אוֹמְרִים:
יֶשְׁנָהּ אֶרֶץ,
אֶרֶץ שכורת שֶׁמֶשׁ...
אַיֵּה אוֹתָהּ אֶרֶץ?
אֵיפֹה אוֹתוֹ שֶׁמֶשׁ?
אוֹמְרִים: יֶשְׁנָהּ אֶרֶץ
עַמּוּדֶיהָ שִׁבְעָה,
שִׁבְעָה כּוֹכְבֵי-לֶכֶת
צָצִים עַל כָּל גִּבְעָה.
אֶרֶץ שכורת שֶׁמֶשׁ...
אַיֵּה אוֹתָהּ אֶרֶץ?
אֵיפֹה אוֹתוֹ שֶׁמֶשׁ?
אוֹמְרִים: יֶשְׁנָהּ אֶרֶץ
עַמּוּדֶיהָ שִׁבְעָה,
שִׁבְעָה כּוֹכְבֵי-לֶכֶת
צָצִים עַל כָּל גִּבְעָה.
They say there is a land
A land drenched in sun
Wherefore is that land?
Where is that sun?
They say, there is a land.
Its pillars are seven,
Seven planets
Springing up on every hill
Where is that land,
The stars of that hill?
Who shall guide our way,
tell me my path?
With
these words, Shaul Tchernichovsky, the noted early 20th-century
poet and translator, begins his love poem to Israel: “They say there is a
land.” Tchernichovsky wrote this poem in
Berlin in 1923 about a beloved land that he has never seen. The land of his dreams, the land of the
Jews. An idyllic and idealized picture
to be sure, of a sun-drenched landscape with hills covered in pillars and planets
or stars wandering around every hill.
The poem continues: Already have we passed several
deserts and oceans/Already have we traversed several, our strengths are
ending./ How is it we have gone astray?/
That not yet have we been left along?
That land of sun, that one we have not found.” Here Tchernichovsky moves away, for a moment,
from the ideal image of that land of his dreams, the land of the dreams of all
the Jews, to say: How is it that we are not there yet? How is it that we are still searching for
this thing that we all want?
But then, by the end, the poem returns to its idealism as
if to say that there is no reason to fret or be concerned. Idealism remains. The last stanzas of the poem present an image
of Israel being the land where every person had met Rabbi Akiva, the famous 1st-and
2nd-century rabbi of the Talmud.
And not only will all have the opportunity to meet with Akiva, but
converse with him. The poem ends by
asking Akiva: Where are the holy ones?
Where are the Maccabees? Akiva
responds: All of Israel is holy and you are the Maccabee!
All of Israel is holy and you are the Maccabee. A reader of this poem, therefore, walks away
believing she can make the change happen.
She is sainted. In fact, the
entirety of the people are holy and worthy of that title, merely by being
Jews. And you are the Maccabee: you can
save the land of Israel from its occupiers and free it, as the Maccabees did
almost 2,000 years ago. You can save the
land. This poem longs for a Jewish
state, established by Jews.
From an opening asking for direction to a closing getting
direction and encouragement from Rabbi Akiva, this poem presents an ideal image
of Israel. An image of an Israel which
does not yet exist, except in the hearts and minds and souls of the Jewish
people. A people who have longed for
those 2,000 years to return to their homeland.
A longing that inspired poets and artists and liturgists. A longing for an ideal.
When Tchernikovsky wrote this poem, he could not have known
what would come to be of European Jewry a mere two decades later. He could not have known that the middle-class
life of a doctor and translator that was his in central Europe of the 1920s
would come crashing down before the longing for a state could be fulfilled.
Many of us understand this longing, the connection to an
idealized Israel. And many of us have
experienced that idealized version of Israel.
When we learn and teach about Israel, we tend to speak of her in
idealized terms. We tend to rely on the
dreams of an Israel that has perhaps never existed to inform our understanding
of Israel. And this has a potential to
be dangerous.
What is the Ideal Israel?
The Ideal Israel is the Israel of a recent ad campaign by the Ministry
of Absorption which touts the exciting aspects of Israel to American Jews
looking for more than their humdrum suburban life affords them. The ad presents Israel as a sunny, all-beach
environment filled with scantily clad and muscular Jews, both men and
women. Israel puts hair on the young
American man’s chest, gives him the opportunity to ride a camel and spend his time
playing beach paddleball with unseen hordes of equally attractive and fit young
people. In many ways, this ad is a
logical extension of the early Zionist paradigm of the “New Jew.” As compared to the weak, studious, sheltered,
and passive Old Jew of the old Country, the New Jew is strong, muscular; he
works the land and takes history into his own hands.
This ad presents the best of what American Jews have come
to think of Israel. Israel is almost
always presented in its best light by Jews.
Israel, the land that made a desert bloom. Israel, the land where the Kibbutz movement
transformed Judaism. Israel, the
strongest army in the world. Israel,
startup nation. Israel, more PhDs per
capita than almost anywhere else.
Israel, homeland for all Jews.
Israel, safe haven should things ever go bad. Israel, land of dreams. Israel, that land we dream of, drenched in
sunlight, where Judaism, long suffering in the cold woods of Eastern Europe,
was modernized into a nation, basked in warmth on a pristine stretch of
Mediterranean coastline.
This image of the ideal Israel is an important one—necessary,
even—and one we ought to continue to believe in and teach. Because, while we may not believe in
miraculous healing or visions of God from the heavens, the coming of the state
of Israel is a modern miracle. Wrought
with human hands and much sweat, toil and sacrifice, yes. But miraculous nonetheless.
But it is not the whole picture. And not only is it not the entire picture, but
it may be detrimental to view Israel as only these great achievements and
miraculous outcomes. By doing so,
perhaps we do not move past our 2,000-year-old longing. Perhaps we are still in shock that Israel
exists at all. After all, there are
people in this room today who remember a time before Israel existed. All of us in this room have witnessed some,
if not all, of the countless attempts at her annihilation. That Israel exists is indeed miraculous, and
perhaps if we were to let go of that idealized image, some of the luster of the
miracle would wear off, some of the sheen of the great 20th-century
Jewish project would be tarnished. If we
let go of the Ideal Israel, will we still be able to love and support whatever
is left? If we let go of the Ideal
Israel, might we be turning our backs on an important part of our identities as
Jews?
My earliest memory of Israel is a short image, a glimpse
really, from 1987, when my mother and I went to my cousin’s Bar Mitzvah in
Israel. I was in kindergarten, and it
was a treat to be able to go away for two whole weeks and miss school. I remember playing in a field on a
kibbutz. I remember going to see Little Shop of Horrors in the movie
theatre, laughing at the jokes in English a moment before the Israelis had a
chance to read them in Hebrew subtitles and laugh. I remember sleeping in my grandparents’
apartment, on a bed in their spare room, a bed which I would come to visit many
more times, in a room overlooking the beach.
An apartment from which we would watch the sun set every evening in
orange hues over blue waters. To me,
Israel has always represented family, though distantly, and a place where I had
come from. For me, the Israel I came to
know involved Grandparents and cousins I only occasionally got to see, who were,
year after year, the beneficiaries of the Halloween candy we would ship over in
a shoebox in early November.
Some years later, another memory sparks my mind, a memory
of a picture taken in1991, of my aunt, uncle and cousins in their safe room in
their apartment, all wearing gas masks, awaiting an Iraqi SCUD missile, but all
holding up two fingers, hoping for peace.
That was, for me, the first time that I began to understand the reality
of what it means to be connected to Israel.
Sometimes it means danger and sometimes it means war.
A few trips to Israel later, in the summer of 2005, I was
studying in Jerusalem. That was the
summer of the disengagement from Gaza. The
country was all orange and blue. But
this orange and blue did not connote the beauty of the sun setting over the Mediterranean. Rather, orange and blue were the colors of
ribbons denoting which side you were on. Tied to cars, tied to fences,
fluttering behind people, tied to their backpacks. Groups would stand at intersections and hand
out ribbons of the color they supported.
Other groups would roam at night and tie their color onto car antennae,
not considering the sentiments of the car’s owner. Orange if you’re against disengagement and
blue if you’re for it. In a truly
Israeli moment, a news reporter interviewed the man who owned the ribbon
factory that made both colors. Business
was good, he said.
Disengagement was all the news could talk about, and it
was televised. Interviews aired with
opinionated Israelis, telling the government what to do, all arguing about the
best way forward for a country that, in the aftermath of a seemingly impossible
victory almost 40 years earlier, had found itself in a quagmire, governing and
policing a population that wanted nothing to do with Israel, and in fact
eagerly sought its destruction.
Israel was seemingly torn in two. What was the right answer? What would the ramifications be? What would happen in Gaza? What would happen to the border towns? Would Israel ever be able to stand together
as one again? Ultimately, Israel
disengaged entirely from Gaza, pulling citizens and military out of Gaza and
giving Gaza ownership and authority over their own future. That Gaza ultimately elected Hamas is not
surprising, but still unsettling. That
Hamas wages a continual terror campaign against Israel’s citizens is also not
surprising. This summer’s latest round
of fighting between Israel and Hamas is a result not only of the disengagement,
but of the many real issues and many real problems Israel, like any other
nation on Earth, must deal with.
The Real Israel is an Israel of families, people working
hard, trying to make a better life for their children; most sacrificing their
children to the IDF willingly in order to ensure a peaceful future but
cognizant of the present threats. The Real
Israel is an Israel of disagreements: political, religious, nationalist, even
what newspaper to read and who has the best hummus. The Real Israel is an Israel of politicians
working hard to be reelected, using what little time they have left to try and
govern. The Real Israel is imperfect,
flawed, sometimes wrong, never able to tell the future, but always trying to
prepare for it. The Real Israel is
messy. And the Real Israel is the Israel
we should love. And, we should love it
as much as we believe in the Ideal Israel.
Ehud Manor, a songwriter famous for having written the
1978 Eurovision-winning song, “A-ba Ni-bi,” and the perennial favorite, “Bashanah Ha’ba’ah,”
pens the following words in 1982:
אֵין לִי אֶרֶץ אַחֶרֶת
גַּם אִם אַדְמָתִי בּוֹעֶרֶת
רַק מִלָּה בְּעִבְרִית חוֹדֶרֶת
אֶל עוֹרְקַי אֶל נִשְׁמָתִי
בְּגוּף
כּוֹאֵב
בְּלֵב רָעֵב
כָּאן הוּא בֵּיתִי.
לֹא אֶשְׁתֹּק
כִּי אַרְצִי שִׁנְּתָה אֶת פָּנֶיהָ
I have no other land,
even if my land is aflame.
Just a single word in Hebrew pierces
my veins and my soul.
With a painful body
with a hungry heart,
here is my home.
I will
not stay silent because my country changed her face.
This song, Ein Li Eretz Acheret, I have no Other Land
written in the aftermath of the first war in Lebanon, presents less of an
idealized image of Israel and more of a sense of the reality on the ground for
Israelis grappling with the actions of their country. The opening line, “Ein Li Eretz Acheret I
have no other country or no other land,” can be understood in two related yet
distinct ways. First, the line seems to
announce to the listener that the author has a sense of being stuck, with
nowhere else to go: There is no other
place for me. Maybe it’s because no one
else wants me. Maybe it’s because I
chose this land. Maybe it’s because I
can’t think of anywhere else to be.
But by the time we hear the next lines of the song, the
meaning of not having another country becomes clearer. It reveals that the author is completely
loyal to his land, even with all the faults and scars and difficulties. I have
no other land, because this land is mine.
This land is the land of my ancestors and this land is the land that I
want to be in. I have no other land
because I want no other land.
The two visions of Israel, “Omrim Yeshnah Eretz, They Say There is a Land” and
“Ein Li Eretz Acheret, I Have No Other Land,” are both famous songs in Israel. They present two vastly different ways of
looking at and understanding Israel: the
Ideal Israel and the Real Israel.
When we think of Israel, how do we think of
her? Do we bathe her in Tchernikovsky’s
sunlight or do we see her engulfed in Manor’s flames? The reality may be closer to both than one or
the other; and, as Jews of the Diaspora, we ought to understand both the Ideal
Israel and the Real Israel if we are ever going to come to grips with her. We ought to understand the ideal and the real
and find a way to have space for both in our lives. We believe in the Ideal Israel, just as we
might believe in the best version of the United States. But we recognize the Real Israel, with all
her flaws, and we love her nonetheless.
We love the Real Israel, because we truly have no other
land. If we stop loving the Real Israel,
if we allow the foibles of the modern state of Israel—and there are many—to overtake
our connection to it…if we focus only on what Israel does wrong, and we only
look to criticize…if we only bemoan the difficulties of the Jewish State and
allow ourselves to be swayed into an understanding that Israel can do no right,
that Israel is always the aggressor, then we have no more reason to believe in
the ideal.
And, if we let go of that belief in the ideal, what else
are we giving up? What part of ourselves is lost? What part of our Jewishness do we give up by
saying that the Ideal Israel is something we are no longer concerned with,
something we no longer hope for, something we no longer dream about? What connection to our ancestors and our
traditions is lost by giving up on the Ideal Israel?
When Abraham is called to that land, to the
place he does not know, he begins a connection to an Ideal Israel that lasts
until this day. Abraham’s belief is not lost
by the famine that forces him to physically leave. Rather, it strengthens his resolve to return.
Likewise, we cannot be turned away by
the difficulties in Israel today. Those
difficulties ought to make us care about Israel more. By giving up on Israel, we lose a critical
part of what unites us as Jews and what brings us together. By giving up on the ideal vision of our
homeland, we give up on that 2,000-year-old dream. By believing in the ideal, we recognize the
miraculous, we see God in our history, put into action by the mighty hands and
outstretched arms of countless men and women who fought and died for an ideal.
How can we believe in the Real Israel and love the Real
Israel? We learn, we support, we
teach.
First, we learn. We read and watch in order to understand what
is going on, from a variety of sources and a variety of viewpoints. There is no one best source for Israel news,
and a spectrum of sources will help us to understand the complexities of the
situation there. We also ought to reacquaint ourselves with the history of
Israel. Do we understand the way that
Israel came to be? Do we know how much
work was done before World War II to establish the framework for a state? Do we know who the important personalities
are? If we know the history, we can
better understand the present and all its complexities.
Second, we support.
We support by donating, by purchasing bonds or trees, or by visiting and
spending money there. That’s the easy
part. More difficult is active
engagement with Israel whenever possible.
And this support and engagement doesn’t mean blindly agreeing with
everything Israel does. Israel’s
policies about marriage, conversion, citizenship, and religious pluralism have
a direct effect on Jews in America, and we should know what is happening and
have an opinion about it. And then we make our opinions known. If we have
an opinion about what we believe Israel ought to be, then we put into practice
our love of the real and our belief in the ideal.
Finally, we teach.
We teach our children the miracle of Israel and the reality of
Israel. We teach our children about the
importance of Israel to the Jewish people historically and to the Jewish people
now. We teach our children that our
forebears lived for generations without a nation to call their own, but that
today, Israel exists. We teach them the
truth about Israel, and we teach them that Israel is not just a place over
there, but a home we hold in our hearts and in our souls. We teach them that Israel is a part of each
of us.
We teach this by making it true
for us. We teach by making this true for
our community. We are going to Israel
this December, and there is still time to sign up to go with us. This fall, my adult education course will be
on the history and founding of the State of Israel. Join us.
Learn about our land. The course
is free and there’s room for everyone.
A land drenched in sunlight. A land engulfed in flames. Contrasting but not contradictory
descriptions of our land, our home, our connection to the past, and our legacy
for the future. Omrim Yeshnah Eretz: They
say there is a land. Yes, they do say
there is a land like that. A land called
Israel. A part of our souls, a part of
our dreams, a part of our reality.
Shanah Tovah.
