I’m blessed and grateful to have visited Israel many times, but this trip feels different than many others. On this trip I feel that I am with my community, and in being on this Beth Sholom trip to Israel, I’m bringing all of you with me here. We arrived in Israel on Monday morning and hit the ground running. This week has been powerful and intense; every moment has been packed.
There’s one particular moment I’d like to share with you and that is on my mind as we enter Shabbat. On Thursday morning we spent the morning visiting an organization called Roots, which situates itself in Gush Etzion, which is in the West Bank, also known as Judea and Samaria. Roots is an organization that brings together Israelis and Palestinians, and works towards each group understanding the other. It’s not a political organization and it doesn’t seek to know the answers to any of the current political problems facing the region, but it is a grassroots organization working to bring people together. We sat with two men, one named Shaul and one named Khaled. Shaul shared a story with us about Rabbi Menachem Froman, who lived in a settlement called Tekoa. He was committed to improving the relationships between Israelis and Palestinians, and he arrived in Tekoa in the early 70s with his wife to essentially build the community.
He arrived at their new house for the first time (a trailer, really) and he saw a bumper sticker on the door that read: “The land of Israel belongs to the people of Israel.” He stood outside staring at the sticker, unable to enter the house. His wife asked him what was wrong and he said that he could not live in a home with that message. He tore it off, tinkered with it a bit, and rearranged the words on the door to read, “the people of Israel belong to the land of Israel.” He recognized that we are people connected to this land, and he taught that we are one of many people connected to this holy land. The presentation that we heard Thursday morning, from men who define themselves, respectively, as a religious settler and a Palestinian refugee, was complex and complicated and emotional. But it was holy, and it reminded those of us in that room that we are connected to the land and we are inherently connected to others that are tied to the land. This is the message that I am taking with me into Shabbat. We are privileged to be a people tied to this land, and with that comes a responsibility to seek a connection to others.
This Shabbat, I carry each of you with me as we continue our travels throughout this holy land and I look forward to sharing our experiences with you and hopefully seeing you next Shabbat.
