So
much has been written in blogs, tweets, articles about the situation in Israel.
It
is a heartbreaking, complicated mess.
And while the world’s attention is somewhat diverted to Iraq and
Ferguson, Missouri, I want to focus on Israel because of its significance to us
and because De and I were there for several weeks during the rocket firing and
the operation in Gaza. As you
may know, I spent a month in Israel as part of a program run by the Hartman
Institute, bringing rabbis from across the denominational spectrum for
learning, analysis, professional development, etc.
I
want to share some incidents, through my own personal lens, of the time I spent in Israel and
then to offer some reflections on the larger context. Of course, such a situation is vast and
affects millions of people, but, as with any larger circumstance, we experience it as individuals, through our
own lenses, one event at a time.
I
had dinner with a friend at the beginning of my time in Israel at the old train
station in Jerusalem. At a certain
point, we noticed that the people around us were visibly upset. We checked the news on our i-phones and
read that the bodies of the three abducted teens were found. At that moment, as a parent of children
close in age to these boys, I had a profound nauseating feeling which didn’t
let up. I recall feeling
surprised, though maybe I shouldn’t have been. Perhaps others, like me, harbored the hope that they would
be kept alive.
