Monday, December 20, 2004
Sparks From Israel
Chanuka in the Hills of Samaria
Imagine walking through a Munk painting where you can see emotion in the clouds and the skies are spread out in all of their majesty. The colors of the brownish green hills are the same as they were two thousand years ago and each tiny rock is Holy. The view around the yishuv is breathtaking and perfectly peaceful.
I once heard someone say that all of the Jews could not possibly fit into the tiny Land of Israel. This is not true. There are great expanses of land unpopulated, and more than that. The hills of Yehuda and Shomron are like a blanket waiting to be spread out and filled once again with her people.
Just as Yerushalayim expands like a beautiful quilt upon the landscape, so too will the provinces grow. ‘The voice of Hashem convulses the wilderness’ (Tehillim 29). You can actually see it, how the mountains move and make way for their princes and queens arriving each day. Even a stone in this Land is alive and filled with an expansive energy.
I suppose it is this very Holiness; the source of all existence, that challenges the world. The war of Israel is a war of houses and homes. Each Jewish family that returns to these hills and beautifies them beautifies the source of Creation.
In adolescence the body and the soul often war with each other. But through this struggle a man emerges. Today we live in the times of Chanuka, where the soul emerges victorious over the body and becomes its driving force. As Israel comes of age in our times every Jew has an important role to play. There may be a storm ahead, but it may also dissolve as the light increases. May we see the world come of age soon, and may we all be there at the Bar Mitzvah, and may there be pickled herring! Amen
Chanuka in the Hills of Samaria
Imagine walking through a Munk painting where you can see emotion in the clouds and the skies are spread out in all of their majesty. The colors of the brownish green hills are the same as they were two thousand years ago and each tiny rock is Holy. The view around the yishuv is breathtaking and perfectly peaceful.
I once heard someone say that all of the Jews could not possibly fit into the tiny Land of Israel. This is not true. There are great expanses of land unpopulated, and more than that. The hills of Yehuda and Shomron are like a blanket waiting to be spread out and filled once again with her people.
Just as Yerushalayim expands like a beautiful quilt upon the landscape, so too will the provinces grow. ‘The voice of Hashem convulses the wilderness’ (Tehillim 29). You can actually see it, how the mountains move and make way for their princes and queens arriving each day. Even a stone in this Land is alive and filled with an expansive energy.
I suppose it is this very Holiness; the source of all existence, that challenges the world. The war of Israel is a war of houses and homes. Each Jewish family that returns to these hills and beautifies them beautifies the source of Creation.
In adolescence the body and the soul often war with each other. But through this struggle a man emerges. Today we live in the times of Chanuka, where the soul emerges victorious over the body and becomes its driving force. As Israel comes of age in our times every Jew has an important role to play. There may be a storm ahead, but it may also dissolve as the light increases. May we see the world come of age soon, and may we all be there at the Bar Mitzvah, and may there be pickled herring! Amen
Saturday, December 04, 2004
Sparks From Israel
Economic Hardship and Divine Abundance
They say it’s hard to find a job in Israel. I suppose this is true, however on the other hand, we experience miracles in abundance. Everyday miracles as common place occurrences are simply not factored into the equation outside of Israel. Divine intervention is such an ever present part of life here that in comparison it is as if there is no G-d outside of Israel.
In other Nations there are simply natural forces that have been set in place so that one doesn’t often feel the need to rely on a G-d when he can rely on the welfare state or his family, or the abundance of opportunities. Because one feels much more at the mercy of G-d here, I’m certain that He too is quite happy to be a significant part of our lives and livelihoods. All those who dwell in the Land cannot help but feel an interaction with the Divine that simply does not exist with the same intensity outside of Israel, regardless of the level of one’s ritual observance.
I personally have felt the warm hand of someone guiding me throughout my sojourn here. Something I never felt so assuredly before. As a small example I went from being fired from a lowly job and feeling destitute to being hired to a management position with all of the management perks. All of this took place within 48 hours.
The only problem with my new job was that because there was more responsibility, there were also more demands on my time. When the time arrived for the afternoon prayers which I prefer to do in a synagogue with a minyan (a quorum of 10 men), there was not synagogue to be found, nor enough time to travel to where I might find one.
One day, I slipped away from work and turned down a side street in the industrial area of my workplace hoping to find a secluded spot to pray. Lo and behold in the middle of this abandoned area was a synagogue full of congregants that seemed to have been placed there for me like a mirage. The next day, when my supervisor was relying upon me to prepare a brief that was needed immediately I noticed that it was getting dark outside and like the salmon that instinctively returns to the stream, I slipped away to the corner mirage and joined the minyan.
I realized that it was a little risky to disappear at such a time, but I said to myself if a job is so consuming that I cannot afford my fifteen minutes of meditation to the supervisor of all supervisors, then it’s not the right job for me. I felt relieved to do my quick prayer and hurried back to the office. As I entered I passed my supervisor who noticed me entering from outside. I continued to the photocopy room and a few minutes later he approached me.
I could see it coming. He was going to ask me why I took a break at such a time when our overseas client was about to call and I was to brief him on the details. He would be disappointed and reprimand me.
As he approached he looked me in the eye and said. ‘I just want to tell you that I’m really very happy that you are with us and to thank you for doing such an excellent job’.
As he left I looked up at my supervisor in Heaven and smiled, ‘You have such a clever way of demonstrating your love for me.’ I said. He smiled back.
It may be difficult to find work sometimes in Israel, but that’s because the purpose of our lives is not merely to make a livelihood, but to recognize the source of our livelihood. Hidden beneath the surface of a poor economic situation is a proximity to the Divine that flows abundantly and visibly. I wouldn’t exchange this privilege for all of the fatness and delusion the world has to offer.
Greetings
In the exile when you purchase an item the clerk says ‘Have a Nice Day’. In Israel, the clerk might say, ‘What accent is that? Where are you from?’ And after talking for a few minutes will say ‘Shalom Achi’ (Goodbye my brother). Or he might charge you 50 shekles instead of 54 and say ‘Lchvod Shabbat’ (In honor of Shabbat). Here, we have rules but were not clerks. Just like the King who lives in close proximity, the sons of that King also behave like small kings, who can bend the rules and alter things according to their disposition. ‘Have a nice day’ is good, but ‘See you my brother’, it’s a different level of existence.
Economic Hardship and Divine Abundance
They say it’s hard to find a job in Israel. I suppose this is true, however on the other hand, we experience miracles in abundance. Everyday miracles as common place occurrences are simply not factored into the equation outside of Israel. Divine intervention is such an ever present part of life here that in comparison it is as if there is no G-d outside of Israel.
In other Nations there are simply natural forces that have been set in place so that one doesn’t often feel the need to rely on a G-d when he can rely on the welfare state or his family, or the abundance of opportunities. Because one feels much more at the mercy of G-d here, I’m certain that He too is quite happy to be a significant part of our lives and livelihoods. All those who dwell in the Land cannot help but feel an interaction with the Divine that simply does not exist with the same intensity outside of Israel, regardless of the level of one’s ritual observance.
I personally have felt the warm hand of someone guiding me throughout my sojourn here. Something I never felt so assuredly before. As a small example I went from being fired from a lowly job and feeling destitute to being hired to a management position with all of the management perks. All of this took place within 48 hours.
The only problem with my new job was that because there was more responsibility, there were also more demands on my time. When the time arrived for the afternoon prayers which I prefer to do in a synagogue with a minyan (a quorum of 10 men), there was not synagogue to be found, nor enough time to travel to where I might find one.
One day, I slipped away from work and turned down a side street in the industrial area of my workplace hoping to find a secluded spot to pray. Lo and behold in the middle of this abandoned area was a synagogue full of congregants that seemed to have been placed there for me like a mirage. The next day, when my supervisor was relying upon me to prepare a brief that was needed immediately I noticed that it was getting dark outside and like the salmon that instinctively returns to the stream, I slipped away to the corner mirage and joined the minyan.
I realized that it was a little risky to disappear at such a time, but I said to myself if a job is so consuming that I cannot afford my fifteen minutes of meditation to the supervisor of all supervisors, then it’s not the right job for me. I felt relieved to do my quick prayer and hurried back to the office. As I entered I passed my supervisor who noticed me entering from outside. I continued to the photocopy room and a few minutes later he approached me.
I could see it coming. He was going to ask me why I took a break at such a time when our overseas client was about to call and I was to brief him on the details. He would be disappointed and reprimand me.
As he approached he looked me in the eye and said. ‘I just want to tell you that I’m really very happy that you are with us and to thank you for doing such an excellent job’.
As he left I looked up at my supervisor in Heaven and smiled, ‘You have such a clever way of demonstrating your love for me.’ I said. He smiled back.
It may be difficult to find work sometimes in Israel, but that’s because the purpose of our lives is not merely to make a livelihood, but to recognize the source of our livelihood. Hidden beneath the surface of a poor economic situation is a proximity to the Divine that flows abundantly and visibly. I wouldn’t exchange this privilege for all of the fatness and delusion the world has to offer.
Greetings
In the exile when you purchase an item the clerk says ‘Have a Nice Day’. In Israel, the clerk might say, ‘What accent is that? Where are you from?’ And after talking for a few minutes will say ‘Shalom Achi’ (Goodbye my brother). Or he might charge you 50 shekles instead of 54 and say ‘Lchvod Shabbat’ (In honor of Shabbat). Here, we have rules but were not clerks. Just like the King who lives in close proximity, the sons of that King also behave like small kings, who can bend the rules and alter things according to their disposition. ‘Have a nice day’ is good, but ‘See you my brother’, it’s a different level of existence.
