“CELEBRATING ISRAEL THIS YEAR, AT 60, AN IMPERFECT PLACE, BUT STILL A DREAM”

[Excerpt from Rabbi Vogel’s Erev Rosh Hashanah Sermon on Israel]

After a long and winding ride past deserted hilltops, and up yet another steep incline, our Israeli taxi driver announced to the three of us rabbis sitting in the back seat (one of whom seemed to be turning green with carsickness), “Dis haz got to be the place.” Incredulous, we got out of the car, paid the driver for the trip from Jerusalem and stepped into the empty parking lot. There was almost nothing around, and we wondered, had we come to the right place? My colleagues and I were visiting a new Reform congregation in Tzur Hadassah, Israel… But where was the synagogue? All we saw was a parking lot, and what looked like a large shipping crate, and some chain-link fence.

And then we learned that the shipping crate was the synagogue. Actually, Rakhel corrected us, with pride, it was actually two shipping crates, fused together to form a makeshift sanctuary which, by day, also served as the congregation’s preschool room. They estimate that it probably won’t be for another ten years until they actually have the synagogue building they dream of, overlooking the red hills, and that could be after their daughter becomes a bat mitzvah. Why are they doing this? Why are they investing all their energies, and their lives, into this difficult project?

As we enter the Jewish New Year in which Israel will observe a milestone birthday, her 60th anniversary, we might ask that question about Israel, in general, too. Why should we invest our personal energies into a project that is so difficult? So much about Israel seems like an uphill battle, a long and winding road, a road with a lot of bumps on it. Some people might wonder: Is the Israel that we dream of – a progressive, tolerant, pluralistic society – a place we can reach? Will that vision of Israel ever be realized? Will we ever get to the top of that hill? I believe the answer is yes, but it will be a long ride to get there. I think we can be honest about the high points and the low points we experience with Israel, about the occasional carsickness we’ve felt – we can be open about Israel’s shortcomings – we have to be – but we cannot lose sight of the Israel we can believe in – and play a role in creating that Israel.

I think that being honest about the serious challenges and problems that Israel faces as she nears 60 is actually very helpful in identifying what we can work on, how we can direct our energies, and we can still be inspired to work for the ideal Israel. Giving up on Israel would be as foolish as pretending that these complicated realities didn’t exist. David Grossman, one of Israel’s most gifted and influential writers, puts it well. He writes that he is “a man entirely without religious faith, but nevertheless,” he says, “for me, the establishment and very existence of the state of Israel is something of a miracle that happened to us as a people – a political, national, human miracle. I never forget that,” he writes, “even for a single moment; even when many things in the reality of our lives enrage and depress me, even when the miracle disintegrates into tiny fragments of corruption and cynicism, even when the country looks like a bad parody of a miracle, I remember the miracle always.” (speech reprinted in the New York Review of Books, January 11, 2007).

I share David Grossman’s sentiments. For all her faults, I believe that Israel is still a modern Jewish miracle. Israel was founded on a dream – a dream that includes values worth pursuing even today, and that vision is worth our personal, emotional investment. 60 years ago this May, as Arab armies prepared to attack it, David Ben-Gurion read these words as part of Israel’s Declaration of Independence, which we should remember all year long, that Israel would be a state “based on freedom, justice and peace as envisaged by the prophets of Israel; it will ensure complete equality of social and political rights to all its inhabitants irrespective of religion, race or sex; (that) it will guarantee freedom of religion, conscience, language, education and culture.”

How can we keep in mind the miracle of Israel’s birth 60 years ago, throughout this year, even as we can’t forget all the subtleties and the shades of gray in Israel? First, we have to stay engaged with Israel. We have to go and be there, to visit, or to spend an extended period of time, as a Jewish obligation. Visiting Israel transforms you, changes you, in powerful ways, and when you visit, you strengthen the Jewish people by building meaningful, personal connections between Jews who live in these two major centers of Jewish life, America and Israel.

Second, we must support those in Israel who share our vision of the remarkable society Israel can be. People like the group called “B’Ma’aglei Tzedek,” young modern Orthodox Jews who believe in worker’s rights, and who have established an alternative kosher certification for restaurants, rewarding those restaurants who compensate their workers fairly and according to Israeli law, pay their social security benefits, provide them with long-term employment, and allow access for people with disabilities with a “Tav Hevrati,” a “social seal.” …

People like my friend, Rabbi David Forman, who made aliyah over 25 years ago to Jerusalem, and who established an organization called “Rabbis for Human Rights,” which works through the legal system to protect the rights of all who live under Israeli sovereignty, working to insure human rights in Israel, the right to health care and a living wage; they work against torture and sponsor ad campaigns to promote human rights. 

People like Donniel Hartman, whose Jewish pluralism institute teaches the ethical values found in Judaism with army officers, showing them what Jewish tradition says about respecting the Other, and about seeing all human life as inherently infinitely valuable. …

And people like … the builders of the small Reform congregation of Tzur Hadassah, currently housed in two shipping containers in a parking lot at the top of a hill, along with all the other growing congregations and communities in the Israel Movement for Progressive Judaism, who believe that they have a special vision of a personal, meaningful and progressive modern Judaism which will thrive in the State of Israel, as they attract a secular Israeli audience that is more and more interested in connecting with Jewish tradition in a contemporary way.

Why are my friends [in Tzur Hadassah] devoting themselves to build a community that has to celebrate Rosh Hashanah in a synagogue that is really two shipping crates in Tzur Hadassah? Because they remember this miracle: the miracle of a Jewish state which was founded by kibbutznikim who drained the swamps, sheltered refugees from European ghettoes and displaced persons camps; airlifted Jews from North Africa and the Arab world and, more recently, Ethiopia; a state, which still struggles, to be sure, which is still traveling a long and winding road, with her share of bumps, obstacles and very serious challenges, which we Jews in America experience with her – but which at 60, is still full of idealism, still a place of vision, and still a place where Jews can dream.

Rabbi Andy Vogel