Israel Through Our Own Eyes
January 15, 2011
The image of the Holy Land evokes a deep spiritual and emotional connection in Jews and Christians around the world. This month a group of us from Temple Emanu-El, along with a group from Old North Church, visit Israel. It has been 18 years since I was there last and I am beyond thrilled to be going.
If you’ve never been, there are a few things you should know about visiting Israel. It is unlike any other place on earth. It simply feels different: more powerful, more authentic, more connected in ways that are impossible to describe. Walking the streets of Jerusalem is different from walking elsewhere, including other old, historically rich places. There is the palpable presence of the timeless, in the same moment both humbling and exhilarating. This does not seem to be caused by any particular thing, location or story. It just is.
Israel is a contemporary country with a bustling economy. You feel that especially in Tel Aviv. It’s also a huge tourist destination for visitors of many faiths, set up to show itself off with an unmatched cadre of professional guides and minibuses to whisk visitors around to various sites. Biblical sites are especially popular, of course, but post-Biblical locations such as Safed, Masada and the Roman ruins at Beit She’an also attract a regular flow of foreigners.
Distances are modest, with Tel Aviv and Jerusalem less than an hour apart by car. The whole country is only about the size of New Jersey, and includes the vast Negev desert that occupies the southern third of the country. I will take time away from the group to visit the world-renowned research facility at the Weitzmann Institute of Science to which my father devoted much of the last 30 years of his life.
Israel has its social problems, of course, and its divided politics. The dispute between Jew and Arab has been a fixture in that part of the world for decades. Yet I anticipate feeling safer there than in many American cities and European places. The Israelis have created the world’s most sophisticated security system. Anyone who shies away from travel to Israel because of personal safety concerns fails to recognize how safe a place most of Israel is.
This trip offers Temple Emanu-El members the unique opportunity to experience the Holy Land in part through the eyes of our Christian counterparts from Marblehead’s Old North Church. I have no idea what that will be like. Surely it will be a departure from what it was like visiting with my family the last time. Surely we will grow from the new perspective.
Abraham Joshua Heschel wrote that people of different religious traditions should meet “at the level of fear and trembling, of humility and contrition, where our individual moments of faith are mere waves in the endless ocean of mankind’s reaching out for God.”
Israel this month seems a perfect place to do that. I can hardly wait.
