Tzeira Is Going to Israel This Summer

Rabbi Gary S. Creditor
May 11, 2001

 

I had a different sermon planned for this week. But in light of two events, early this morning I decided to write this sermon instead. This week the last pieces finally came into place for Ruby and me to enroll Tzeira in USY's Israel Pilgrimage for this coming summer. Even as we did this, I read, like you, the gruesome and horrifying story on page four of yesterday's Times-Dispatch of the two boys, aged thirteen and fourteen, who were found stoned to death in a cave on the West Bank. I am neither aloof nor ignorant of any of the other news from Israel, nor do I have any false illusions of what will happen in the coming months. Nevertheless, Ruby and I made the commitment this week to send Tzeira to Israel on USY Pilgrimage. I would like to share with you, and with the readers of the listserv my reasons and feelings.

From the outset I state that this was both an easy and a hard decision. I lived in Israel from September 1968 through August 1969, my junior year abroad, and was a staff member of USY Pilgrimage in 1969. That year was part of "The War of Attrition," with incessant attacks on the border and terrorist bombings inside Israel. Living in Jerusalem, that year, the Supersol supermarket, Machane Yehudah open-air market, and a cafeteria of the Hebrew University, where I was studying, were attacked. Other events occurred. These events never interfered with my life nor did I see them. You learn to live Israel's "normal life." Babies are born. Students go to school. Businesses do business. People are married. And Israel defends itself from those who would destroy it. Ruby and I lived in Israel from July 1973 through June 1974 for my junior year of Rabbinical School. We were there for the Yom Kippur War. Though you knew better than we how perilous was the situation, we were able to make a difference through volunteering in a bread factory to help feed the army and Jerusalem. There is no place I would have rather have been. Our parents I am sure felt otherwise. It's different for me thinking of Tzeira going now. I have walked that walked and wouldn't have been deterred. And I would not deter her.

I am not cavalier about all this. She is my own flesh and blood. I am a parent before I am a Rabbi. And as a parent and as a Jew, there are certain things that I need to teach my children.

They should never be afraid to be a Jew. Anywhere. Anytime. I wear my kipah all the time for theological reasons, to attest to my belief that God is present always and everywhere. And I know that wearing it in public identifies me as a Jew everywhere, at the Coliseum and Regency Mall. Once, when I was leaving former the Loewes on Broad Street, some woman sitting in a car called out "Right on!" I said, "Thank you very much!" We can never be afraid, we must never be afraid as Jews to go to Israel!!

That is unacceptable!!

Israel is the cradle of Jewish civilization. Every place you walk, Abraham walked, or Isaac walked, or Jacob walked. David built Jerusalem. Solomon built the Temple. From the Galilee to Eilat, there is physical evidence of the tangible history of the Jewish people. We weren't born in Poland. We didn't begin in Russia. Only Eretz Yisrael is Eretz Hamuvtachat, the Promised Land.

Every Jew must know that we as Jews here, join with Jews there in permanent and irrevocable rooting in that land. Islamic history begins in the 600's C.E. with Mecca and Medina as the centers, not Jerusalem. And Jesus was a Jew who walked and prayed in our Temple. It is our history, the blood of our people; our bones buried in that soil beginning somewhere around 1700 B.C.E!!!

No one can tell us that we don't belong on that land.

WE MUST TELL OURSELVES THAT WE DO BELOLNG ON THAT LAND!!!!

My child, our children, must know in the marrow of their bones that they are rooted, nourished and empowered as Jews because of Medinat Yisrael.

Therefore she must go there.

For nearly two thousand years we grew accustomed to living without our own country, as guests in everyone else's. We created a Golden Age in Spain and a Little Jerusalem in Lithuania. Yet our calendar cycle was and is based on Eretz Yisrael. We pray for rain according to the climate of Eretz Yisrael. We celebrate Tu Be'Shevat, the rebirth of the trees when there is still snow or sleet on the ground in Richmond, Virginia. With just a little twist on an old expression:

You can take the Jew out of Eretz Yisrael,

But you cannot take Eretz Yisrael out of the Jew!

Traditional and Conservative Judaism preserved our liturgy, which is replete with references to the land of Israel. Contrary to Reform Judaism which had to rediscover Israel, Solomon Schechter, head of the Jewish Theological Seminary was one of the first religious leaders to endorse the Zionist Movement as a religious expression of Judaism! Without negating the Diaspora in which we live, there is no place like Israel for living like a Jew! That does not make it a panacea or paradise. But it is different hearing everything in Hebrew. It is natural to have the silence of Shabbat. It is normal to see Judaism lived by the overwhelming society around you.

Only in Israel is it "normal" and "natural" to be a full and uninhibited Jew.

Therefore, she must go.

I want my daughter to know, I want everyone to know, that the phrase "All Jews Are Responsible for each other, to each other" is not a fundraising slogan. It is a state of Jewish consciousness. Living in a hostile environment is nothing new for the Jews of Medinat Yisrael. They were born that way. But it is another thing to be all alone in the world. We can all remember some time in our lives when we were all alone. Isolated. Vulnerable. Exposed. Abandoned. At this very moment, the Jews of Medinat Yisrael feel abandoned, not so much by the U.N., ECU, as by us. The American Jewish presence in Israel has withered to next to nothing. Of course it is has hurt Israel economically. A large amount of the economy is based on tourism. It is a sad thing to say that more Jews have gone to Disneyland, Disney world, or the Caribbean than have visited Israel! That is wrong! Right now the Jews of Israel are asking,

"Are we alone?

Are we on Masada by ourselves?

Are we to wave the flag of Israel single-handedly?"

I want my child, all our children, all of us to know that there is only one answer to that question: NO!! There is no question here! We as Jews, as a religious commandment, stand together with all Jews, and especially embattled Jews, as one people! If their arm hurts, my arm hurts. If they are happy, I am happy. If they are threatened, I am threatened. Israel does not need us to serve in the military. And this is not a fundraising speech. It is a statement of our core religious identity. I want my daughter to love the land and people of Israel as the core of her person. That cannot be done from afar.

Therefore Tzeira is going to Israel this summer.

From personal experience, because Yonina has gone on USY Pilgrimage, I know that this is a most excellent program. She will have an exceptional trip, opening up her eyes to the land, the people and her faith in ways that defy words. I know that the USY leadership and the Jewish Agency that runs the overall program for all youth tours in Israel will maximally protect all the children on every trip. I hope that many, all, our youth will visit Israel sooner than later. I encourage you to redesign vacation plans and travel to Israel.

Ruby and I will bring Tzeira to her orientation in June. Before leaving her we will recite Tefillat HaDerech, the prayerfor travellers, asking for God's protection. Then we will invoke upon her the Priestly Benediction, which culminates in the request for peace. That prayer will remain constantly on my lips, even after her return. May all those able, redeem the pledge with which we conclude Yom Kippur and the Seder:

L'shanah Haba'ah b'Yerushalayim.

Amen.