Talking with our hands

Israelis are known for talking with their hands. Observe any curbside exchange from the window of a passing bus, and you quickly measure the temperature and intensity of the sharing. One weekday afternoon when I was immersed in my Talmud learning at the Kotel, I noticed an elderly gentleman struggling to wave people over to assemble a minyan of for Mincha. I had not planned on interrupting my learning was feeling sure he would soon have his minyan - since minyanim consistently assemble every few minutes at the Kotel, and dozens of minyanim had convened in the hour that I had been attending to my learning that afternoon. For some reason he was growing desperate, still short of 10, so I rose from where I had been learning to join him. Perhaps he was in a rush, I thought, so now was as good a time as any for me to pray Mincha.

I shall not soon forget what turned out to be an uncommonly moving weekday Mincha service. There was an intensity about this gentleman’s davening – manifested in his shaking his hands heavenward every time he intoned the word Attah (“You”/”God”) in his repetition of the Amidah. He was talking to God with his hands. The works of God’s hands fill our world – cosmic and personal. How fitting that this earnest gentleman taught me one way to return the favor.

Where questions yield dead ends

Visiting with Danny Gordis at the Shalem Center, I learned of how his former friendships with moderate Palestinians had disintegrated time and again.  Loss had displaced hope.  “When we made Aliyah 9 years ago, we were going to be different.  We were going to forge bonds and build friendships with our Arab neighbors.  We were going to truly commit to listening, to learning of their plight, to sharing in their dreams.  Yet, in the past couple of years, we have witnessed one friendship after another end.  How does a friendship fail?  When I would ask a question like:  My family moved to Israel because we deeply believe in existence of a national homeland for our people, can you appreciate that this matters to us?   Implicit in my question is a commitment to Israel’s continued existence.  Yet, simply posing such a question to a friend in whose home we had share so much over the years was greeted with cold silence, no reply whatsoever, making her a former friend.”

Our Pesah seder, the telling of our people’s founding story, champions questions.  Four children are characterized entirely by their questions.  In the very word “question” we find the word “quest”, suggesting a journey to unchartered vistas of meaning and learning.  Where questions yield dead ends is the “homeland of tragedy, exile, and estrangement.”

One word

As Netanyanu was leaving the stage following his address to the Herzliya Conference, someone in the audience shouted: “How about one word on Gilad Shalit?” Bibi’s response “l’hachaziro” one Hebrew word that means “return him home.”  One word, like “peace”, “settlement”, “Zion”, can be highly loaded with baggage and innuendo.  Occasionally, a word may speak a thousand pictures.  

Economic prophets

Benjamin Netanyahu suggested that two economic theories about what seems likely in the coming years.  One theory posited that a rebound would take the shape of a letter “U” once things had bottomed out.  Another possibility, less hopeful, would suggest a protracted period of stagnation, similar to the shape of the letter “L”.  “Heaven forbid,” Bibi said, “that the coming years would follow instead the shape of a “ל” (suggesting deeper decline would follow the stagnation of the “L”).   What seems clear – prophets fair better in appraising morality’s future than that of market forces.

Lofty souls

Encounters with individuals of real depth – Hasidic masters, NGO leaders, soup kitchen volunteers, and taxi drivers – quickly became a preoccupation in my first week.  Israeli culture is given to cause-adoption.  Virtually everybody is intoxicated with this or that religious, political, ideological cause.  Yet when you meet somebody who is able to bring a reflective, seasoned approach to the complexities of a cause, along with a passionate intensity to it, then you know that you have something to learn from wakeful meeting and listening. 

Reading Alex Singer’s book, Alex: Building a Life, has been one of the most significant ingredients in helping to make my Sabbatical as nourishing as it has been.  Alex was a person of true depth and glowing humanity.  As a Platoon Commander, he tells of Musa, a 43 Bedouin in his Platoon who didn’t know how to read or write. “What about Arabic?” I asked.  No, not Arabic either.  He says he has trouble with the public toilets where he doesn’t know which is the men’s room.”  Yet as a shepherd with a lifetime of experience as a tracker, Alex concludes about Musa, “he is teaching me a lot.” Someone who never learned to read or write and has trouble going to the bathroom, still has much to teach the wakeful student.

More than soldiers and rabbis

A presenter at the Herzliyah Conference shared the results of extensive research on  Americans’ (Jewish and non-Jewish) attitudes toward Israel.  “The two things that dominate impressions of virtually all Americans whenever they think about Israel” he said “are religion and military security.  So the average American in Oklahoma or Wyoming thinks that every Israeli is either a rabbi or a soldier.”  This evoked a raucous laughter from conference attendees.  Yet it did serve as a sobering reminder that so often we look at remote parts of the world uni-dimensionally.  Yet there is so much more to Mumbai than Slumdog Millonaire, to Afganistan than the Taliban, to Australia than the Koala bear.  My falafel dinner at Tel Aviv’s Dizengof square later that night featured Nightly News stories about irrigating the Negev, the week’s lottery winners, and the latest challenges at Ramat Gan neighborhood charter school, served to reinforce the multi-dimensional reality that daily life in Israel is, for the vast majority, far removed from the static fixations of those who have never experienced Israel.

Courage’s face

Meeting the Founder and Chairman of the Sudan Liberation Organization was an inspiration.  After having shared superficial handshakes with more political, military, and business leaders than I could count at the Herzliyah Conference, a meeting with three African NGO leaders was almost entirely accidental – and thoroughly fortuitous  They had come to seek support from Israel-friendly NGOs in their quest to seed democracy, grow hope, and offer refuge for the millions of displaced and desperate Sudanese in Darfur and its surroundings.  They cried when they saw my green “Not on our watch” Darfur wristband.   I cried when they conveyed how inspiring Israel (her exodus story, her democracy, her hope) has been to them.  Having been imprisoned dozens of times and having been kicked off of Al Jezeera for supporting Israel, their needs are so very great. I told them how much their heroism and courage inspires me, and I pledged my support. They thanked me and we embraced.   A most important beginning.