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.