REFLECTIONS ON OUR TRIP

It’s been several weeks now that we’ve been back in Chicago. The trip left its mark on us in a number of ways, but if I had to identify one lasting impression from our time in Eretz Yisrael, it would be the following:

In the Musaf Amidah of Sukkos, there was one phrase that really stuck out for me. It’s in the section that asks G-d to rebuild the Temple and restore our service in it. The phrase, in Hebrew, reads “V’Chonayn Mik-dash-cha al Mi-cho-no.” It’s translated, “Establish Your sanctuary on its site.” However, if it really meant site or place, the more appropriate term would have been “Mi-ko-mo” rather than “Mi-cho-no.” The term “Ma-chon” has a connotation not of place but of a foundation or a foundational structure. It also has a connotation of something that is still functioning and in operation. It’s related to the word for machine – “Machonit.”

THE SPIRITUAL "MACHINE"
The metaphor of a machine that is functioning, but only at a basic or foundational level, seems apt for Eretz Yisrael in its current state. My overall impression of Eretz Yisrael was as one very sophisticated spiritual apparatus, whose primary function is to bring G-dliness into the world. It’s like a spiritual transformer or relay station for taking in higher spiritual energies and disseminating them in a way that the world can be nourished by and benefit from those energies. Each holy site in Eretz Yisrael has its own unique function as part of the machine, but they all work together. The Jewish people are the only qualified operators of this machine. Looking back, that’s honestly what it felt like when I went to a holy site and prayed or learned Torah there. It felt like I was pushing a particularly spiritual button or turning a knob that I could not have accessed anywhere else. Even just walking on the land, touching the rocks and soil with my Jewish feet seemed in some way like the affectionate and nurturing interaction between a skilled machine operator and his equipment, be it an automobile, a printing press, or a computer.

JEWS AS NATURAL TECHNOLOGY GEEKS
Parenthetically, it seems like no coincidence that Israel is known as a world center of technological innovation. Jews are natural technology geeks. We have a natural talent for innovating new ways to put together the “stuff” of the physical world into machines and processes that do marvelous things. If you talk to many Jews and ask them what’s special about us and about Israel, many will respond by making note of this talent. Netanyahu’s recent speech at the Jewish Federation General Assembly focused on our “luminous achievements” in science and technology as what makes Israel and the Jewish people special.

What they’re ignoring, however, is that this talent for technological innovation was given to us as a gift to enable us to be fulfill our deeper mission as operators of the sophisticated spiritual technologies called Torah and Eretz Yisrael. In truth, because Torah is by nature wholistic and seamlessly weaves together the spiritual and the physical, there is no contradiction. We can and should simultaneously be maestros of both the spiritual and material technologies at our disposal. However, utilizing our spiritual prowess needs to be primary because that’s what gives meaning and direction to everything else we do. Without that spiritual focus as our foundation, it’s too easy to go astray after things with little lasting meaning.

Imagine that you have a son who’s a brilliant engineer and who chooses, rather than using his talent to contribute to curing cancer, reducing pollution, etc chooses instead to devote his life to designing video games. It’s not really so terrible. He’s making a living. He is contributing to making people’s recreational experience more pleasurable. But wouldn’t you at some level think it was kind of a waste of talent? So too, it seems so clear that what the world needs most desperately right not is not more or better material technology but a deeper connection to G-d. We Jews have been given a uniquely powerful set of spiritual technologies for doing exactly that, and Torah and Eretz Yisrael are the grandest and most powerful of those technologies that we and only we can operate properly.

RE-CLAIMING AND RE-FURBISHING THE "MACHINE"
Unfortunately, the spiritual apparatus called Eretz Yisrael has been neglected and partly disassembled from 2,000 years of exile and alien control. Since the Jewish people are the only qualified operators, we carry the responsibility, in addition to operating the machine, of fixing and re-furbishing it. It’s a responsibility that we carry not just for ourselves but for everyone on the planet. If only the non-Jews, including the Arabs, appreciated what blessings and vitality they would receive from the proper functioning of Eretz Yisrael, they would DEMAND that we re-assert our exclusive control over its entirety, particularly those places, like the Temple Mount, Chevron, Shechem, and all of Judea and Samaria – that are critical to its proper function. We can’t blame the Arabs or the Americans. When the leader of Israel (who by the way was introduced for his speech at the Federation Assembly as “the leader of the Jewish People”) can’t articulate why we’re in Eretz Yisrael other than that we’re good technologists, what do you expect from the rest of the world? Can you really expect the non-Jews to be more insightful than our leaders about us or more insistent that we focus on our primary spiritual mission? We really have no one to blame but ourselves and our own reluctance to accept who we are and what our primary role is. How confusing it must be for non-Jews who do have some insight into what our role is to witness the Jewish authorities in Israel actually preventing other Jews from fulfilling our essential spiritual duties in the our land. I am not only one who feels that the growing hostility in the world to Jews and to Israel is rooted in our own reluctance to accept responsibility for those vital spiritual functions that we and only we can accomplish in Eretz Yisrael for the sake of the entire world. We're letting them down by not being true to who we are.

THE "TIPPING POINT" IS NEAR
The good news is that the process of regaining control over and fixing up that magnificent spiritual machine has made tremendous progress. Yes, there has been and continues to be tremendous opposition (from other Jews as much or more than from the Arabs) and requires enormous self-sacrifice. Nevertheless, it was clear from being there that there's an awakening going on amongst the Jewish people in Eretz Yisrael. Despite the opposition, Jews have made enormous progress returning to our stations, fixing up the apparatus, and restoring more and more of its functionality. There’s a very influential and often quoted book, call “The Tipping Point,” that discusses the phenomenon of revolutionary change that begins and progresses at what appears to be a very slow and gradual pace but that, at some critical “boiling” point, the change becomes very rapid and dominant. It feels like we’re close to that “Tipping Point” in the functioning of Eretz Yisrael. It did feel to us like things there were percolating, that the machinery was on the verge of a new and greatly enhanced level of functionality that we’ve all been anticipating for 2,000 years.

Not surprisingly, Rina Shoshana and I both feel that the time is right for us to move to Eretz Yisrael, that we’re needed there, and that we want to and can contribute significantly to bringing that Tipping Point sooner and bringing the spiritual “machine” to its full and glorious operational capacity. There is a phrase common among Lubavitchers, who, quoting the Rebbe, feel a mission to create Eretz Yisrael wherever we find ouselves. In truth, we are and and meant to be "operators" of Eretz Yisrael wherever we are. In spiritual service, time and place do not limit our sphere of influence. However, it was clear from being in Eretz Yisrael that there are some spiritual labors, operating and rebuilding the "machine," that can only be performed on-site, and we feel very drawn to that work. Our house is for sale, we’ve submitted our Aliyah applications, and with G-d’s help, we’ll be living in Eretz Yisrael, in Bat Ayin, by this Summer.

Sukkos in Bat Ayin

We got into Bat Ayin Sunday evening of Chol Hamoed, just in time for Maariv. Driving into the community, I felt a sense of joy. It appears that I was not alone. At the conclusion of Maariv, most of the guys sang and danced around the bimah for about 10 minutes, accompanied by lively percussion on the Bimah by two teens. My first impression of Bat Ayin was as a very Simcha-dik place.

Bat Ayin is an unusual mix. It’s a combination of Lubavitch Chassidim, Breslov Chassidim, Sefardim, and a scattering of other varieties of Chassidim. They davven using the Chabad Nusach, but the nigun varies based on who’s leading the davvening. There was one memorable Shacharis this week in which the Pesukei DiZimra were accompanied by Sefard nigunim, Shacharis and Hallel by Chabad nigunim, and Musaf by Carlebach nigunim.

The davvening here is quite slow compared to what I’m used to, and people here seem to put a lot of energy into their davvening. There were even a significant number of teenage boys who seem to put substantial time and effort into their davvening. Because it’s a mix of several communities, there is less pressure here to conform to a single community standard of dress or frumkeit. People have a lot of freedom here to develop themselves and their spiritual service in the directions to which they feel most drawn. There’s a great opportunity for cultivating one’s inner spiritual resources, and there appear to be some great mashpiim (spiritual counselors) here. The culture here seems to place a high value on the sincerity of one’s spiritual service.

Bat-Ayin is relatively small. There are only about 140 families and just a few streets. It’s somewhat rural and is surrounded by the beautiful Judean Hills, pocketed with other Gush (the block of Jewish settlements just South of Jerusalem) communities, and several Arab villages. There are people here who have goats, chickens, and donkeys, and others who grow food in their gardens or vineyards. We enjoyed fresh goat milk every morning here. There was one memorable incident this week in which we were walking down the sidewalk and had to quickly jump to the side in order to make way for a donkey that had gotten loose and was galloping straight at us.

Being close to the land is part of Bat Ayin’s ideology. If I had to isolate one outstanding characteristic of Bat Ayin, I'd say it would be the earnestness of the spiritual striving here. There is a certain sense, in Bat Ayin, of being in a spiritual laboratory, where everyone has their own spiritual research project going on to which they are very dedicated. One common factor in everyone's research protocols is a closeness with the physical Land of Israel.

Another part of the Bat Ayin’s ideology is that unlike virtually every other Jewish town in the area, Bat Ayin has no security fence around it. To the founders and current residents, a fence is more than a practical security measure. A fence is also a moral border, demarking what rightfully is ours from what doesn’t belong to us. Constructing a fence would be a form of concession that not all of the land rightfully belongs to us, something that is intolerable to the Bat Ayin ideology. In addition, the emotional attachment to the land is so strong here that anything that creates a separation from any part of the land is too emotionally painful. Finally, there are those who, from a practical perspective, feel that a fence is only a minor impediment to infiltration and is not worth the cost monetarily, ideologically, or emotionally.

Other foundational principles of Bat-Ayin include only employing Jewish labor, the men wearing beards, strict standards of Tzniut (modest dress), and no TVs. The rule about no TV has been largely circumvented these days by the integration of the computers, internet and media. Many parents need to have computers and internet in their homes either for parnassah or because it’s too hard living without it. This is one of the challenges the community faces.

Bat-Ayin breeds its own form of toughness, similar but different from the toughness of Chevron’s Jews. The surrounding Arab villages are quite hostile and were the source of several horrific murders in the last few years. The most recent was just last April, when an axe-wielding terrorist infiltrated the community and killed a boy right outside the community center. There have also been numerous incidents of theft or vandalism perpetrated by people from these villages.

KING DAVID ENERGY

There have also been some close and hostile confrontations with the Arabs. A mother told me about an incident just a few months ago in which several of the young men from Bat Ayin, including her son, charged fearlessly towards a mob of Arabs moving in Bat Ayin’s direction from a nearby hill. The mother described to me her tremendous fear and sense of helplessness seeing her 14-year old son, running fearlessly over the hills towards the Arab mob. Fortunately, the boys, including this mother’s son, stopped short of the mob, took our their sling shots, and held the mob back for the few minutes it took the army to get there and intervene before any real violence began. For the mother I spoke to, witnessing her son fearlessly running over the hills towards the Arab mob was a clear sign of the consciousness bred by growing up in Bat Ayin.

There are several beautiful natural springs in the area with pools of clear cold water that make them wonderful natural mikvehs. There is a custom, especially strong among Chassidim, for men to go to mikveh every morning before prayer and in the afternoon before Shabbos or a holiday. The mikveh is meant to be a sort of consciousness “re-booting” experience, in which one’s ego momentarily dissolves into the womblike pool of “living waters.”

There is a heated indoor mikveh in town, but for Nisan and I and for many of Bat Ayin’s residents, the cold, outdoor, natural mikvehs provide a far more satisfying mikveh experience. According to tradition, it’s a good idea immediately after a mikveh to look at a holy or inspirational image, such as a picture of a Tzadik (holy sage). In this way, by having one’s first re-experience of self be “programmed” by a holy image, one can help move oneself towards a greater level of holiness.
One of these the natural mikvehs is just a few hundred feet from the edge of town, and that’s the one we and the other men used on a regular daily basis.

Immediately when you step out of this mikveh, you can look down out over the beautiful Judean hills. About 6 miles away and just visible from this mikveh is the valley where King David fearlessly confronted Goliath, the giant Philistine, and killed him with his slingshot in the name of the G-d of Israel. It seemed clear that the teenage boys confronting the Arab (in Hebrew the word for Palestinian and Philistine is the same) mob had imbibed the consciousness of King David confronting the Philistine.

I don’t think that this King-David consciousness is unique to Bat-Ayin. I think that it permeates all of Israel and especially the Judean Hills. It seems to permeate even the stones of Eretz Yisrael. But perhaps because of Bat-Ayin’s heightened sense of connection to the land, that consciousness seems particularly strong here.

Among the Australian Aborigines, there is a tradition called a “walk-about.” It’s a journey on foot through their heartland that is at once both a physical walk and spiritual journey in which the spiritual energies of the landscape can be experienced first hand. An Aborigine traditionally grows up hearing stories of his tradition that involve the spiritual energies that inhabit their landscapes. On the walk-about, he will get to see these landscapes for himself and in some way experience first hand the spiritual characters of their stories.

Being in Israel awakened in me a dream to someday participate in and perhaps even help lead a Jewish “Walk-About” experience in which we would walk through its landscapes and hopefully experience some of the Jewish spiritual energies that permeate the land, particularly our spiritual heartland of Judea and Samaria.

Interestingly, the original name for Bat Ayin was Migdal Eder. It’s the name of the place where Yaakov camped immediately after the death of his wife Rachel in Bethlehem on his way to Chevron. Geographically, the name fits, as Bat Ayin is on the way between Bethlehem to Chevron . According to the Midrash, Migdal Eder is the place from which Mashiach – the descendant of King David and ultimate Jewish leader - will come. Rabbi Yitzchok Ginsburgh was very involved in the early days of Bat Ayin. He conceived of Bat Ayin as an incubator for true Jewish Leaderhip, and he is the one who apparently suggested the name Migdal Eder. King David is, of course, the primary archetype of Jewish Leadership. However, the government authorities didn’t allow it. They said that the archeological evidence puts the original location of Migdal Eder a few miles away. There is the suspicion that the authorities real concern was that the name was too messianic. The name Bat Ayin was a second choice.

Our trip to Israel seemed to have a Kabbalistic wholeness to it. We started off in Chevron, the seat of the Chabad, the head, of Jewish identity. Then we stayed in Yerushalayim, corresponding to the heart of that identity. Yerushalayim is the emotional engine of Jewish identity. No place else generates the same sense of passionate attachment. Kabbalistically, Bat Ayin seems to correspond to the level of Malchus – meaning sovereignty or kingship. It’s where the spiritual and the physical touch. In a properly functioning system, by submitting to and acting as a vessel for the higher spiritual energies of Chevron (head) and Yerushalayim (heart) Bat Ayin is a place where one can exercise proper sovereignty over the physical – the land of Israel and our 3 individual “garments” of thought, speech, and action.

In the Old City

First Davvening at the Kotel
My first experience of the Kotel was Wednesday morning, after having a chance to go the Mikveh. The Kotel is a joyous and awesome place. The davvening there is extraordinary. The size and antiquity of the stones and the Wall itself and the incredible diversity of Jews inspire an “I-can’t-believe-I’m-actually-here” sort of reverence. Davvening together in a minyan is always bonding experience, and there’s something particularly beautiful about the spontaneity and depth of that bonding experience at the Kotel. It just me made want to shout the Hallelukahs at full volume.

However, there was something that struck me afterwards as very peculiar about that scene in the Kotel Plaza, something that didn’t seem quite right. I was told that when standing at the Kotel while davvening, you should face a little bit to the left rather than straight at the wall because we’re supposed to align our bodies, hearts and minds, not to the wall, but to the site of the Holy of Holies that sits under the current site of the big domed mosque. The Wall, after all, is only a retaining wall--it’s what sits inside the wall, the site of the Holy Temple and the Holy of Holies within it that is supposed to be the true target of our prayers.

There are two troubling things about this. The first is a technical issue. There is a technique to effective prayer. Prayer isn’t just a form of self-expression. Real prayer can and should make a difference in the world. We should have the expectation that the world is changed by our prayers, and there are ways to make prayer more effective. Facing the Holy of Holies with our bodies and in our hearts and minds is one of the “tips” for making one’s prayers more effective that unfortunately does not seem commonly practiced in front of the Kotel.

The second issue is political. Among the most moving and significant words to be spoken in 2000 years were the words of Chief Rabbi Shlomo Goren when the IDF captured Jerusalem and the Temple Mount in the ’67 war. He said, “Har Habayit B’Yadeinu,” “The Temple Mount is in our hands.” The words were broadcast and recorded over his army walkie-talkie and they reverberated from one end of the world to the other. At last, after 2000 years of longing and suffering, our holiest site, the main link connecting G-d to all creation was back in our control. However, in one of the greatest tragedies of modern times, the Israeli government, within days, had relinquished control over the Temple Mount to the very people who most wanted us and Israel to be dead.

Just imagine that you’ve been forcibly separated from your mother and father for a very long time – 20, 30, or 40 years – and finally after that long long separation you had the opportunity to once again enter and make yourself at home in their house. But rather than coming in the house and embracing your parents, you instead give the house keys to the very people who most recently kicked you out of it. You make a beautiful patio in their front yard, and you satisfy yourself with standing on the patio and waving to your beloved parents through the window.

There’s something simultaneously so sweet and so bitter about being here. Looking on this beautiful scene of the Kotel plaza, I can’t help but feel simultaneously uplifted and downcast. Being here is truly special. There is something very unique and very holy about this place. It feels like every one of these very diverse Jews that run into here is somehow intimately connected to me. The sense of Hashem’s Hashgacha that is the consciousness of being in Eretz Yisrael is nowhere as intense as it is here in the Old City in general and in the Kotel plaza in particular. If I had the opportunity, I’d like to just park myself here for hours and bask in the special energy of the place. At the same time, however, it’s very unsettling and unsatisfying, knowing that the real, in-depth experience of that energy isn’t really here. It’s up on the Temple Mount, which right now is in the hands of people who hate us and who actively attempt to erase our connection to that site.

I think this scene at the Kotel succinctly captures both the glory and the tragedy of the state of Israel. On the one hand, the state has brought us to the courtyard of our home, the destination we have been trying to reach for 2000 years. On the other hand, the state is actively trying to keep us from going past the courtyard and actually entering our home to embrace ourselves and special connection to G-d.



Our Time in Jerusalem
I was hoping to enjoy some of the many wonderful tours and museums here in the Old City, but this was not a popular concept among our four kids. Nisan most enjoyed just walking around the small but intense jigsaw puzzle of streets that comprises the Jewish Quarter. Mendel and Hadassah most enjoyed playing with the many wild cats that live here. I watched them literally for hours as they chased after, petted, and played with these cats. The only breaks in the play with the kitties were to climb a tree or fence or wall. My supervision and sometimes intervention, when the climbing seemed too dangerous, were the only interruptions in their otherwise play filled afternoon. One of the kids’ special treats here was climbing a carob tree growing on one of the trees in a public courtyard and bringing back handfuls of delicious carob pods for us to enjoy.



All the kids enjoyed our long walk to the Machene Yehuda market where we had some great treats and purchased some gifts and some things helpful to our trip. It was quite a crowd scene, not unexpected in these days just prior to Sukkos.

From there we walked to Mea Shearim, to witness the great Arbah Minim markets, to purchase Lulavim and Hadassim (we had already gotten our Esrogim in Chevron) and to be part of the getting-ready-for-Sukkos scene in this largest and most intensely religious Jewish neighborhood in the world.

My Hashgacha Pratis at the Kotel Story
I think everyone who comes here feels something of Hashem’s special hasgacha--special supervision here--especially at the Kotel, and comes home with a story about it. Often it’s meeting someone that they never would have expected to meet up with. My special hashgacha pratis at the Kotel story happened Shabbos/Yom Tov morning. I went to the Kotel to learn some Chassidus and davven, but didn’t bring a sefer with me to learn.

There’s one area of Chassidus that I’ve been particularly interested in related to the creative power within the soil – the Koach Hatzomeach – and the relation between the “Yesh,” the “ego” the sense of beingness that characterizes all physical creation and the ultimate “Yesh” of G-d’s being. It’s not much discussed, and except for a few fleeting references, I had yet to find much elaboration of the concept.

I was disappointed with the selection of Chassidus in the Seforim libray at the Kotel. There was one just volume. It was a volume of the Previous Rebbe’s Mamaarim from the year 1930-31. There was one maamar from Succos in this volume, and virtually the entire maamar was a lengthy and de!tailed explanation of the Koach Hatzomeach and it’s relationship to the temporal and G-dly sense of being and nothingness. What a special gift!

Spirituality at the Kotel
There is a popular notion that spiritual experience is supposed to be either serene and pleasant or wondrous and awesome. However, the experience at the Kotel fell into neither of these categories. At this peak spiritual season, the Kotel is very crowded and requires a bit of jostling, the violation of what we normally consider to be personal space of others and vice versa. There are many minyanim going on simultaneously and in such close proximity. It’s more than a bit chaotic. There’s a branch of mathematics called Chaos theory that is used nowadays to model a huge range of physical, chemical, and biological processes. It seems that nature, like spirituality, is essentially chaotic, at least superficially. The sense of order in both is more than skin deep. If you look at the Kotel Plaza from afar, it does in fact seem like a sort of vibrant organism.

Jeep ride to Ein Gedi and the Dead Sea

Tuesday: Leaving Chevron
On Tuesday morning we left Chevron with our guide for the day – Shalom Alkabi – in his big jeep. Shalom and his family (7 kids) live on a hilltop community next to Chevron called Givat Gal. This is one of the hilltop communities that the government wants to destroy, ostensibly because they feel it interferes with the “peace process.” We had Shalom take us up to his home. It’s a group of about 7 families. Most of them live in caravans, but Shalom actually built a very nice permanent home. The first family to move up here actually lived for years in an old bus – no electricity, no running water, bitterly cold and fierce winter winds – while raising a large family. When they were finally able to slap a caravan onto the side of their bus/home, their family had expanded to 9 kids. These folks are the toughest of the tough. Shalom and his family face the government’s threat to destroy their home with incredible faith in G-d. I asked him what would he do financially if the government bulldozed his home and left him with a mortgage and no home. He said he wasn’t troubled. He says he knows that they’re doing the right thing, putting their lives on the line in the service of the ideal that this land is ours, and he has complete faith in G-d’s providence. Hadassah and Mendel had a great time petting the goats and chickens that the families up here own.

In the Jeep

From the hilltop community we headed for the day to the Dead Sea and to the Ein Gedi spring on its shore. The regular road there is through Jerusalem. However, we were in a jeep, so roads were optional. We were on roads for the first 45 minutes or so, but for the last 2-1/2 hours we were on camel trails, bumping and jostling in our jeep through the starkly beautiful Judean desert. The scenery here is really breathtaking. People tend of think of Israel as a tiny place, which is true. Its total area is about the size of the state of New Jersey, and only a relatively small part if mountainous desert. However, from our camel trail vantage point, these rocky and barren Judean mountains stretch to the horizon in every direction.

Whose Land Is It?
One of the curious and troubling things we noticed driving through Judea is that the Jewish towns are surrounded by fences and barbed wire (and by the way, they are now forbidden by the government to build anything, even additions to existing structures) while the Arab towns sprawl freely, without any fences, and they’re building freely without restrictions. Judging by appearances, it would appear that we’re the foreigners while the Arabs are the ones at home here, with no need for fences.

Ein Gedi



The kids had a blast playing in the pools and waterfalls (with their clothes on) and Hadassah just had to stop and oodle over every rock hyrax (furry little creatures) that came close to us. It is amazing how close the long-horned ibex (local mountain goats) come to the people. It seems very unusual for such wild and exotic looking large mammals to be living in apparent harmony with the large flow of tourists. Perhaps it’s a model for wild animal/human cohabitation that could be applied elsewhere as well.

Dead Sea
Right across from Ein Gedi is the Dead Sea, but the public beach there has no separation between men and women, and though it was getting late, the kids really wanted the experience of floating in the Dead Sea. This day was the only big outing we had planned for our whole trip, so even though it was getting late, we had our driver take us 35 minutes further South along the Dead Sea to an area called Ein Boqueq, where there are a number of hotels and a beach with a mechitza separating men from women bathers. We were rewarded for our effort by the opportunity to davven mincha with an impromptu minyan right on the side of the beach as well as by one of the funniest scenes I’ve seen in quite a while. When we got into the water (which is quite an experience in itself) I found myself right next to these two Chassidic men in the water with the faces and heads coated with (therapeutic) mud. They were both wearing thick glasses and they were conversing in Yiddish. There was something absurdly incongruous about the mud coated faces and the peyos hanging down and the thick glasses and the Yiddish here in the middle of the Dead Sea.

Shabbos Shuvah and Yom Kippur in Chevron

Being in Eretz Yisrael
I remember reading a statement of Rav Yitzchak Ginsburgh that the consciousness of living in Eretz Yisrael is the consciousness of feeling Hashem’s Hashgacha Pratis - supervision over every detail of one’s life. I had a taste of this twice on Shabbos morning. I was walking to the Maarat HaMachpela and badly needed a tissue. I looked around and saw an indentation in the wall where people had posted notices of upcoming events. There was a shelf at the bottom of this indentation, and on that shelf sat a small stack of tissues from which I took what I needed. Later on I was in the Maarah davvening and again needed some tissues badly. I started towards the exit and had an impulse to detour into one of the side rooms. There was a little alcove inside the room and sitting on a table in the alcove was a little baggy with tissues. It was the only time I saw any tissues in the Maarah for as long as we were there. It was a pleasant reminder of Hashem’s benevolent and constant presence and an affirmation of BEING in Eretz Yisrael.


Davvening at the Maaras Hamachpela Friday Night
It took a long time to get past the first sentence of the Shmena Esray and the phrases: “The G-d of Abraham, The G-d of Isaac, and The G-d of Jacob.” There’s a lot to think about here. It comes down to a form of spiritual evolution in which our forefathers transparently reflected in their own personalities certain Divine attributes in an entirely new way and then transmitted this newly evolved spiritual DNA to us, their ancestors. We have it as part of our spiritual genome, but need to work at expressing these sections of our genetic code through our own personalities. These lofty intellectual concepts here at the Maarah become an emotional in-the-body experience.

The Jewish section was packed with men and women – Jews from Chevron, from Kiryat Arba, and visitors to both communities, and there were multiple minyanim going on simultaneously. It reminded me of the other very Jewish places I’ve visited—the Kotel in Yerushalayim and the central Lubavitch shul (770) in Brooklyn—and it seemed so normal for this place to have such a vibrant Jewish presence. It was hard to conceive of it otherwise.

However, we learned from our host, David Shirel, of the long and intense battle that was waged to accomplish this. After the 6-day war, the Israeli authorities did what they had done on the Temple Mount—they immediately gave control over this Jewish holy site to the Moslems. It, like the Temple Mount, was too “hot” with Jewish spiritual energy to be integrated into a state that has such a schizophrenic relationship with its Jewish identity. There were a few hardy pioneers, prominently including our host, David, who worked night and day for years, putting their lives on the line on many occasions, in order to make it possible for Jews to be able to be here again. Even now, the authorities only grant the Jews access to 1/3 of the Maaras HaMachpela structure, and they deny the Jews any access to the main section of the building and the cave itself. One of the highlights of our Yom Kippur will be entering and davven in this main section—Yom Kippur is one of the few days during the year when Jews are actually able to pray there.

It’s very clear here why the Jews and the Moslems here have a hard time living together peacefully. Jews have been living with and passing down to our children the stories of our patriarchs and matriarchs for 3,300 years. After 2,000 of those years, Mohammed came on the scene stole the story from us, putting a section in the Koran that takes and twists our story about Abraham. In the Koran’s version of the story, Abraham’s son Ishmael is the hero and chief inheritor of the Abrahamic legacy. Abraham is special to the Christians as well, but at least they had the courtesy not to change our already age-old story to suit their own interests. The Moslems had no compunctions about usurping and twisting our well-established tradition, but they don’t appreciate being reminded of who has the prior claim to the story or to this land.

Tour of Chevron
In the afternoon, we took a tour of Chevron and learned more about both its ancient and modern Jewish history. I think the most appropriate sound-bite label for this place is the seat of Jewish consciousness. In addition to its role, gained at the hands of the patriarchs and matriarchs, in the inception of Jewish consciousness, it was also throughout Jewish history the place where Jews came to connect to their roots and to learn Jewish “Being-ness,” to learn to think and perceive the world as a Jew. It was the site where Calev ben Yefuneh came to pray at the beginning of his mission from Moses to spy out the land just prior to its intended conquest. He, along with Yehoshua are the only two of the twelve tribes who remain faithful to the mission that Moses had given them, and his visit here is credited with strengthening within him the Jewish outlook that allowed him to remain faithful where the other spies (who were also great Jewish leaders) did not.

Included in the tour is the place where David is believed to have been crowned king. Chevron was also the seat of his Kingship for the first 7 years of his reign. Like Calev, King David also came here to learn the most essential Jewish leadership skill – how to really think like a Jew.

The Chabad Rebbeim also had a very close connection to Chevron and most of them owned property here. Chevron seems to be the psycho-spiritual “head” of Eretz Yisrael, the place in which Jewish consciousness first developed and from which it still radiates. It makes sense that Chabad would have a special connection here since it seems to be the “Chabad” of the Holy Land.

The modern story of Chevron is like the story of the Maaras HaMachpela—both the Arabs and the Israeli authorities had to be fought with intense faith and self-sacrifice for every inch of territory that is now Jewish. There is a general principle that the more holiness is attached to any project, the more difficulty it poses and the more self-sacrifice is required to accomplish it. That principle is certainly true here. Unfortunately, there are a number of plaques scattered around the Jewish section of the town as memorials to places where Jews have been murdered since the Oslo accords were signed in ’93. Parts of the Jewish section still look like battlegrounds—there are Jewish-owned places where Jews preemptively moved in without official permission from the authorities, and then the authorities weeks, months, and sometimes years later (based on the political climate at the time) brought in masses of riot police and soldiers and kicked the Jews out of their homes.

Language is no Barrier for the Kids
Most of the adults here speak English, but the kids don’t. However, that didn’t stop Hadassah and Mendel from making friends and playing together all day long. With kids, not knowing the same language doesn’t seem to be an obstacle.


The Chevron Personality
Fear seems to be a foreign emotion among the Jewish natives here, but not for me. I got up at 3 AM Shabbos morning and decided to walk to the Maarah. I started feeling very uneasy at the sight of the barbed wire and concrete barricades separating the tiny Jewish section of the valley from the huge Arab sections of the city that loom over it. My fear was heightened when the Muezins started blasting their creepy calls to prayer from the mosques through the city at 4AM. I’ve heard Muezins calling in other places, but the tone of their chanting here has a get-under-your-skin, dissonant edge to it that is completely unique and very unnerving. It’s also much louder here than, for instance, in Jerusalem. To me, it sounds like the appropriate musical accompaniment to a horror movie: very creepy. I asked some of the natives how they deal with it and they universally told me they no longer hear it. I, however, couldn’t ignore it. I lost my nerve and headed back towards where we staying.

Chicago has its owns challenges to our psyches. In Chicago too, in order to get by, you develop a sort of psychic/emotional armor. After spending the last 5 summers up at Basi Legani, I’m familiar with the phenomenon of coming back to Chicago at the end of the summer and feeling like my senses like my senses are under attack the first few days. However, in Chicago, the sense of being under attack is just aesthetic—it is a very noisy place, but the attack doesn’t feel personal.

In Chevron the psychic background noise seems outright hostile. The place radiates with a kind of psychic hostility from the Arabs, who comprise 99% of its population. A contingent of the men here, including our host, travels around Chevron, even on Shabbos and Yom Tov, with a rifle and walkie-talkie. Security is a big consideration here. Interestingly, this feature, while unpleasant for the visitor, seems to play a very constructive role in shaping the Jewish consciousness of its natives. The people here, particularly the kids, are fearless and fiercely dedicated to enriching the Jewish connection to the land in general and to this place in particular. There seems to be an appropriate analogy between the Jews here and vegetation growing in a hostile physical environment: the harsher the environment, the more tenaciously the native vegetation clings to life. After spending time here in Chevron, Jews, especially the kids, have a tendency to take on pioneering jobs that no one else would have the stomach for. For example, some of them end up settling new hilltops in Judea or Shomron—they transplant their families to places with no electricity or running water against the sometimes violent opposition of both the Arabs and the Israeli authorities. Chevron now seems to be an incubator for a new sort of Jewish consciousness that manifests in this pioneering spirit.



Learning in the Maarah
Shabbos morning I had the great pleasure of learning Chassidus with Nisan in the Maarah. We learned part of a maamar for Shabbos Shuvah. One thing that stuck with me was how other sorts of transformational processes require substantial time and gradual progression. Teshuvah, on the other hand, can be very quick while still being radically transformational. Having the opportunity to be here in this seat of Jewish consciousness for just this short time, I was very inspired by this message and the hope that our time here in Chevron during these days of special closeness to The Holy One will be transformational despite its short duration.

Toivelling in "Sarah's Spring"
There’s a natural mikveh up the hill from the Jewish block. You go down a set of rough and obviously very old stone steps to a deep stone pool with cold clean spring water. I couldn’t get a clear answer as to how long it had been there, but it was definitely ancient (hundreds of years old at least). Nisan and I used this very special mikveh in preparation for Yom Kippur—very refreshing. Groups of young men from the local Hesder Yeshivas would come. At least one of them was armed with his rifle, and he would act as guard while the others toiveled.

The "Peace" Observers
The Arabs, with the assistance of some left wing Israelis, frequently bring in groups of Europeans and try to convince them that the Jews are oppressing the Arabs here. I went up to one of the Europeans on Yom Kippur morning and struck up a conversation. At some point in our short conversation, this Irish fellow said something like, “.. and of course, the thing that all religions teach is that we have to respect each other’s rights and be tolerant of one another.” At that moment, this whole situation seemed outrageously absurd. How the Moslems convinced these guys that they somehow embodied this spirit of tolerance and respect more than the Israelis is a mystery, but you have to give them credit for pulling off a tremendous public relations show.

I asked the fellow if he had ever had one of the local Jews show them and around and speak with them. He said no but that he would like to do this; I said I’d look into it. I spoke to David about it and he said that when the observers first started coming, the Jews did spend a lot of time with them and assumed, based on the commonality of language (English) and the closer affinity in moral principles, this was going to be an easy and successful PR operation. David said that he was shocked when he then saw the reports that these guys wrote, reports that more or less parroted the whole Arab line, including multiple made-up atrocity stories. Apparently, these “observers” come with an ingrained bias that no amount of factual information can turn.

Yom Kippur Davvening
The 2/3 of the Maarat HaMachpela structure that is in the hands of the Arabs is by far the most beautiful and significant. It has beautiful architecture and great acoustics. Most significantly, it houses the opening to the tunnel that leads underground to the cave itself. Ten days a year, this section opens to Jews as well. The davvening there was very special. In the states, seeing real emotion in people’s davvening is not so common. Here, the place really brings it out.



The most frequent kavvanah in my own davvening was for an internal “re-formatting” operation. I’ve been wearing the garb and trying to adopt the behaviors of a native Jew for more than 10 years now, but changing what’s inside my head is not so easy. Here, at the birthplace of Jewish consciousness and on the day of our collective “re-formatting”, it seemed appropriate to focus on erasing the psychological shmutz that gets in the way of really thinking and viewing the world with the natural consciousness of a Jew.

On Our Way

Embarkation
We had our first taste of Eretz Yisrael in the Newark airport, where, as we approached our gate, we saw a large minyan davvening. Mincha, Nisan, and I were immediately approached to help make a second minyan. In that minyan of very differently dressed Jewish men, there was a feeling of standing together, in our diversity, before G-d. I believe the diversity of Jews there will pale in comparison to the diversity we’ll encounter in Eretz Yisrael, and the standing before G-d that we’ll IY’H experience in the Holy places on our itinerary in the Holy Land on the upcoming Holy days will far outshine that weekday mincha in the Newark airport. Nevertheless, there was something new in the Newark experience, something that touched me particularly in the Avinu Malkeinu—there was a sense of "our Father, our King, I’m coming to be close to you. Thank you so much for the privilege of traveling with my whole family to be in and taste the sweetness of your presence."

On the Plane
We thought we were being adventurous in taking our whole family, including our 1 year old, on a transatlantic flight. The scene on the El Al plane quickly dispelled our sense of doing anything out-of-the-ordinary. The flight was full of Jewish life, the most audible of which was the cry of some baby somewhere on the plane. A family with 5 kids under the age of 8, including twin infants, sat next to us. Unfortunately, our Yisrael, completely exhausted and over-stimulated, frequently contributed to the chorus. Nobody slept much.

Left: the children on the plane
Right: sunrise from the flight

Touchdown
We were all too tired to manifest much emotion, but inwardly, we were all excited to finally be here. We went straight to Chevron. What struck me the most on our way was how small the agricultural plots are and how they are interspersed with areas of compact human settlement. It reminded me of what I’d often heard about the term “agri-culture,” namely, that the growing of food is the foundation of all human culture and it functions best when it is done in close physical proximity to the other forms of cultural activity.

Although this mix of cultures is not unique to Israel, there is a unique sort of wholeness to the experience of living together and growing food together as Jews in our Holy Land. Many of the plots we saw along the way were either grapes or olives, two of the 7 species of fruit that the Torah defines as special to our connection to the land and to G-d. In Israel, that mix of agri and other forms of human culture always includes G-d. Viewing the interweaving of our land, our people, and our G-d from the highway straight from the airport was my personal “welcome to Eretz Yisrael” experience.

In Chevron
We are being hosted by Dovid and Vered Shirel, two incredibly gracious hosts, who welcomed our sleep-deprived family into their home like family. We’re renting an 8 X 12 caravan a few steps from their house (for sleeping). Thank G-d everyone got a chance to lie down and rest this afternoon before Shabbos.

I think if the realm of Jewish experience had a contrast knob you could turn up and down, the place you’d land if you turned that contrast knob all the way up would be Chevron. I had a beautiful davvening this morning and I’m sitting here now in this very Jewish home in the place that Avraham Avinu purchased from Efron the Chitite for 400 silver shekels approximately 3,300 years ago. This was Jewish land over 1,000 years before the most well-known of Jewish sites was purchased by King David to be the site of G-d’s Holy Temple. The people who gave us our identity are buried here. It belongs to me and to every Jew in a way that is deeper than anywhere else. Our spiritual DNA is rooted here.

From the kitchen, I’m hearing the sounds of Jewish music and smelling the aromas of Shabbos in-the-making. I’m feeling very much at home in this most Jewish of places. I am also hearing the muezzin calling the Moslems to prayer, and when I look outside, I see the police and soldiers with their rifles and flak jackets, all here to protect the Jews from the violent expressions of Arab hatred that have periodically convulsed this place. It’s a head-spinning experience. It takes a special kind of Jew to make this his or her home.