| Monday, November 11th, 2024 10 Heshvan 5785 Veterans’ Day Dear WRT Family, On Kol Nidre I referred to Medieval Christian maps that would portray Jerusalem as Omphalos Mundi, “the navel of the world.” If so, The Temple Mount, with its Western Wall below—holiest shrine in Judaism—and Al Aqsa Mosque and Dome of the Rock above—holiest shrines in Israel for Muslims—is the “navel of Jerusalem.”         This morning our Westchester Jewish Council (WJC) Multi-Faith Clergy Delegation visited these holy sites—as tourists, but also as spiritual leaders who recognize that in today’s fractured world, there are still places that loom large and centrally in the imaginations of millions of people of faith, and which summon us to live for a noble purpose: to serve God and humankind. On this mount (Mount Moriah by name), Jewish tradition tells us Abraham bound his son Isaac. The passage can be found in this week’s Torah portion, Vayera (see Genesis Chapter 22). (Islamic tradition tells the same basic story but has Ibrahim (Abraham) nearly sacrificing Ismail (Ishmael).). I heard a Bar Mitzvah boy chanting this portion at the Kotel as I paused there to pray, followed by singing and dancing with his family on the nearby plaza. The same mythical location that inspires us to nobility, sacrificial service, and joyful observance of our traditions is also associated with acts of religious extremism and even violence. The holy site is often a flashpoint for religious tensions and provocations. But this morning, Jerusalem is at peace, and we give thanks. May God continue to spread a shelter of peace over us, over Jerusalem, and over the hurting human family.  Tuesday, November 12th, 2024 11 Heshvan 5785 Dear WRT Family, Today our Westchester Jewish Council (WJC) multi-faith delegation spent part of the morning at the Max Rayne Yad b’Yad (Hand in Hand) Jerusalem School, one of six bilingual, bi-cultural schools (elementary through high school) in Israel where Jewish and Palestinian-Arab Israelis learn together in Hebrew-Arabic classes with paired Arab and Jewish teachers, dual holiday observances, and a unique curriculum designed to foster dialogue and listening between disparate cultures and lived realities.  We met with Noor, who is a spokesperson for Yad b’Yad (pictured with our group, and with me), an Arab woman who grew up in Israel and who interacted with her first Jewish person at age 19. Asked about how the school, and especially the students, have responded to the horror of October 7th and the ensuing brutal war, Noor shared that the philosophy of Yad b’Yad is that through sustained, painful dialogue, what seems impossible can become possible. The hard work of building commonality across a chasm of difference begins with sharing personal and family stories and listening intentionally to another person’s pain. Unfortunately, very few Israelis — Jewish or Arab — are exposed to this mixed-learning environment. The vast majority of Israelis attend separate schools for Jewish kids and Arab kids. And by high school, most of the Jewish kids transfer out, while Arab students remain at Yad b’Yad (largely because the quality of the academic program exceeds what is available to most Arab youth in Israel). Nevertheless, the families who began this bold project 26 years ago led from a vision of a different future for their children. As is written in this week’s Torah portion, “On the mountain of the Eternal, there is vision” (Genesis 22:14). They remind us that with vision, we can move from the way things are to the way they ought to be. Yad b’Yad offers a small glimmer of hope in the darkness. Wednesday, November 13th, 2024 12 Heshvan 5785 Dear WRT Family, The Torah portion we are studying this week—Parashat Vayera (Genesis 18:1-22:24)—begins with Divine messengers visiting Abraham’s tent days after the covenantal circumcision of the males of his household. The Rabbis read into this passage the mitzvah of bikkur cholim, visiting the sick. It is a Jewish imperative to give comfort to the ailing, the wounded, and the bereaved. The Babylonian Talmud (Sotah 14) understands all of these compassionate behaviors as ways of emulating the Divine. That’s the best way I can make sense of our visit, this morning, to Ofakim and the Nova Festival site, two of the many targets of the Hamas massacre of October 7th. Ofakim, a sleepy city about 35 km from the Gaza border, lost more than 50 of its residents, and 364 individuals were murdered in cold blood at the Nova festival. Taken together, the victims of these two sites represent about 1/3 of the people slaughtered by Hamas on October 7th. It is hard to describe the feelings of numb rage and mute sorrow that accompanied our visit this morning. From what I could tell, we were the only American visitors to the site, a small cluster of pastors and rabbis who nodded silently to the many IDF soldiers there to pay their respects to their murdered friends, family, and fellow citizens.  What little comfort I found in making pilgrimage to what has become Israel’s “Ground Zero” of sacred remembrance came from the same Talmudic passage referenced above, which also observes that a person who visits someone who is ailing “takes away 1/60 of that person’s suffering.” “One sixtieth” is an idiomatic way of describing “the smallest measurable portion.” It’s a passage I take seriously, if not literally. I have seen time and again how simply showing up for people in pain—whether through a hospital visit, or a shiva call, or, indeed, this trip to Israel—can alleviate a tiny bit of suffering. Just a little. The smallest measurable portion. May God comfort those who mourn and bring consolation to the broken-hearted.           Thursday, November 14th, 2024 13 Heshvan 5785 Dear WRT Family, The faces of the hostages and the murdered stare back at you from every street corner and park bench in Tel Aviv. We’re here, in the cosmopolitan heart of Israel, for the last day of our mission, and the pictures I’ve included below were all taken within a 5-foot radius from Rothschild Boulevard, one of Tel Aviv’s main arteries and the home of Beit HaAtzma’ut, Independence Hall, where David Ben Gurion declared Israel’s independence in May 1948. That’s the squat building with the torn-up façade behind a spiderweb of scaffolding. It’s been “under construction” for several years now, but the sad truth is that the project has been mismanaged, has run out of money, and remains in limbo. Directly across the street from this monumentally significant building (in such a monumental state of disarray), the face of 25-year old Eden Yerushalmi (z”l) murdered in a tunnel beneath Gaza in August—whose body was recovered in the arms of fellow captive Hersh Polin (z”l)—implores the reader, Remember me, ok?     I imagine the two are in dialogue with each other: the symbol of Israeli independence—battered and gutted but still standing—and the face of a murdered hostage, each imploring the other: Remember me, ok? At the end of this week’s Torah portion, Vayera, God promises Abraham: “I will bless you, making your descendants as numerous as the stars of the heavens and the sand upon the shore of the sea, and your descendants shall seize the gates of their foes” (Genesis 22:17). That promise—like our unfinished Beit HaAtzma’ut, House of Independence—is still a work in progress, still being built (and rebuilt), with great struggle and sacrifice. But here, even now, Am Yisrael Chai: the people of Israel lives.        |
| Rabbi Jonathan E. Blake |
Rabbi Jonathan E. Blake 