The Shalom Hartman Institute is a pluralistic center of research and education deepening and elevating the quality of Jewish life in Israel and around the world. Through our work, we are redefining the conversation about Judaism in modernity, religious pluralism, Israeli democracy, Israel and world Jewry, and the relationship with other faith communities.

It’s complicated……..

This seems to be the overriding theme of our wonderfully complex and engaging lectures and conversations about Israel and its relationship with our American Jewish community.  Donniel Hartman, Yehuda Kurtzer, Yossi Klein Halevy, Tal Becker; each present us with nuanced and profoundly thoughtful perspectives and open doors for rich, meaningful dialogue and questionings.  It is wonderfully thought provoking and we, the 15 Hillel professional participants, are being given the great gift of taking a step back and engaging deeply in issues that are central to our efforts as Jewish campus professionals and educators, and equally as important, central to our lives as Jews. There is a remarkably soul nourishing quality to our studies here.  Each of us loves and is passionate about Israel.  

Each of us has both the great honor and the great responsibility of engaging Jewish young and women on college campuses and striving to connect them to Judaism and Israel.  It is a sacred trust.  The opportunity to engage deeply and thoughtfully with complex issues in a nuanced manner is exciting and stimulating. We end each day feeling as if we have run a great marathon; we are both exhausted and energized.

Our seminars began with an overview of “David Hartman’s Torah”.  It begins with core axioms. Based on my notes, and as I understand them:

·       The individual finds him and herself within the context of community.

·       Zionism is the great project of creating a nation based on the core values that Judaism brings to the world.

·       Judaism has to be relevant to all of us in our lives.

We began our studies with each Hillel professional presenting his and her reasons for pursuing study at the Hartman Institute.  Here are mine:

To be in Israel:  Over forty years ago, upon graduating college I journeyed to Israel with the intent of making Aliyah.  I lived on Kibbutz Maayan Tzvi for six months learning Hebrew and raising turkeys.  When I returned to the states six months later I entered, what can best be described as a state of Israel withdrawal.  I ached for Israel – it’s hard to explain, but my body and soul long to be in Israel.  Since that time, I am drawn to return to Israel, following the metaphor, for my Israel “fix”.  To walk the streets of Jerusalem; to speak my stilted and limited Hebrew to a taxi driver or waiter; to meander along the promenade that links Tel Aviv to Yafo.  To breathe the air.

Integrity and Authenticity: If I am to engage my students in dialogues about Israel and if I am to fulfill my responsibility to connect them to the land and people of Israel then I must dedicate myself to learn, to understand, to explore, to question; what does it mean and what does it mean for each of us; where does it fit in with our lives.  It’s complicated; thus, let’s try to unwrap together.

Dugma (Example): As a leader of a Jewish community I must model and demonstrate a personal commitment to Israel and a responsibility to immerse myself in learning all I can.  

Delta Flight 468

I thought it was rather clever of me to procure seat 44D – in the bulkhead row, adjacent to the emergency exit door, as the vast expanse of leg room would allow me to stretch out and get a good sleep on the overnight flight.  However, it was no more than ½ hour into the flight when the open space became filled with men davening Maariv.  As I attempted to doze, my size 12 feet became unintentional targets.  Shortly after, flight attendants pushing food carts made their way past the daveners and negotiated their trays among excited, chatting Birthrighters and mothers walking sleepy toddlers up and down the aisles. For many, it wasn’t a matter of kosher food or not, but whose kashruth supervision or whether any kosher selections offered by Delta met sufficiently high standards of kashruth.

Nine hours into the flight, as the sun began to rise over the sky to the east, men began perusing the aisles whispering “Shacharit, Shacharit.  It didn’t take long before a minyan was formed in the tight space behind the bathroom that links the two sides of the plane.  The Tallises donned and tefillin were wrapped, the muttering of the morning prayers began just as the breakfast service began.  Exasperated flight attendants pleaded with the worshipers to find their seats to allow room for the cumbersome food carts.  But one does not stop the Shemoneh Esrai once it has begun and the minyan continued undeterred in the face of increasingly exasperated and strident flight attendants.  It was at 40,000 feet or so, a wonderful mini documentary on faith and devotion in the context of modern society. 

Twinkling lights appeared in the distance. The flight descended in the dark sky over Tel Aviv. The wheels touched the ground.  The passengers applauded.  Slowly, with babies, hat boxes, knapsacks and rolling luggage in hand, we all deplaned to traverse the seeming endless series of corridors and ramps at Ben Gurion Airport that is so metaphorical of our collective journey. Duly interviewed, passport stamped and luggage collected we stepped, at long last, into the cool night air of Israel.

No one would ever confuse a flight to Israel with any other airline itinerary.  The daveners, the hatboxes, the array of Shadels; handsome young men in knitted kipot headed to study in yeshivot, young children toddling down the aisles; Birthrighters taking selfies.  But of course the flight to Tel Aviv is not like any other journey. Because no matter where they came from, and no matter where their return flight will take them, the majority of passengers on Delta flight 468 to Tel Aviv were going home. 

"Wherever I go I am going to the Land of Israel". Rabbi Nachman

My love affair with Israel began as an elementary school student at the Solomon Schechter school of Queens.  It was the early days of the building of the State of Israel. The shadow of the Holocaust still was a profoundly painful lingering presence. 

As a young child, I looked at Israel as a dream and a miracle; it was the time of Chalutzim (pioneers), of reclaiming of the desert and the ingathering of exiles.  We would stand up and, with tears in our eyes, sing Hatikvah “L’hiyot am chofshi b’artzenu” – to be a free people in our land.

This love has flourished through the years; On my first trip, at age 16, I stood on Masada and watched in awe as Israel Mirage jets flew overhead. Upon graduating from college, I raised turkeys on Kibbutz Maayan Tzvi (see photo on right). As a graduate student I climbed Mount Sinai and slept under a star-filled night in the desert. My wife and I spent our honeymoon in Israel as well as our 25^th and 30^th anniversaries there as well.  Our children spent gap years there.  My mother spent the last years of her life in Jerusalem and is buried in its hills.

I have also immersed myself in Israel through the writings of Amoz Oz and the poetry of Rachel, Bialik and Amichai.  Montefiore’s “a Biography of Jerusalem” was compelling reading as was Collins and Lapierre’s “Oh Jerusalem”. Avner’s “The Prime Ministers” gave me an unexpected appreciation of Menachem Begin.  Shavits’s “My Promise Land” challenged me to think deeper.

It has been my great zhut, my great privilege to share this love of Israel with my students. I participated in the first Birthright trip and four more subsequently.  Just last spring I accompanied 10 students – Jewish and not Jewish on a remarkable alternative spring break program with Volunteers for Israel.  Our students met and came to love and appreciate their Israeli peers who were serving on the Israel Defense Forces (IDF).

In the next days I will depart to Jerusalem to participate in the newest chapter in my love affair with Israel.  I am about begin a year-long intensive learning program at the Hartman Institute to deepen my personal understanding of the dynamic and complexities of Israel along with my person feelings, attitudes and emotional ties.  A good part of this is self-definitional – exploring, delving into my my own relationship with Israel. But I also see it as my responsibility as a Hillel professional and Jewish educator.  I am committing myself to immersing myself deeply in learning about Israel so I can be better equipped to engage with students and the campus community on Israel related matters.  Equally as important, I see it as my responsibility to be a “dugma” an example – to model a commitment and a passion to know and understand more about Israel and my relationship to our people and land; to be there, not just literally but figuratively and spiritually as well.