Rabbis' Voice Articles

When I landed in TeI Aviv on April 8, it had been five and a half years since I had last been in Israel. By my calculations , that's the longest stretch of time that I'd gone without visiting Israel since 1997-2003. 

 

I was there between high school and college, then with my family once in 2003, and then in 2006-2007 for the year as part of rabbinical school. I went for two weeks every December from 2010-2013 with tenth graders from the synagogue I worked at in New Jersey. In 2015, I went with some rabbinic colleagues from St Louis. In 2016 Tammy and I took our kids. In 2018 we had a fantastic Kol Rinah trip that took place over Yom HaAtzmaut 2018, Israel's 70th anniversary. And later in 2018, I went with Pastor Carlos Smith from The Journey (now rebranded as "Refresh"), and with other pairs of rabbis and Black pastors from around the country. 

 

But between Covid and life, I hadn't been to Israel since November 2018. 

There really is something to the aphorism, "out of sight, out of mind." While I don't think I ever ran afoul of "If I forget thee, O Jerusalem" (Ps. 136:5), there's a different kind of connection, of having something in your heart, on your heart, of remembering, that comes from being there, and that can be attenuated with distance. 

 

I found it harder these last years, even after October 7, to feel connected to the place, the state, the people of Israel. It gives me a little rochmonus, or compassion, on Israelis who it feels, from where we sit here in America, understand American politics and American Jewry and American Jewish life so poorly. Without being here, without knowing us, without seeing and listening to Americans and American Jews in-situ, in our native habitat–here in the States, we can't reasonably expect them to understand us. 

 

And the same is true for us. We can read the American and Israeli media; we can follow social media and listen to podcasts. But there's a texture, the presence of diversity and disagreement and consensus, and anger, and resignation, and joy, and hope, and so much more, which it can be hard to sense unless you're there, in Israel.

 

Put differently, nuance travels poorly. 

 

I'd love to go back to Israel. Would you like to come? Let's go together. Tell me if you're interested. We II have fun, and we'll learn a lot. We'll eat delicious food. We'll get to know each other better. And most important, we'll discover, or rediscover, a connection with the land, the state and the people of Israel.