Faith and Fear: Reflections on My Recent Month in Israel

Recently I was sitting and learning with my rabbinic cohort of colleagues at the Hartman Institute in Jerusalem when we were informed that in five minutes there would be a test-siren, just to make sure the system was working properly.

I quickly called Deanna, who was in our apartment at the time, to let her know.  And sure enough the siren went off five minutes later.

As you might imagine, she was happy for the heads up.  Last summer, of course, the sirens were not just a test.

To state the obvious, Israel is very pleasant when there isn’t a war. 

It was a very different experience this summer.  Much calmer than last. 

We took buses everywhere, had a chance to go to the beach in Tel Aviv, ate in cafes and just to make clear, I also did a lot of studying, just like I was supposed to!

At the Tomb of Abraham in Hebron

One of the main topics our rabbinic cohort discussed was faith, mostly defined as faith in God.  You may or may not be surprised to hear that this is a very complicated topic for rabbis and one that many of us like to avoid.

What we discovered, as we spoke and studied and went on a few field trips, is the extent to which faith is connected to fear.  Noting the less fearful mood of this summer in Israel, as compared with last summer, I nonetheless want to reflect on the connection, as we studied and explored it, between faith and fear.  Even during peaceful times, after all, fear is a part of life.

During our time together we discussed numerous texts - spanning chronologically from Biblical texts like Job to contemporary Israeli poetry - texts that give us a window into how others have considered issues of faith over the years.  

Job, to whom God says, “the world is far beyond your understanding” is left, it appears, to consider his own suffering in the context of an incomprehensible cosmos. 

And then there’s the modern poet, Yehuda Amichai, who wrote a modern version of the memorial prayer El Malei Rachamim, “God full of compassion,” by suggesting, in effect, what a shame that God is full of compassion.  If God weren’t so full of God’s own compassion, then maybe there would be some left over for us here on earth.

Across the centuries, prophets and sages and mystics and poets explored the range of individual and communal experiences, the exalted, the mundane and the downright tragic, and wondered – what system of understanding, what cosmic force, can explain the vicissitudes of our lives?

Reflected in so many of the sources we studied is an implicit fear.  What if the old beliefs can’t help us make sense of new realities?  What if we no longer believe what our ancestors did?  What if the order that kept them going no longer exists or never did?

And now for the part you’ve all been waiting for:  The field trips.  I’ll describe two of them.

The first, I’ll call, “26 rabbis walk into a monastery.”

We spent half a day with Yossi Klein Halevi, well-known journalist and author and a Senior Fellow the Hartman Institute, visiting the grave of the prophet Samuel as well as a monastery south of Jerusalem.

I must share a few words about our experience at the monastery.  It’s inhabited by a group of nuns originating in France who call themselves the Sisters of Bethlehem.  In addition to the vows nuns ordinarily take, these nuns take on the additional vow of silence.  There are two nuns who speak to guests but otherwise the nuns in this monastery are silent.  They prepare food silently, they create pottery silently, they read scripture silently. 

The only time the nuns are vocal is when they pray.  Standing in the balcony during their Vespers service, we listened to them pray for about half an hour They prayed mostly in French and Hebrew.  They each had their own partitioned spaces in which to pray, but their voices joined together.

I’ll share my reflections on the monastery in a few moments.

The second field trip I’ll call, “26 rabbis walk into a ghost town.” The entire town wasn’t a ghost town, but I’m getting ahead of myself.

We went to Hebron, site of Machpela where, according to Biblical tradition, Abraham, Sarah and several other patriarchs and matriarchs are buried. 

There’s a long history of Jews and Arabs living together in Hebron, but for many years, particularly during the 20^th century, there has been considerable tension, including the massacre of Jews in 1929 and the massacre of Muslims in 1994.

We visited the current mosque/synagogue complex in the heart of Hebron that contains the tombs of Abraham and Sarah and then we visited with Rabbi Eliezer Waldman, one of the founders of the settler movement.  He was born in Petach Tikvah in 1937 and came to the United States to study at Yeshiva University and Brooklyn College, and in 1968, he and group of other Jews established the settlement of Kiryat Arba, adjacent to Hebron.  Nearly all of the Jews in that area live in Kiryat Arba, but several hundred Jews established themselves in the heart of Hebron proper. 

Rabbi Waldman spoke gently but he grew passionate as he described the victory of the Israelis during the Six Day War.  When asked why the Jewish community in Kiryat Arba, and especially the several hundred Jews living in Hebron, are holding on to isolated Jewish areas in the context of discussion regarding an eventual Palestinian state, Rabbi Waldman, patiently but firmly, asked, “what’s the difference between this and Tel Aviv?”

Meeting with Rabbi Eliezer Waldman in his home in Kiryat Arba

We left our discussion with him and got a tour of downtown Hebron from one of the educators of “Breaking the Silence,” an organization founded by former IDF soldiers to protest the occupation of the West Bank.  Shay Davidovich, who grew up in the West Bank and served in the IDF, took us to see the former Hebron market which is now, in some sense, a ghost town. In order to protect the hundreds of Jews living in Hebron proper, numerous Arabs were evicted from their homes and business were moved as well.  There are also areas in Hebron where Jews are not allowed to live.

In downtown Hebron with Shay Davidovich of "Breaking the Silence"

And now I’d like to share some of my own reflections of both trips.  My colleagues by and large enjoyed the monastery and disliked Hebron.  I had reservations about both.

The nuns’ prayer was beautiful and they gave us an exquisite reception.  But I found it troubling that the underlying dynamic of the monastery seems to be based on a retreat from the world for fear of the corrupting influences of conventional human interaction, most notably speech.

The residents of Hebron and Kiryat Arba whom we met seem bent on imposing their unmitigated narrative on a particular region of the world for fear of the danger of tempering that narrative with an acceptance of changing realities or a willingness to consider the truths inherent in different narratives altogether.

The nuns we met seem to be fine, decent people.  Rabbi Waldman and the person who gave us a tour of Machpela seem to be fine, decent people. 

Yet they all seem to me diminished as a result of their fears.

Both communities seem to have determined, consciously or not, that rather than confront the messy vortex of reality where words emerge from people of differing views and perspectives, they would rather retreat to a place of silence or a place of imposed narrative.  Rabbi Waldman has a deep aura of kindness about him and I know that many within and beyond his community have been enriched by his learning and his chesed.  But the confluence of his theology and his politics strikes me as profoundly inhibiting of possible creative solutions to the region’s problems. 

The nuns graciously incorporated different traditions into their prayer practices and greeted us with the utmost warmth, but their overall stance toward the outside world strikes me as sadly self-limiting.  I tried to imagine one of the two women who spoke with us, a young woman with playful eyes and deep warmth, working closely with children or perhaps needy adults.  It may be because (for better for worse) I’m an inveterate talker, but it saddened me to imagine her impact largely tempered by silence day after day.  I thought of all the people who would not have the experience of her clever insights and kind disposition, not to mention the experience of those nuns who do not interact with outsiders altogether.

There’s another way, I want to suggest, a way that I thought about more explicitly during my recent stay in Israel.  A way that acknowledges the fears that are part and parcel of life but neither retreats nor imposes.  A way that, in my evolving understanding, probably requires the utmost faith.  A way that brings sound and silence, my narrative and your narrative, into the world with humility and curiosity and respect.

On two successive Friday nights, Deanna and I went to services at Kehillat Tzion, a self-described Israeli congregation presided over by Rabbi Tamar Elad Applebaum, whom I’ve written about before.  She’s building a remarkable community where Jews of many different backgrounds and perspectives feel welcomed and engaged.  The synagogue incorporates melodies and customs from throughout the Jewish world.

The first night that we were there, she welcomed teens who are refugees from Eritrea, in eastern Africa, that were being hosted in people’s homes over Shabbat.  She welcomed them each by name. 

Among her many initiatives, by the way, Rabbi Elad Applebaum has been involved in interfaith dialogue and prayer with Christian and Muslim leaders in Jerusalem.

The next Friday night we were there, she referred to Rabbi Nachman of Bratslav's alphabetical list of middot, personal qualities to which one should aspire.  She was focusing on the letter Kof, which is the first letter of the word kabtzan.  Rabbi Nachman said we should strive to be like kabtzanim, beggars.

What does that mean, Rabbi Elad Applebaum asked?  It means that we should live with our hands open to receive.  To receive ideas, to receive sustenance.  She said that Israel is kibutz galyuot, the ingathering of exiles, but that it should truly strive for kabtzanut galuyot, a play on words which she described as a dynamic where one group opens its hearts and hands to receive a melody, a custom, an idea, from another.

There’s more to share and more to say, but for now, I’ll conclude by asking each of us – to the extent that we acknowledge that life is scary, that things happen that we cannot predict and cannot explain, how do we want to respond?  Do we retreat?  Or do we impose?  Or do we find the courage, the strength, the faith - to open our hands to receive a piece here, a piece there, of the teeming cacophony that is life?

Tisha b’Av starts tonight.  I’ll paraphrase what Rabbi Elad Applebaum said.  The Temple was destroyed because some people retreated completely and others insisted that what they had to give was the only thing worth receiving.

There’s a third way, dare I call it the way of emuna sheleima, a full, gutsy, earthy faith that if we take the risks to engage those around us without retreat or imposition, we will in the end reap unexpected blessings.  The more I think about it, the more I believe that this third way provides the greatest chance of reconstituting what was destroyed and building a blessed future for ourselves, those around us, and those far beyond us.  More and more, as a rabbi, a Jew and a person, Ani ma'amin b'emunah shleimah, I believe in this full faith. 

Originally delivered at Temple Israel of Great Neck on July 25, 2015