks and artillery. Negba was battled over repeatedly, and razed to the ground by the Egyptians. 180 Jewish soldiers died in the battles over Negba, but the new nation ultimately held the site. As Bill pointed out, this was but one example of many on which the War of Independence hinged, and if any of those desperate efforts had failed, the new nation might have been overrun, and there would likely be no State of Israel today. Israel was not the military power it has since become; the War of Independence was won with an incredible rate of casualties, lack of armaments, and a will to survive born of one part desperation, one part idealism, and incredible sacrifice and courage.

I would not be able to close this travelogue without explaining that today (on the Jewish calendar) was the 15^th anniversary of Yitzchak Rabin’s assassination. It is a sad day in most of Israel. Yitzchak Rabin was a symbol of the generation that founded Israel: a gruff, plain-spoken man, an officer in the War of Independence, the IDF chief of staff during the 6-Day War of 1967, and the old soldier who as Prime Minister determined that he must attempt to make peace and signed the Oslo Accords in 1993 and the peace treaty with Jordan in 1994. The fact that the Prime Minister of Israel was gunned down by a fellow Jew is still almost too painful for most Israelis to contemplate. Last night and today the airwaves were filled with call-in radio shows, live musical tributes and much discussion about the murder and its commemoration. Should this become a day for remembering the man Yitzchak Rabin, or should it become a day for teaching about tolerance and democracy? This is clearly an ongoing discussion in Israel. I too remember that day with immense sorrow. Great leaders, men and women of the moment who transcend their past when new situations demand change, are sometimes impossible to replace, and their societies are the worse off for their loss. Such it is for Israel in the wake of that tragedy 15 years ago.

Tomorrow I see if I am capable of riding more than 90 miles to an isolated retreat center on the Egyptian border. It’s a no-lose situation (except for my ego) because the van picks you up and drives you the rest of the way if you lag too far behind. I’ll write again before the end of the ride.

If you made it this far thanks for reading, and all my best,

Rabbi Jonathan

You Gotta Have Heart: Yom Kippur 5771

2010-09-22T05:18:00.000-07:00

Some of you will remember this story: the Children of Israel have escaped slavery in Egypt. They have received the Torah at Mount Sinai, and now it is time to enter the Promised Land. Moses asks for 12 scouts, each a leader from one of the twelve tribes, to scout out the land and bring back a report. He says, “Go up into the Negev, and then up into the hill country, and see what kind of land it is: are the people few or many? Are the cities fortified? Is the soil rich or poor? Are there fruit trees? And be sure to bring back some of the fruit of the land.”

And so the scouts journey into the landscape of the Promised Land, up to Hebron and the Wadi Eshcol, places still very much on the map today. But the Torah is not merely the account of a physical journey. It is a spiritual quest, translated, as is all human storytelling, onto a physical landscape. The ascent to the Promised Land is a metaphorical ascent, and each of us attempts it. As my friend Rabbi Shefa Gold writes in her book Torah Journeys: “Torah is the map; you are the landscape.”

It is through this mythic lens that our tradition reads the story, and I want to share some of those teachings with you tonight. The scouts find the land rich and bountiful – flowing with milk and honey – and occupied by giants! Not just everyday big people, but titans from the days of yore. As instructed, the scouts bring back some fruit of the land: a cluster of grapes so big that it takes two men to carry it! The children of Israel gawk at the produce, but then the scouts give their report: the land is indeed bountiful, but it is inhabited by titans. We’ll never take it. As the Israelites begin to panic, Caleb, the scout from the tribe of Judah, tries to hush them. “We can surely ascend to this land” he cries, “We are able do it!” But the other scouts drown him out, “No, we can’t. We are not strong enough. We saw the titans” – and here is the key phrase – “and we felt like grasshoppers to ourselves, and surely we must have appeared that way to them.”

The Children of Israel fall to pieces, weeping, wailing and railing against Moses and Aaron, “We should have died in Egypt, or let’s just drop dead here! What are you doing to us?” And then they say, “Let’s turn around and head back to Egypt!” Full panic has broken out. Caleb and Joshua, the other steadfast scout, try to exhort them: “The land where Life Unfolding is taking us is very, very good. Have no fear, we can accomplish this!” But by now the community is about to pelt them with stones. And the Presence of God appears…like the principal in the doorway.

God is ready to wipe everyone out – this miserable faithless bunch – but Moses intercedes and calms God down. Moses pulls out all the stops. He says to God, “What will the Egyptians say if you kill the people you just freed? And don’t you remember how you described yourself to me on Mount Sinai: slow to anger, full of kindness, forgiving wrongdoing? Please pardon this people.” And God speaks a phrase that becomes part of our Yom Kippur liturgy: “Salachti kidvarecha – I forgive, as you have asked. BUT,” God continues, “this generation will never enter the Promised Land. They will wander for 40 years and die here in this wilderness, for they do not have the faith to ascend to the Promised Land. Only Caleb and Joshua will go up, because they possess a different spirit.” And so it is. The Children of Israel wander for forty years, and only their children, reared in freedom and not carrying the crushed spirits of former slaves, are able to complete the journey. Somehow, Joshua and Caleb were able to survive the degradation of slavery with their spirits intact. One might say that they are the Nelson Mandela’s of our story, unbowed, even purified by years of harsh labor and cruel imprisonment, able to emerge from slavery and lead their people to freedom.

We know about Joshua. He leads that next generation of Israelites into the Promised Land, and even has his own book named after him. But who is Caleb? Caleb is one of the unsung heroes of the Torah, and the key to our deeper understanding of this tale. Caleb is the first to speak up, and is steadfast in his conviction that the ascent to the Promised Land can be made. Caleb is the part of each of us that keeps faith in us and our ability to face life and to grow, even while the rest of our self is screaming and wailing, throwing things and retreating back to slavery.

So, the landscape of our spiritual journey is overlaid onto the topography of the land of Israel. The scouts are told to ascend to Hebron. Hebron is the highest place in the Judean mountains, higher even than Jerusalem. So Hebron also comes to represent a spiritual peak. In Hebron there is a cave, purchased by Abraham. He and Sarah are buried there, along with the other patriarchs and matriarchs. After generations of descent into slavery, are the Children of Israel ready to ascend once again to their spiritual forebears? And there is more: our tradition tells us that not only are our ancestors resting in that cave, but in the back of that cave there is a light that leads to the resting place of Adam and Eve, the Garden of Eden, and the very Tree of Life!

All of this is discerned by our sages from clues in the Torah’s use of language. For as the scouts set out on their journey, there is an anomaly in the text. Moses instructed them to ascend to the Negev and then ascend to Hebron, but the text reads: “Va’yaalu vanegev vayavo ad hevron – They ascended to the Negev and HE arrived in Hebron”. He, not they. Also, when Moses instructed them to see if the land has fruit trees, the text actually reads: Is there a tree [in the singular] there or is there nothing? Strengthen yourselves and take from the fruit of the land.” Our sages teach that Moses was asking the scouts to locate not just any tree, but the Tree of Life. Only Caleb, in the singular, is able to ascend to the highest heights of the Promised Land, and the deepest depths of the cave that is there. Caleb rises to the quest, a faithful scout of Moses, while the others are unable to locate the Tree of Life. Only Caleb is imbued with, as the Torah says, “Ruach acheret imo vayemaleh acharai – a different spirit, filled with Life Unfolding.”

What makes Caleb so special? The Torah doesn’t tell us. But we do hear from Caleb again, in the Book of Joshua, and we find out. Forty-five years have passed, and Joshua has led the new generation of the Children of Israel in their conquest of the Promised Land. As the landholdings are being distributed, Caleb approaches Joshua. I like to think about all they have been through together, the only ones left who remember slavery. Caleb says (and I am lightly paraphrasing here): “Joshua, you remember what God said all those years ago concerning you and me. Well, that word has been fulfilled, and here we are. I was forty years old when Moses sent me to scout out the land, and I gave him a report from my heart, while my companions gave a report that took the heart out of the people. On that day Moses swore to me that the land I had trod would become my inheritance. Well, God has kept me alive and it is 45 years since that day when we were wandering in the wilderness and here I am, 85 years old. I am still as strong today as the day Moses sent me. Give me Hebron.” And the text continues: “Joshua blessed Caleb and assigned Hebron as his portion…and the land had rest from war.”

Here is my question: Caleb says, “Here I am, 85 years old, and I am still as strong today as the day Moses sent me”. What kind of strength is Caleb talking about? What kind of strength has Caleb retained all of these years? I know I want that kind of strength. Do you remember Moses’ original instructions 45 years earlier? “Is there a tree there or is there nothing? Strengthen yourselves and take from the fruit of the land.” On his spiritual quest, Caleb had the inner strength to seek the Tree of Life, and bring back its fruit. 45 years later Caleb still retains that inner strength. What is his secret? As is often the case in Torah, Caleb’s secret is embedded in his name. I always wondered about his name, Kalev. Kelev means dog. It never seemed like the most complimentary name. But then, what qualities does Caleb exemplify? “I gave him a report from my heart, while my companions gave a report that took the heart out of the people.” Caleb has heart. He is all heart. And he is truly faithful in following his master, Life Unfolding. So perhaps his name, dog, is high praise. But then I realized that Caleb, Kalev, has lev, heart, right in his name. Kalev means “like a heart”. Caleb’s secret is his heart. Heart in Latin is cor, the root of courage. When you “take heart”, you strengthen yourself with courage. When you “have a heart” you locate compassion and forgiveness. These are not physical attributes; they are qualities of the soul. We do not have to lose these qualities as we age. Like Caleb, we can be spiritual warriors, all heart, and shine stronger as the years progress.

Recently, while these thoughts were germinating in me, I had a dream. I was looking at some test results from a physical I had just taken. The report listed how much acuity I still had among my various functions. First on the list was visual acuity: 28%. Oh my, I thought, my eyes are getting pretty bad. At least I can still see. Next was hearing: 82%. Not bad. Smell: 82%. Okay, holding up. Then, the last item, heart: 100%. And I think to myself, oh well, my senses are going downhill, but my heart is good! That was the end of the dream. I puzzled over this dream until I started writing these words that I am sharing with you tonight, and I realized that the dream was a blessing: in the words of Caleb, I am still as strong today as the day Moses sent me. The Torah speaks in our dreams, where you are the landscape, and the Torah is the map. Part of me is the Children of Israel, fearful, untrusting, damaged. But part of me is Caleb, all heart, unbowed by life’s hardships and betrayals, seeking the Tree of Life, as strong today as when Moses first sent me to scout out the Promised Land. No matter where life has taken me, I can be like Caleb, 100% heart. I can, and you can. Yom Kippur can cleanse us, and we can continue our journey with courage, compassion and heart, stronger than ever. Ken yehi ratzon - So may it be!

The Virtues of Ambivalence

2010-09-10T19:02:00.000-07:00

The following is my sermon from the first day of Rosh Hashanah, 5771 (September 9, 2010) at the Woodstock Jewish Congregation.

Just a few weeks ago, in the same hospital in Haifa, Israel where she was born, my niece Talia gave birth to her first child, a boy. My parents became great grandparents, my brother Dan and sister-in-law Roberta became grandparents, and I am now a great uncle – I guess. From my self-centered perspective that is just plain weird; I mean, what is going on here? But truly, as new generations arise, we should all live and be well and marvel at time’s passage.

My parents, who are, thank God, quite well, flew right over to Israel for the bris. The little boy’s name is Ido – Israelis have their own taste in names. Great-grandpa (or in Hebrew, “Saba Raba” – isn’t that great?) Herb was the sandek, which means he held the baby while the mohel did the job. 30 years ago, Great-grandpa Yosef had been the sandek in Jerusalem at the bris of Danny and Roberta’s first son Eitan. Now, all the generations had moved up in line, in a fortunate symmetry – fortunate that we are alive and able to appreciate the richness of “l’dor va’dor”, from generation to generation.

My mother pointed out another remarkable feature of this simcha. Little Ido had 3 great grandmothers present. Of these three women, one was born in Russia, one was born in Iraq, and one was born in Brooklyn. When they were born, the Holocaust still couldn’t be imagined, and the idea of an independent Jewish homeland was a crazy glint in David Ben Gurion’s eye. Yet here these three women stood in the land of Israel, around their shared great grandson. Such has been this last Jewish century, full of dislocation, inconceivable tragedy, and wondrous rebirth. Who could imagine that these three women from different corners of the globe would ever meet each other, let alone become mishpocha? The ancient prayer before the Shma Yisrael becomes prophetic: “V’havieinu l’shalom mearba kanfot haaretz vtolichenu komimiyut lartzeinu…gather us together in peace from the four corners of the earth, so that we might walk upright into our own land”. And since some of that prophecy has come to pass, may the prophecy of peace also arrive soon and in our days.

I plan to meet Ido in just a few weeks, in October. I will be in Israel as a participant in an annual bicycle ride from Jerusalem to Eilat. (Can great-uncles do that?) The bike ride raises funds and awareness for the Arava Institute, based at Kibbutz Ketura in the far south of Israel. The Arava Institute trains environmental activists from Israel, the Palestinian territories, Jordan and other countries. The vision of the Arava Institute is brilliant, in my opinion: environmental issues transcend national boundaries, and can bring people together from neighboring territories around a shared cause. With great tenacity, the Arava Institute has for many years managed through thick and thin to maneuver through all the diplomatic and bureaucratic obstacles and bring young, motivated Israelis and Arabs together for a year of study and activism. Their work is so impressive, yet the Arava Institute is only one of many determined grassroots efforts in Israel to foster peaceful coexistence. I love to bicycle – I have always wanted to take a ride like this in Israel. I promise a full report.

I am also going to bring my family over to meet their new little cousin at the end of December. At that time I will be leading our next congregational trip to Israel. I am pleased to report that a group of 30 of us will be engaging a 10-day intensive tour. This will be, I believe, the fifth such trip I have had the privilege to lead with our congregation. After the tour ends my family will stay a few extra days and get to know Ido.

As you can tell, I visit Israel every chance I can get. I love the place and the people so much. And as you can tell, I’m talking about Israel today. This is an unusual step for me, as on Rosh Hashanah I try to keep us all focused on the work of refining our own souls. But I feel compelled first to frame some comments today about our relationship with Israel, and then also see what lessons we each might personally glean from my words.

Talking about Israel in recent years has become so fraught that we have at times here at the WJC actually called moratoria on debate about Israel. Emotions have run so high as to make meaningful exchange almost impossible. I have watched friendships strain and even snap over these passionate disagreements. And who needs another screaming match?

But I feel that our congregation has matured greatly over the past few years (as hopefully have I), and that we are now capable of these kinds of discussions. I want us to talk more about Israel. I think it is important not only for the improvement of our own ability to dialogue with one another. I think that as the debate about Israel becomes ever more polarized in the public discourse, it becomes increasingly imperative for us to model the ability to think with complexity and to show that it is possible to be both passionate and civil at the same time.

On one end of the political spectrum, efforts to utterly delegitimize the State of Israel – which until now have been the provenance of Israel’s enemies in the Arab world, along with the political fringes of Europe – have been gaining traction in ever widening circles. The idea is that Israel’s existence as an independent Jewish nation, among all the nations of the earth, is uniquely born in sin, and that Zionism, rather than being the national liberation movement of the Jewish People, is a code word for irredeemable racism and imperialism.

Anyone familiar with the history of anti-Semitism should be able to recognize these positions for what they are: frightening metastases of classic anti-Semitism. The modest remission of virulent anti-Semitism that we Jews have experienced since the global spasm of horror following the revelations of the Nazi Holocaust may be ending. The essence of anti-Semitism is to scapegoat the Jews, and blame them for your difficulties. Thus there is a so-called “Jewish Problem”, the solution to which is the disappearance or degradation of the Jews, solving your problem. It is a very neat formula, has always been untrue and is untrue today. The elimination of the Jewish State will not lead to peace and justice in the Middle East, as its proponents proclaim, any more than expelling Jews in the Middle ages ended the bubonic plague, or murdering Jews in Nazi Europe ensured the purity of a Master Race. I don’t fully understand why the Jewish People occupy this historic position as scapegoats, but we must be vigilant to recognize and counter anti-Semitism in all its forms, including today’s.

To my mind, therefore, it should be obvious that the Jewish People have as much right to national self-determination as any other self-described national group – including the Palestinians. How are these two groups ever going to accommodate each other’s valid claims and reach a peaceful compromise?

This is the real challenge, much messier and challenging than the slogans of the far left or the far right. For just as there are those, as I just described, who propose that the elimination of the Jewish State is the solution, there are those who advocate for the expulsion or continued degradation of the Palestinians as the only path. Many of these folks, Jews and Christians, frame their positions in two-dimensional, quasi-religious, messianic ideas. They brook no dissent. I find this trend quite as frightening as the efforts to delegitimize Israel. Humans crave simple answers, and usually there aren’t any.

That is why, despite my own very jaded view of the “Peace Process”, I am pleased that George Mitchell has somehow persuaded the Israeli and Palestinian leaders to the negotiating table. My mantra remains, “You never know!”

Judaism has much to teach us about the inherent messiness of life, and how to navigate it. I want to turn my attention now to the guidance that essential Jewish wisdom can offer us for negotiating our lives, both on personal and national scales. Judaism does not offer a simple answer, for life isn’t simple. Judaism presents us with an essential tension of being alive, and demands that we embrace that tension:

On the one hand, national and self-preservation, independence, and self-determination are an absolutely central mitzvah, precept of Judaism. How can we fulfill the divine commandments if we are not alive and free? The Torah repeats this instruction many times. Yet on the other hand, there is a commandment that the Torah repeats at least 33 times, more than any other: do not oppress the stranger. “Do not oppress the stranger, for you know the feelings of the stranger, having yourselves been oppressed in the Land of Egypt.”

As Jews we are taught to carry a double-sided identity: a free people who remember what it is like to not be free. Judaism teaches us to be ambivalent about power. Judaism enshrines the memory of powerlessness in our very origins, and insists that we remember the inherent dignity and worth of every human being, especially the stranger, the non-citizen, those under our control. Judaism enshrines and embraces a healthy ambivalence. Judaism demands both empathy for the other, and concern for oneself.

Who here feels ambivalent about being Jewish? Well, mazel tov, and welcome to the club: you are being good Jews! Ambivalence, in its common usage, means having mixed feelings or contradictory opinions, and can imply a wishy-washy quality. I wish to redeem ambivalence, and to speak of its virtues. Ambivalence means having two valences, in other words, being able to see both sides of a question. One of the gifts of Judaism to us and to the world is that the ability to perceive multiple perspectives has been nurtured as a Jewish talent and virtue. Judaism promotes a healthy skepticism about unbridled power, knowing that power corrupts (think Pharaoh!) Jewish law insists that we give tzedakah to the poor – it is not an option – but also insists that we not give so much as to impoverish ourselves. The Talmud always preserves the minority opinion, even after it has been voted down. Judaism is preoccupied with interpersonal ethics: all human beings bear the divine imprint, and therefore how we treat the others in our sphere directly reflects our relationship with the Creator of all.

After 2,000 years of statelessness we Jews have been given the opportunity to build a nation once again. If this state is to be founded on the teachings of Judaism, then two things will be true:

-We will at all costs defend ourselves and our right to exist, and

-We will at all costs consider the needs and inherent dignity and worth of every human being, including the stranger, the alien, and every non-citizen who is under our control.

Is this impossible? In any fixed or final form, it probably is. But we can pursue it, with holy fervor. When Moses states a commandment in the Torah, it is almost always accompanied by the simple phrase “do it”. Interestingly, there are two commandments, and only two, that we are instructed to pursue, rather than “just do it”: justice and peace. “Justice, justice, you shall pursue.” “Seek peace and pursue it.”

There seems to be an understanding in these mitzvot that true justice and peace only exist as ideals, and that the best we can do in this world is to continually pursue them. That pursuit is a constant balancing act of the needs, rights and dignity of self and other. Justice and peace can only be approached by those who can be ambivalent, and see both sides.

Nobody ever built an empire by being ambivalent. But Judaism has never been about empire building. Judaism is about how to infuse life with moral purpose. This is what makes Judaism the great and holy teacher that it is.

Because we are taught to recognize multiple viewpoints, every situation brings up much to debate: what is the proper balance of self and other in this situation? Where is the balance of justice here? What is the most peaceful solution? This is the necessary and healthy tension that is at the heart of Judaism. That’s why we argue so much! But, if this tension of self and other is not our concern, then as Jews and as human beings we are in trouble. In the debate over Israel, extreme views only take one point of view, whether that viewpoint is solely in favor of Israel or solely in favor of the Palestinians. In their lack of healthy ambivalence, these positions have abandoned the Jewish discourse, the difficult, unsatisfying, risky and ennobling Jewish discourse.

Thank God our Jewish tradition refuses simple formulas and answers. Thank God for ambivalence. Thank God for three steps forward and two steps back, move left, move right, as the situation demands. Think of it not as stumbling, but as nimble, responsive dancing through life, different steps with different partners – or adversaries, as the case may be - aware of self and other. Dancing, instead of marching in lockstep, or retreating from the field.

I think I can sum up my thoughts today by reminding us all of perhaps the most famous Jewish aphorism. It is famous because it is true, because it embraces the paradoxical and complex nature of life. It is famous because it is so simple in concept, yet so difficult to enact, and embodies the wisdom of Judaism. “Rabbi Hillel taught: If I am not for myself, who will be for me? But if I am only for myself, what am I? And if not now, when?”

In this New Year, in our own lives, in our families, in this precious Jewish community, in our towns, in the life of our United States of America, in the life of the State of Israel, for all who dwell on earth, and for our precious planet may we embrace this holy path of ambivalence, of concern for ourselves and for others. We are now going to hear the shofar, and let its cry awaken us to our holy work. And if not now, when?

On the Interception of the Gaza Flotilla by the Israeli Navy

2010-06-04T12:19:00.000-07:00

I love Israel. I have felt this way ever since my first visit at age 12, and that love has never dimmed. It is a visceral attachment, a continuing fascination, an unwavering concern, as a lover will have for his or her beloved. And currently, I am deeply concerned. I am concerned that Israel is losing its way. I am concerned that the current Israeli leadership is stuck in a gear of defensiveness and denial, and an ideology of permanent victimhood. I am concerned that that posture is leading the Israeli administration to repeatedly make small-minded and bullheaded decisions that undermine that administration’s own goals to increase Israel’s security in the world.

I fear that Israel is becoming something of a lumbering juggernaut, when it truly needs to be more nimble and sharp-witted than ever as it navigates the incredibly treacherous waters of international diplomacy.

The recent debacle of the Israeli Navy’s interception of the flotilla trying to break the blockade of the Gaza Strip is for me a case in point. From my admittedly cushy vantage point, far from danger, it appears that Israel walked straight into a trap. “Peace activists” or not, the organizers of that flotilla understood that the Gaza blockade could not be breached by force, but only in the court of public opinion. Their dearest hope must have been that Israel would be goaded into its worst public relations nightmare: armed Israeli special forces killing “peace activists defending themselves with sticks and clubs”. What were the Israeli strategists thinking? What has happened to the Israel that knew it had to survive on wits as well as brawn?

We can defend the Israeli commandos, and should. It appears from the videos that they were attacked when they boarded the ship. One of my Israeli nephew’s friends who was on that mission is now in the hospital with a severe gunshot wound to his abdomen. But that still begs the question: what were these crack Israeli soldiers doing boarding this vessel unprepared for the danger that awaited them? Why hadn’t Israeli intelligence anticipated this scenario and taken steps to avoid it?

Instead, because of this clumsy and disastrous operation, Israel’s relations with its staunchest Moslem ally Turkey have been crippled, and in response to international pressure Israel has been forced to make noises that it will loosen the very blockade that it was working to enforce.

There had to be another, savvier way for Israel to respond to this provocation. But I am losing faith in Israel’s ability to do that. When the Israeli agents murdered the Hamas official in Dubai earlier this year, they left a trail of video evidence and falsified passports that further damaged Israel’s credibility and international relations. Israel’s foreign ministry during the current tenure of Avigdor Lieberman has managed to offend many of Israel’s erstwhile allies. I’m afraid I am seeing a pattern here.

I suspect that there may be a reason for this trend, beyond simple truculence. Benjamin Netanyahu and his circle – and much of the Israeli public that voted for him - have a firmly held world view: the world is against us, there is nothing we can do to stop or mitigate that, and therefore we simply must defend ourselves at all costs and with little concern for global opinion, since they hate us anyway.

Now, as a Jew I can relate to this perspective: we Jews have come by our paranoia honestly! But that does not make it true or effective as a foundation for strategy. In my view, anytime that you divide the world into black and white, or us and them, your ability to maintain focus and attain your goals is hindered. Diplomacy takes place not in the realm of black and white, but among all the shades of gray from which the real world is composed. Even Israel, though it is the most unfairly vilified and scapegoated nation in the world, has strategic allies with interests that coincide with Israel. By saying, in effect, “screw the rest of the world, we’re doing it our way”, Israel weakens its own standing.

There are many other critical issues to discuss that make up the backdrop of the flotilla incident, such as: What is the place of Iran in all these machinations, and how can Israel best deter Iran? Why has Egypt also participated in the Gaza blockade? Is it necessary for Israel to maintain its “siege mentality” (it might be) and what is the moral price Israeli society pays for this posture? The list of concerns is long, and the answers exceedingly complex. I have chosen to address only one concern today, not the moral but rather the strategic failing I perceive in Israel’s execution and subsequent response to its interception of the Turkish flotilla.

I hope there are leaders in Israel who are willing to perceive these failings and take steps to restore Israel’s reputation as a nation that does more than stumble into traps.

Yom Hashoah 5770/2010: German Scholar Thorsten Wagner Visits the Woodstock Jewish Congregation

2010-05-02T06:27:00.000-07:00

In April 2009 I traveled to Germany for the first time. I was privileged to lead a group of 30 travelers from the Woodstock Jewish Congregation and the wider community on an intensive – and intensely emotional – tour of Berlin and of the historical site of the Ravensbruck concentration camp. Here is what I wrote from our hotel near Ravensbruck last year:

Dear Friends,

I am writing from the picturesque little German village of Furstenburg, which sits across a beautiful lake from the site of the Ravensbruck concentration camp. Our group just returned to our hotel from Ravensbruck, which is now a memorial site and education center. We were given a tour of the site by Laura Radosh. Laura is the daughter of WJC member Alice Radosh, who organized this extraordinary trip. Laura and her partner Zilke live in Berlin and one of their professional activities is working and teaching at the Ravensbruck site. I have never visited a concentration camp before, and the debasement and horror of the camp’s history take my breath away and leave me at a loss for words. In the center of anything I might write tonight there is a void, a place of numb silence.

Our trip has traced the Nazi machinery from its bureaucratic office buildings in Berlin to the tidy suburban train station where 50,000 Jews were transported to their deaths and now to one of the concentration camps where the SS calculated how little food an average slave laborer could subsist on in order to work for approximately three months before dying of starvation.

It appears that human beings are capable of convincing themselves that any behavior is acceptable if their ideology supports it and their leaders enforce it. This of course is not news, but tracking the footprints of evil demands that I bear anew some sort of witness.

Since the fall of the Third Reich Germany has built the first stable democracy in its long history, and clearly strives to remember its horrific past and to build social institutions that will withstand the resurgence of intolerance. But for me as a Jew, and I know I can speak for the rest of our group, even as we enjoy modern, exciting Berlin we sense the dread of the recent past barely concealed under our footsteps.

Here in Furstenburg during the war one could see the smoke from the crematorium chimney rising clearly across the lake. The ashes of the victims were sold to the local farmers as fertilizer. Siemens Electronics built a factory next to the camp to take advantage of the free labor. Nearly everyone in Germany was complicit, whether enthusiastically, passively, or under duress.

From our extraordinary guides we have received an intensive course in the causes and progression of Nazi rule and terror. But despite my deepened understanding of the history, and I have learned a great deal, my mind still rebels against the outcome, still demands that it can not be. Yet here in Germany, it was.

This evening we ate dinner in the youth hostel just outside the memorial. Ravensbruck was a women’s concentration camp, and the youth hostel occupies the houses where the female guards once lived. We are here to take part in the annual Liberation Day ceremonies. Joining us at dinner were elderly survivors of the camp and their families, from Poland, France, Germany and elsewhere. Following dinner we walked across the huge site of the former camp to one of the few remaining buildings. It is the former textile factory in which the prisoners worked. There we joined several hundred people for a concert by Ars Choralis, the Ulster County Chorus who provided the incentive for our trip. Perhaps some beautiful music could cleanse some of the dreadful energy from this place. Perhaps profound good intention and skilled musicianship could offer some small redemption to this hell on earth. The Mendelssohn Concerto in A Minor uplifted the room. An excerpt from Leonard Bernstein’s Mass moved me deeply. The Choir’s prayerful and heartfelt songs paid homage to the survivors and to the victims of this camp.

Until tonight I had felt too overwhelmed to write to you about my experiences thus far during this trip. But as the chorus and orchestra played the last notes of a Chopin Etude tonight, I felt my own words returning in this small way that I share with you now. Ars Choralis’ music somehow strengthened me or cleansed me or harmonized within me. I am very grateful.

This has been a painful but invaluable pilgrimage. I left for Europe during Passover, and my mind has been filled with analogies between Pharaoh’s dehumanizing, murderous treatment of the Hebrew slaves and the Nazis’ systematic dehumanization, enslavement and extermination of Jews and millions of others in our own time. The story of Passover has much to teach us about the dynamics of human oppression and repression. I will return to Woodstock on Yom Hashoah, Holocaust Remembrance Day, and this tour has certainly been the most visceral and intensive remembrance of the Holocaust that I have ever experienced. If all goes well, I will be at the WJC this Tuesday evening for the Ulster County Yom Hashoah commemoration. I have much more to share and look forward to offering a fuller report in the weeks to come.

L’hitraot (see you soon) and Shalom,

Rabbi Jonathan

Our guide last year in Berlin was Thorsten Wagner, a young scholar of German and Danish descent. Thorsten’s field of study is European Jewish history, and with Berlin as our classroom Thorsten gave our group an indelible history lesson in the genesis and the development of the Nazi death machine. Simultaneously, Thorsten gave us a brilliant seminar in the complexities of how German society remembers the Holocaust. (More on that subject in a future post.) As shaken as I was by my visit, I came away heartened; I had the clear impression that the mainstream of German society is genuinely grappling with its shameful past, and is remarkably mindful in its efforts to combat hate and intolerance. (For an interesting account that reflects my own experience, read Postcards From Berlin via Tablet Magazine by Marc Tracy on 4/27/10. Thanks to Ellen Triebwasser for sharing this link with me.)

Thorsten himself was probably the main reason for my optimism. His commitment as a German to an accurate historical rendering of German history and his clarity regarding why that is important were compelling and even transformative for me. In addition, Thorsten had lived in Israel for several years and is fluent in Hebrew, making his commitment to understanding Jews and Jewish history even clearer. My companions on the tour shared my enthusiasm, and since we could not bring the entire community to Berlin to learn with Thorsten, we decided to bring Thorsten to Woodstock.

The tour participants generously poured forth the funds needed to pay for Thorsten’s visit, and a fabulous organizing committee set up a two-week speaking tour at colleges and synagogues in the Hudson Valley and New York City. On April 9, 2010, exactly one year after our trip to Germany, Thorsten arrived in Woodstock to be our scholar-in-residence at the Woodstock Jewish Congregation for the weekend marking Yom Hashoah, Holocaust Remembrance Day.

This was no small matter. A synagogue was bringing a German as our special guest to mark Holocaust Remembrance Day. Some of our congregants had no interest in listening to a German on a day that is set aside to remember the victims of the Nazi atrocities. I completely understood this reaction. I myself had actively avoided a visit to Germany until just this past year – I would never judge another who did not wish to engage with the German narrative, especially on Yom Hashoah.

And yet, the fact that as a Jewish community we were willing to welcome Thorsten into our ranks marks a tectonic shift in our relationship to the Holocaust. 65 years have passed since the German death machine was finally defeated. Thorsten is the grandson of a German Wehrmacht soldier. Our willingness to open ourselves to Germans of good will, new generations of Germans who wish to support the Jewish people and to grapple with their own nation’s past, places us on a path toward potential healing and wholeness.

Thorsten did not disappoint. His topics ranged from the rescue of the Danish Jews in 1943 to contemporary Germany’s commemorations of the Holocaust. He presented his teachings with a scholar’s commitment to accuracy, and his teaching style was clear and accessible. Of equal importance, Thorsten was gracious, open and available for genuine dialogue. When asked more personal questions, he spoke from his heart. Participants poured into our sanctuary to hear him, motivated in my opinion by both curiosity and by a longing to make contact with this German scholar who clearly cared about our fate.

As Thorsten’s completed his final talk on Sunday afternoon, I came forward and said: “We invited you here because when you led our Berlin tour last year we received the impression, despite our skepticism, that many Germans and that German society as a whole has made sincere and ongoing efforts to acknowledge its past and to make begin the process of making amends. Do you think this is an accurate perception on our part?” Thorsten, in his direct and open manner, looked out on the group and said, simply, “Yes. I think you should give Germans a chance.”

A challenging statement, yet perfectly clear. Has the time come for us to give Germans a chance? At what point do I determine that it is no longer appropriate for me to simply write off the Germans, despite their unprecedented murder of my people? How and when do I deploy my capacity for discernment, to distinguish between present-day enemies and friends, rather than rely on the categories of the past? Thorsten has persuaded me that in the case of Germany, the time has come for me as a Jew to “give Germans a chance”. Of course, that does not mean forgetting history; it means finding the Germans who wish to remember that history and grapple with it together. And, I will repeat, I hold no one else in judgment if they disagree. But that moment, when our German guest looked out over our sanctuary at the Woodstock Jewish Congregation and said “I think you should give Germans a chance”, marks a watershed for me, when a Jewish community was willing to invite a German to mark Yom Hashoah together, and give him a chance.

Some 30 singers of Ars Choralis then mounted our bimah (stage) and sang to us from their program commemorating the Women’s Orchestra of the Birkenau Death Camp, and many of us wept, releasing some of the deep emotion that had been stirring in us all weekend. One of their singers, Jim Ulrich, concluded their program with the blessing for peace: “Baruch Ata Adonai, oseh hashalom”. In our own small way the Woodstock Jewish Congregation had contributed to that dream of peace.