Tag Archives: from-israel

Thursday Evening, January 28, 2010 13 Shevat 5770 “Shalom Yerushalayim…” is one of many songs that have been written over the ages that try to describe the significance of this place to the Jewish people and their experience with God and nature.  It is on the Temple Mount that Abraham nearly sacrificed Isaac.  It is in this same place that the Holy of Holies once stood.  It is here that our ancestors once gathered to celebrate the three pilgrimage festivals.  Today, it is the seat of Israel’s government, the place where Israel buries her fallen soldiers, and the place where we remember the victims of the Holocaust and the stories of its survivors, as well as honoring the righteous gentiles who risked their lives for the souls of a Jewish person. The first comment that our guide, Michael, made was that Jerusalem is a city of contrasts.  There is the heavenly Jerusalem and then there is the earthly one, the one of of our hopes and dreams and the one that is a reality.  It brings together the holy and the secular.  It is both ancient and vibrantly new.  Yet, throughout it all, it brings the Jewish people together in … Continue reading →

Wednesday Evening, January 27, 2010 11 Shevat 5770 We are waiting to board our flight to Israel, leaving from Atlanta, Georgia.  The President of the United States is currently giving his State of the Union address which is viewable at one of the other terminals.  I have just finished reading an article written by Rabbi Daniel Gordis who made aliyah with his family a number of years ago, and reports on Israeli culture on a blog every month or so.  At the end of November he wrote an article entitled “A Requiem for Peoplehood.”  He reports a comment that was made to him following a presentation that he gave at a synagogue in Long Island.  The woman, who was a member of a liberal congregation, commented that “it never occurred to me that the Jews were a people.”  It never occurred to this American born rabbi that Judaism could exist without our believing that we are a people, as first stated by the Pharaoh of Egypt at the beginning of Exodus when he considered the Israelites to be a threat to his nation’s authority.  If our enemies consider us a people, why do we have such a difficult time declaring … Continue reading →