On Thursday morning, I opened the Torah to the special reading from Deuteronomy read for Yom Ha’Atzmaut. It begins with the image of someone arriving in the land of Israel, carrying the first fruits of their harvest to present to the priest. As they do so, they recite a declaration - not only of what they are doing in that moment, but of how they got there. They tell the story of their ancestors: wandering, suffering, journeying, and finally arriving. Their personal story is told through the broader, older story of our people. They locate themselves in the winding story of our people’s past, with the culmination of finally arriving in Israel.
This ritual reminds us that our individual experiences are never truly separate from our collective past. And I believe that’s part of why we read this passage on Yom Ha’Atzmaut, so that each of us might reflect on how we tell our Jewish story, and how the land and people of Israel are interwoven into it. The reality of Israel is complex: miraculous and beautiful, painful and fraught. But it is undeniably part of our collective narrative, a thread that continues to run through our history and our hearts.
Later that same morning, I had the privilege of officiating a conversion for a baby girl, born to a surrogate in Millington. In just a couple of weeks, she will travel to Israel with her two dads, who have spent the last six weeks here in Memphis for her birth. As we blessed her and welcomed her into the covenant, I found myself thinking about how our lives and stories are entwined. Her journey touched ours here in Memphis, and her family’s story now winds through Israel and the United States and the Jewish people around the world.
This Yom Ha’Atzmaut, I’m leaning into that sense of connection. The way our stories, our hopes, and our futures are bound together. Even in a time of deep pain - when war continues, when hostages remain in captivity, when fires and political unrest ravage the land - we are still deeply tied to one another. The global Jewish people can only thrive if we recognize and strengthen those connections, weaving them into cords of resilience and shared purpose.
The story we tell this year, through our past and into our present, includes Israel. Not as a distant idea, but as a part of who we are. And we will continue to tell that story, and this week, I tell it with hope, with vision, and with gratitude.
