Friday, October 3, 2014

Our Jewish Homes: Genesis

Kol Nidre Sermon

On Rosh HaShanah, I spoke about the possibilities ahead of us at Temple Beth Emeth, after successfully navigating the narrow passage created by the great recession. We created a smooth transition wishing well to two key staff members and at the same time graciously welcoming two new contributors. We are taking on the challenge of the new dynamics of synagogue engagement with younger Jews. And we are continually committed to programs, activities and services that are ever fresh and deeply rooted.

Yet, in all that I said last week, I made no reference to Genesis, our cooperative engagement with Saint Clare of Assisi Episcopal Church. That happened, in part, because Genesis needs no inclusion. Genesis is who we are. For 40 years we have lived in Genesis and been sustained by its vision of interfaith cooperation. And if you are sitting here, saying to yourself (or your neighbor), “What’s Genesis?,” I would reply that its invisibility is a strength. Together, with Saint Clare’s, we have built a home that successfully houses both of us. And moreover, provides a platform for interfaith activities like the Back Door Food Pantry. And moreover, provides opportunities like the erev Thanksgiving service that brings our members into honest conversation with St Clarians. And yet moreover, moreover, Genesis is one of the very few places in the world where Jews and Christians can casually live out their separate faiths in close proximity. The real beauty of Genesis is transforming the “other” into the friend, the stranger into the fellow seeker. Not by mixing but by deepest regard and mutual respect.

When I came to Beth Emeth, Genesis was still young and fragile. Part of my vetting for this position involved making what felt like loyalty statements to our partnership. I was grilled on the issue. Anything that I might say that seemed to some folks to miss the mark of absolute loyalty was sharply brought into question. Understandable. Genesis, when founded, was hotly debated in both the church and the synagogue. Doug Evett, the founding minister, told me that some of his members quit the church when Genesis was created. They did not want to be that intimate with Jews. But before you get too riled up, many Jews told us that they would never join a synagogue so tied to Christians. Both our organizations needed members, and we had taken this bold cooperative step that would actually limit our reach. A worthy sacrifice. Genesis is where we do our totally Jewish thing while others do their Christian thing in each other’s company. Pretty terrific.

But all is not as it might be. Life is never stagnant. And today Genesis is troubled. If this is news to you it is because our leadership has done everything possible to meet the challenges with the least amount of noise. Nothing has been secret but nothing has been alarmist. But there are issues. And you, all of you, need to hear of them. The church has chosen to request the Interfaith Resolutions committee to meet. This committee is the place to bring unresolvable problems from the congregations when all else fails. If this were congress, we would call it the nuclear option. In 40 years this committee has never met. We use to laugh about this at Genesis Annual meetings. Now it’s not funny. Saint Clares has also asked us to put on the back burner the planning process for a hoped for 40th anniversary celebration. There are issues.

I believe that the path to our present began several years ago when the minister or Rector of Saint Clare’s and I met about space issues in our building. For several previous years we, TBE, had grown and began to use more space, like Sunday night Religious School, while the church, suffering from an internal crisis was contracting. However, Saint Clare’s had hired an exciting innovative minister to be their rector and he needed space to grow his new program. The philosophy we had previously used was to work together, he and I and our staffs, to make sure everyone’s space needs were met. But the minister wanted a committee to discuss the issue outside of Genesis, with an eye toward guaranteed Church times and spaces and guaranteed Temple times and spaces whether or not they were used. We could request from each other permission to borrow the time, but it was a shift from from partnership to neighborliness.

Soon afterwards came the request to alter our financial arrangement so that we, TBE, would pay more than Saint Clare’s. We actually had, on several previous occasions, offered this to Saint Clare’s in the interest of fairness and we had been rebuffed. When we rebuilt the building in the mid 90’s we did succeed in working with Saint Clare’s to use our unequal annual budgets as the basis of our contributions to the project, but we were clearly told, by Saint Clare’s, that all upkeep costs, that is the Genesis annual budget, would be split equally. Then a few years ago, Saint Clare’s had a change of heart, and we worked with them to devise a new formula. We worked this out.

Then this year came most challenging test. Saint Clare’s proposed 30 some odd amendments to the Genesis by-laws. Saint Clare’s claims that the 40 year old by-laws, that we thought to have served us well, actually are and have been for 40 years, in violation of Episcopal regulations. This despite the fact that the then Bishop signed the original Genesis agreement that clearly states agreement with the by-laws. This new position, that the by-laws are impossible for the church to abide, first caused the church to request a by-laws revision committee. And when that failed to create something new, they requested, that the TBE Board work directly with Saint Clare’s and rewrite the by-laws. When that did not succeed, the church requested, as I said, the nuclear option, the Interfaith Resolutions committee, a last resort standing committee that has never met.

And what is wrong with the by-laws? The church seeks to make Genesis, which has always operated as a lay-driven cooperative, a representative body charged with managing our facility, into a weaker group that would need to respond to any demands given by either the church or the temple. No more discussion or thoughtful compromise, just absolute agreement to the demands of either of us. This is not at all what was envisioned at the beginning.

Ma la-asot? I really don’t know what to do. I don’t even know with whom to speak. So I decided to share this with you and to speak clearly. I will get, metaphorically and perhaps actually yelled at, for this sermon and it will also be open for comments on our web site. The fate of our synagogue is in question. Not its survival but its very nature. The church has held at least two general meetings, well attended, to share and discuss with all its members, this issue. You deserve no less.

But I chose Yom Kippur for this conversation starter because this day asks us to show chesid v’emet, true compassion. We say, “How can I ask God to forgive my sins, if I don’t forgive those who have wronged me?” We say this not in hope of Divine forgiveness, but in passion for human forgiveness. We seek compassion today. Saint Clare’s is our partner in a relationship that is so much more like a marriage than a business. And they are apparently in pain. They have not embarked on this path out of cruelty toward us. Rather they are deeply committed to Genesis and to us and deeply unhappy. And yes to some large extent we are committed to helping them achieve happiness as they are to us. Perhaps there are now sparks of anger in the room? Toward me, toward the church, toward their leaders, toward our leaders. I ask you to put such energies aside. I ask you to display compassion.

When I came to TBE, as I said, I was vetted for my loyalty to Genesis. I was even interviewed by the then rector, and in that moment we became friends. And, in truth, I became a loyal disciple of Genesis. I believe in its power and message, that two congregations can grow individually in each other’s company and be better for it. Genesis is not about money saved, nor is Genesis about environmental issues, inasmuch as one building can serve us both. No, Genesis, at its heart, is the precious notion that we will be better people because we value the journey of others different than ourselves. In a very small piece of the human landscape we say, loud and proud, that there is room for everyone. Genesis is why we, that is TBE, has such a profound commitment to social justice. Genesis is why we are an inclusive congregation. Genesis is why we are good to each other within Beth Emeth. Sure we might have been just as good without Genesis as our teacher. But I doubt it. 31 years and no one has tried to fire me. What kind of synagogue are we? Jews don’t act this way. But we live a lesson of acceptance. Genesis permeates the synagogue whether you know it or not.

We have reason to love Genesis and seek its success. And we have reason to seek a resolution that will preserve the love and the cooperative spirit that have sustained us for four decades. And if we can’t, then I will grieve, deeply, for something so precious and transformative. I hope that in conversation we will find the path we all can comfortably walk. I don’t know where we will end up, and I pray we are led by compassion.

Dear God,

Help me to be strong in our commitment to our friends in Saint Clare’s Church. May we continue to build a strong union together. May we respect their journey, their hopes and aspirations to live lives infused with your presence. Wherever we find ourselves, may we be grateful for time we spend together and hopeful for continued engagement. Genesis was a gift You bestowed upon us; that we created in partnership not only with Saint Clares but with You, the God of the universe. Genesis strengthens us and we hope brings others to see both the humanity we all share and the one God behind us all. May we go forward with open hearts.

To watch this sermon, click here.

Thursday, September 25, 2014

Our Jewish Homes: Israel, Rosh Hashanah Sermon

The Torah lies to Abraham. No worse, God lies to him. Abraham, Go kill your son! The Torah tells the world that this is only a test; tells the world except for Abraham. Things for Abraham are not as they appear. How could Abraham think that God would want his precious beloved son, his heir, stabbed to death, drained of blood and charred to bone and cinders upon an alter? This is not what our God would have wanted. How’d Abraham miss this? Because Abraham was threatened that the life he had built with God would be lost if he did not obey. There were, I believe, two ways to pass this test. The pious and cruel way Abraham tried or the activist way. “Excuse me God,” Abraham might of said, as he did at Sodom and Gomorrah. “Forgive my impertinence, but this is really a bad idea.” I think that God would have given Abraham an A+ on the exam. This is what Moses says to God when God threatens to kill all his children--that is the entire Jewish people--in the desert. Why didn’t Abraham see how wrong this was and how out of character for God? Where was the supreme value we place on life?

We Jews claim that we and God value life above all. If, for example, next week on Yom Kippur, if there is any health related reason not to fast, determined either by a physician or by the patient, then the person must eat. Not may eat but must eat. The value of life is a touchstone of what it means to be a Jew. And in those moments, when we look beyond ourselves, we yield to the universality of the value of life among all peoples. Life is the great value. Yes, there are exceptions. Yet we understand them as aberrations. Isis, Hamas, Boko Haram, terrorists in general, wanton murderers--these are those who do not value life. For the rest of us, and certainly for Jews, life is precious beyond precious.

Let’s talk about Hamas for a moment. They don’t value life or at least value it the way we do. As Benyamin Netanyahu said, speaking of the great loss of life in Gaza, “We use rockets to defend people, while they use people to defend rockets.” Over a six week period, Hamas, the government, the elected government of Gaza, fired 4,500 rockets at Israel, essentially all of them at civilians. And the tunnels they dug into Israel did not end at military installations. No, they opened up on to people’s homes and schools. There is much to be said to defend the rights of the Palestinian people including their right of self-determination, but they lack good leadership. A Hamas victory, as they would define it, would include the murder of all six million Israelis and then Hamas would want to come after us. This is how they value life.

Yet, I want to reverse myself. Hamas, or Isis or Boko Haram or any other “they” you want to point to, don’t seem to value life as we do. But I think that actually instead of proving our superiority, these groups, despite their evil, point to a deeper truth. Despite our righteous stance, no one, including ourselves, really values life. We are not aggressive killers, but so often we, the good people, act without regard for life. How many times is there an injustice committed in which a person loses his or her life? And how many, many times is this injustice followed by riots that kill scores more? Ferguson is but the most recent example here at home. And why would police officers, who also lay honest claim to the value of life and a willingness to defend life at often the ultimate sacrifice, want militarize themselves? Did 9/11, thirteen years ago, make the world so dangerous that Missouri needs to be armed against foreign invasion?

The value we claim for life, does not match our actions and never did. We don’t value life, we value our lives and we value our lives above the lives of other people. The United States has consistently taken a hard stance against the proliferation of nuclear weapons. Through treaty and sanctions it has been a rock of our foreign policy for 70 years. It was the convincing selling point of our invasion of Iraq, even if that was a lie. Americans agree that we can’t allow anyone else, anyone dangerous to possess nuclear weapons. We are so convinced of this. We are the only country ever to use a nuclear weapon. And we did it twice, even after we obliterated the civilian population of Hiroshima with the first bomb. There were reasons, good reasons, all of which come down to valuing our lives more than our enemy’s.

We value life. We value our lives. As do all people. So perhaps the only way to survive is to stay on top. I feel badly that Palestinian civilians died, essentially defending their elected government’s rockets and tunnels. I do not feel badly that Israel built an infrastructure that decades later built Iron Dome that defended its people against those very rockets. Kol hakavod. Bravo.

That’s part of the core identity of Zionism. To rebuild the Jewish people from the bottom up. In Europe, in the early part of the 20th century, we were weaker than the Palestinians are today. Expulsions, discrimination, pogroms and the pogrom to end all pogroms, the Holocaust. The Russian ambassador in the United States, Count Cassini, at the time of the horrific Kishinev Pogrom and strangely the maternal grandfather of fashion designer Oleg Cassini, said, "There is in Russia, as in Germany and Austria, a feeling against certain of the Jews. The reason for this unfriendly attitude is found in the fact that the Jews will not work in the field or engage in agriculture.” We were not permitted to engage in agriculture and so we needed to be raped and murdered in Kishinev. Zionists were farsighted and determined to end the cycle, not by killing their enemies, but by rebuilding the Jewish people literally from the ground up. We would farm, drive trucks, build buildings, create labor unions and systems of national healthcare. Iron Dome is simply one of Zionism’s many successes.

I wish the Palestinian people equal success. But truth be told, Palestinian aspirations and Zionist aspirations are in conflict. We both claim the same land. And it is not about 1947 borders designed by the United Nations and accepted only by Israel or ‘48 borders defined by the War of Independence or the much expanded borders of 1967, again defined by war. It is about the whole place. And to my personal frustration, sharing is not high on anyone’s agenda. Just the opposite. Everyone wants peace but only on their own terms.

Truth: Maybe one you share with me. I support one side in this conflict even as I support human dignity for all. I would love to live long enough to see two states living in peace side by side. But even with all the flaws I might find in aspects of Zionism and all the weaknesses I see in the present Israeli government, I would rather see Israel win than Hamas. No, that is not quite right. It is not a case of rather. I just want Israel to win. To be secure, Jewish, and to prosper. Besides which, if Hamas wins, by their definition half of world Jewry would be murdered immediately and the other half, us, later. That is their stated goal. Maybe Israel and their elected government and perhaps even Zionism, as a historic movement, lack the necessary concern for Palestinians, but the asymmetry of hatred is astounding.

The rabbis of old taught that if you and I are in the desert with one bottle of water and we both know that the bottle is just enough to sustain one person, and only one person, on the journey to safety, then the person holding the water gets to keep it. You can’t be a lover of life unless you love your own life. Suicidal sacrifice is permitted but not demanded. And as groups, we always chose our lives over the lives of others. We want to live as free people in Israel even if others have to die. Better we should live in peace, but better we should live. That is the value of life.

Two months ago, I was flying to Tel Aviv through the very organized Frankfurt airport. Pre-boarding was announced for our flight. You know, for those needing assistance etc., etc. Every Israeli just charged the gate. Israelis can be so wonderfully annoying. The next day I was sitting, eating shawarma, at an outdoor restaurant on Bazel Street. The eatery "Bazel Congress" and the street commemorate the first Zionist Congress that Theodor Herzl gathered in 1897 to unite a very diverse Jewish Europe in the quest for Jewish statehood. He herded the Katz, spelled K-a-t-z. A large sign over the restaurant framing the rounded entrance said, “The customer is always wrong.” Israelis today can be so wonderfully annoying.

A few of the staff had pinned 3x5 cards to their shirts that said, "nigmar???" or, "is it over?" They were marking the news that Israel had begun to pull back from their forward positions in Gaza. This was a war Israel did not want. Israelis want peace. They are not annoying at all. But until some real accommodation to legitimate Palestinian aspirations is found, wars will continue. The Jewish West Bank settlers’ vision, that seems very appealing to the present government, that given enough time the Palestinians will just leave, is pathetic. No mutual compromise, no peace, less life. Nigmar, is it over? Not for some time, but in that time I will choose a side, my side.

After lunch, a friend and I walked over to the park on the banks of the Yarkon river. A lush spot indeed considering it, like all of Tel Aviv, is built on sand. Sitting on a park bench, enjoying the world, the dreaded air raid sirens went off. I watched parents and children scurry for cover. Then, after some seemingly long passage of time, the sound of two Iron Dome missiles blasting Hamas rockets. The afternoon was a mix of politics, hopes and military strength. I walked home in the late afternoon, put on a swimsuit and rode Mediterranean waves into the dusk. The water was beyond delightful but even this was tinged with politics, playing in the face of danger, with no shelter in sight. But this is the life I value, my life, even when I put it at risk.

Last week, I officiated at a memorial service for a beloved aunt who died in her sleep at 104. One of those few times when passing is not a euphemism for death but a description of the event. She passed, in her sleep, at 104. Among the memories recalled at the service was her dedication to Zionism that began long before Israel became a nation. However, what moved me the most, what really shook my emotions, was hearing that among her papers lay a certificate for trees bought to be planted in Palestine with the JNF, the Jewish National Fund, in honor of her birth in 1910. We have been at this project a long time. My first tree was bought 10 cents a week in Hebrew school. A dime bought one of 10 leaf sticker to be licked and glued to a to a picture of a tree. When I wrote this last week, I could not find the cent symbol, the half circle with the line, on my keyboard. We have been at this a long time. Zionism is the Jewish national liberation struggle. Winning success was not easy and continued survival is not easy, but it is our lot.

How’d we do it? How’d we succeed? Some luck. Some sympathy. Enormous determination. And real work. As the Arab proverb puts it so well, “Luck belongs to the skillful.” JNF took that money and reforested the barren land. That’s a lie, well a half truth. What JNF did was buy land, build the electrical grid, and the sewage and water system, build roads and encourage settlement where it would do the most good. Oh, yeah, they also reforested the land. Meanwhile, the workers unionized, the producers of dairy and farm products created cooperatives to bring their product efficiently to market. National health care was developed and an army created. All before 1948, way before.

I lived in Israel for a year on a kibbutz close to Gaza founded on erev Yom Kippur as part of the successful plan to establish Jewish settlements in the empty Negev region. On many a Shabbat morning, a group of us would ride through Gaza, past refugee camps built in 1948 to house Palestinians temporarily until Israel could be destroyed. We were headed to the beach. I know beaches, I grew up on Long Island. I spend summers riding wave crashing on spectacular white sand beaches. Gaza has great beaches. So when Israel withdrew from Gaza, there was an opportunity to build a tourist industry based on those beaches. Europeans would have flocked to those resorts as they came in droves to Eilat, which has rocky, not so spectacular beaches, after the Oslo accords made peace look close. Sadly, in Gaza, the building supplies, the cement and such, were needed elsewhere to build hardened tunnels from Gaza to kill Jews and to deliver rockets through Egypt to kill Jews. Our Zionist leaders built the infrastructure of a state. That is valuing life. Their leaders, not the people, but the leaders of Gaza, sought and seek our death. What a waste. The Palestinian people deserve a state. Unfortunately, their leadership has failed them.

And so has ours. The future of Zionism and Israel will not be secured without compromise. The value of our own lives requires compromise. I went to a web site of a rabbi I follow for his lectures that I often recommend to others. He had an article about the three boys murdered by Hamas that, along with the subsequent revenge killing, touched off this war. He used a phrase after mentioning the three boys. When recalling those killed in such a manner, you can say either, may the memory of our martyrs be a blessing or you can say May God avenge their blood. I was saddened to see the second. Even if I value my life first, I must value other lives as well. I must or my own life is diminished. Today the water bottle can be shared and still, we both can get out of the desert.

Look at Abraham. So confused. He values his life with God. He values Isaac’s life. Only one will survive he is told. Unsure Abraham, whose knife must have lingered above the boy long enough for God to observe this most terrible of human conflicts, the choice between right and right, between life and life. And God must admit the shame of asking the question, of giving the test. The real test is if we can preserve ourselves in a way that preserves the human dignity of everyone.

To watch this sermon, click here

Friday, August 8, 2014

Dirt

Yesterday ended our tour, and perhaps the cease fire,  but I don't know.  I'm in the blank world of transit. 

Yesterday was a day of much talking and meeting with everyone jockeying for position.  Our one outing took us to Har Hertzl, Israel's military cemetery.  

Our guide put his heart into the visit, which he based on the army's role.  Israel has a citizen army so every story of sacrifice is perceived as the loss of intimate member of society.   Of course, this is true in much of the free world, yet it has a outsized dynamic power in Israel.  Among the graves we visited was one of a new immigrant to Israel who served in the army without a local family.  Each Friday his best army buddy comes to the cemetery and brews coffee for the two to share, just as they used to do on the buddy's apartment porch each week.

Finally, we came to the new graves of a few of the fallen in this most recent war.  It's powerful to stand next to a grave of someone so recently alive and well who died in your defense. 

The graves were being prepared for the built up grave makers used at Har Hertzl.   A worker was actually removing a few inches of dirt to allow the stones to be set.  I watched for a while moving lightly in thought.  The smell of something pulled me back.  It was the smell of the dirt being removed.

Dirt is wonderful, both dead and alive, both dust and rebirth.  As in all things, it is what we do with it and how we live our precious lives in its company.

Wednesday, August 6, 2014

A More Appetizing Post

Today was filled with activities not to my liking,  though I take responsibility for my dislike.   We handed out flowers to elderly Russians, who were gathered back to the shelters in which they had slept during the war.  Then we gave out presents to preschool children.   Later we also did real work, moving insulation from one side of a building site to the other.  Seriously, my issues.
But lunch was perfection.  Our group's leader met an Iraqi immigrant many years earlier when the their kids were in high school.  The friend, Gidon, lives in S'derot, the town with a hilltop view of Gaza and a museum collection of rockets to prove it.  For years now S'derot has been under rocket attack.
Gidon took us to a simple Iraqi restaurant with barely room for our group of ten.  The table was already covered in salads.  Tomatoes with cilantro.   Beets with cumin.   Plates upon plates.  Then came the (pastry) cigars stuffed with potato.   And then the spiced meatballs and the grilled curry chicken and the ground lamb kabobs.  
And what's good food without worthy conversation.   [I once went to a fabulous restaurant where every table was discussing how fabulous the food was.]   Gidon shared his story.  He essentially walked from Iraq to Israel.  He became a nurse serving S'derot a town with a doctor half a day a week.  Gidon wooed his wife through letters he has saved.  They raised four children and educated them to be professionals.  He built a life and a future.  And said just like the other Isrealis we met he called the Hamas a gang of terrorists.

Tuesday, August 5, 2014

A no brainer; just the heart.

A video referenced below:
http://youtu.be/MctJ6DIGWaI

Tonight we joined in a post 9th of Av celebration and concert in Modi'in.   It began with songs of prayer for the soldiers of Israel,  and the wounded on both sides, and the dead.  

The leaders of the evening said at one point that our prayers and hearts needed to extend to  other side of the battle.   This was a sentiment shared in the room.  Then a woman shouted out, "but not Hamas."  Under normal circumstances in such an Israeli gathering an argument might have ensued.   Tonight, the combination of shared pain and shared opinion lead to reflective silence.  Then we said Kaddish with our hearts.

I feel justified with my analysis of what happened because of events earlier in the day.  We met with an Israeli general, a recent immigrant from Long Island working in a food rescue program,  the Rabbi and a few congregants of a Reform congregation and finally the former Deputy Mayor of Ashkelon.   Four very different people with one clear shared message. 

They said: The war was necessary.   The loss of life is shocking.  The rockets and tunnels needed to be stopped.  Hamas is evil but is a player.  Thank God for Iron Dome.   But now perhaps there is hope.  I [they all separately said] am optimistic.   We can do better.

Here is the real complxity.  There is a terrible feeling of real necessity in regard to this war.  And a real feeling of loss for the soldiers dead and wounded.  And a real feeling of shame for the great loss and suffering of the people of Gaza.  And a real sense of gratitude for the Iron Dome that saved Israel from outrageous attacks on her cities.  And real hatred for Hamas.  And real hope.

Monday, August 4, 2014

Changing Gears

Today I joined my group of rabbis, a cantor and assorted lay leaders.  Out of some desire for separation I walked, a suitcase in tow, from the North Port to the deep south end of Tel Aviv in the mid-day sun.  Like in a steamroom, which Tel Aviv resembles, I sweated out the past to ready myself for this solidarity mission.

A good plan, as it turned out.  Yesterday, I was enjoying sitting in a park despite the rocket fire.  Today,  the talk is of the wounded and the orphan, of the struggle and the larger realities.  Then we were off to Beit Daniel, Tel Aviv's leading Reform synagogue, for the reading of the very sad Book of Lamintations.   Tonight begins the 9th of Av,  saddest day of the year, as it marks the sacking of Jerusalem.   Lamintations is the poetry observing the event.

The mood is set for us and perhaps the nation as well.  Most Israelis care little for the 9th of Av.  But this year, the calloused brutality of Hamas, has a bit of the feel of destruction of Jerusalem 2,500 years ago.

The Rabbi tonight called for a time when silence will speak.   From her mouth to the ear that always understands the silent prayer.

Real Hopes

Yesterday I was sitting, eating shwarma, at an outdoor restaurant on Bazel Street.  The street food eatery "Bazel Congress" and the street itself cememorate the first Zionist Congress that united a very diverse Jewish Europe in the quest for Jewish statehood.  But the restaurant and street were less about politics than an acknowledgement of history.

A couple of the staff had pinned 3 by 5 cards to their shirts that said, "nigmar???" or loosely translated, "is it over?"  They were marking the news that Israel had begun to pull back from their forward positions in Gaza.   This too was less politics than the hope that the battle might be ending.

After lunch, a friend and I walked over to the Yarkon park on the banks of the Yarkon river.  A lush spot indeed considering it, like all of Tel Aviv,  is built on sand.  Sitting on a park bench, enjoying the world, the dreaded siren went off.  I watched parents and children scurry for cover.  Then, after some seemingly long passage of time, the sound of a fired Iron Dome rocket and a short time later the boom of rocket on rocket explosion.  This was an even mix of politics and military strength.

I walked home in the late afternoon.   Put on a swimsuit,  decidedly not Israeli in style, as in not a speedo, and rode Mediterranean waves into the dusk.  The water was delightful but even this was tinged with politics.

Sunday, August 3, 2014

A Land that Eats it's Inhabitants

I borrowed a bicycle from the hotel this morning and road north on a lovely bike bath toward Herzliya and beyond.  Then I ran into, or rather over, a collection of thorns, sharper and bigger than whatever.  Both tires went flat and I and the bicycle walked home.

When Moses sent in scouts to explore Israel, they reported that it was a place of giant vegetation.    But giant thorns with bases to aim the points up from the ground?   The spies said that the land is good but eats its Inhabitants.  And their tires.

The inhabitants.  The war has been quiet here in Tel Aviv since I arrived.   But the people are also quiet.  When I arrived the main highway into town had traffic but it should have jammed.   The beach had people but should have been crowded.  Brave face or not, the situation is taking its toll.  No taste for a party and a grim resolve that Hamas needs to be destroyed or at least set back. 

A consensus has been reached, it seems to me, that Hamas is not anyone's partner; that their only goal is Jewish death even at the cost of Palestinian suffering. And when someone wants that badly to kill you your choices are limited to a return of force. 

The latest news, later corrected,  that an Israeli soldier had been kidnapped, only grimmed the grim.  This is not a skermish, someone told me, but a war against someone whose hate is boundless.  People smile and do their work, but patience is thin and tempers are short. 

On the other hand,  I had dinner last night with a young congregant who is living here in Tel Aviv this year.  She is finding her place in this land.  This is our place, our land.  It will not consume us.

Saturday, August 2, 2014

Midway, but fully engaged.

My traveling companion from Detroit to Frankfurt was my daughter who was on her way to Ethiopia for a year of research after college.  I felt like the dad of a young school girl walking her half way to school on the first day, pointing her in the right direction and watching her make her way into a new adventure.  She is a child of great sweetness.

Then I went to the special security gate designed for the Tel Aviv flight.  When they announced the order of boarding,  families with young children followed by first class and so on, everyone simply got up, regardless of special status, and pushed toward the gate.

Then we had an incident when a passenger went to the toilet, while we were moving down the runway for takeoff. 

It feels like home.  The Israel adventure begins.

[Just landed.  OK, I was a bit nervous.]

Friday, August 1, 2014

Still Here. Worries Arrive.

Friday,  August 1, 11:00 am

I am sitting at my messy desk.  In five hours I fly, via Frankfurt, to Tel Aviv.  And I am starting to get a bit nervous.  The news sounded better last night with a 72 hour cease fire declared.  It lasted four hours and ended in part with the dreaded kidnapping of an Israeli soldier.  I still want and intend to go, but would not be surprised if those with higher level decision power, the trip organizers and the airline managers, altered my plans.  Or maybe this is just my nerves speaking.

On the other hand, Amir, a dear friend and cycling buddy, is coming, with his family, to Ben Gurion to pick me up.  And later in the day I have dinner plans with a young congregant.  Half of me expects to find a veneer of normality over the obvious crisis and half of me expects to see the crisis, plain.

Like World War I, only on a smaller scale, the common understanding among Israelis was that the war would be short with normality quickly restored.  Having uncovered the web of tunnels and the vast array of missiles, Israel is in no position to stop.  Yet, death is the final truth of life and as the causalities mount the call to stop needs to be heeded.  A no win situation has become a nobody wins tragedy.

And I guess that is, in part, why I am going.  I want to experience the cruel sadness, not the bravado that distance lends.  How do we balance the needs of Zionist survival against the deaths of Zionists and the deaths of those whom Zionists kill.  I am a Zionist and I don't know.