Temple Emanu-El

10 Days in Israel, Forever on My Mind
Rabbi Scott Hausman-Weiss
May 24, 2008

About a month before Natalie and I left with 12 of our Temple Emanu-El congregants for a fantastic 10-day journey through Israel, I was leading Friday evening services. And in the congregation that evening was an Israeli musician named Yair Dalal. Yair was here in Birmingham performing as part of the Birmingham International Festival’s theme countries this year – Israel and Jordan. He plays the oud and is a nationally renowned folk singer in Israel. The oud, for those of you who don’t know, looks a lot like a guitar but with a bent neck, no frets and a rounded back. It has that great John Lennon in India vibe mixed with a certain Dillon-esque feel. I am sure that most of you know what I mean. In any case, Yair was introduced to me after services by our congregant, Iris Gross, who runs the International Festival. When I told him that I would soon be in Israel with a group from our temple, he told me to please look him up when we arrive and that he would love to meet with us. So upon arrival, I gave his name and phone number to our guide, Jared, and asked him if he had heard of this musician named, Yair Dalal. Jared laughed at me, as if to say, “Are you kidding me?” Apparently, it was like asking me if he had heard of Dillon or Lennon. Well maybe not exactly, but apparently, you would have to have your head pretty far underground not to know who Yair Dalal is. And so, Jared, with a great amount of giddiness to be calling Yair Dalal’s cell phone, called him, and Yair immediately invited us to his home in the hills of the Galilee when we arrived there later that week.

Arriving at Moshav Amirim, first of all, was a trip. As Jared explained, Moshav Amirim is a vegetarian settlement that is about as yuppie as you get. Now yuppie in Israel doesn’t mean the same thing as it does in America. Yuppie in Israel, at least on this Moshav, which is simply a planned housing community with some shared resources, means that the residents there have purposely chosen to live outside of the norms of Israeli society and create their own paths. Thus, our lunch with Dalia, this lovely and lovingly eccentric elder lady who was as committed a vegetarian as one could imagine. She made it clear that caffeine was a no-no, we all needed to be drinking much more water, and over and over, she made it clear that everything she serves is absolutely vegetarian. She was like a traditionally doting yet the most granola Jewish grandma I had ever met.

Anyway, back to Yair. We arrive. He comes to greet us at the parking lot, and leads us to his home. We walk through a ton of overgrown grass, weeds and wildflowers and arrive at a cement platform with a very “Bedouin-esque” type covering. Sitting down on rugs or benches, he serves us hot, sweet tea with sage and then takes up his oud. He plays and we are transfixed. It was as if all of what the Middle East is supposed to sound like in one’s imagination, spilled forth from this ancient instrument. And then Yair introduced himself. Born in Iraq, he arrived with his parents in the 1950’s and settled on a kibbutz in the Negev desert. Very much Sephardic Jews, as at home in the desert and nature as Bedouins themselves, Yair grew up on the kibbutz, playing the oud and milking cows. Never prior to the 1980’s did he do anything with his music other than play with his family and friends. But at some point in the 1980’s, Yair began working to create an Arab-Jewish youth choir. And as 1993 rolled around, and the Oslo Accords were in full swing, somehow, someone had heard of his choir, who were singing this beautiful song, “Time for Peace,” which he had composed in Hebrew and in Arabic. And they were all invited to Oslo, where, conducted by Zubin Mehta, these Arab and Jewish boys sang together this song, “Time for Peace.” They must have captured the imagination of all those assembled there that day. As he shared this story with us, we were drawn into this visionary’s imagination. And all of us sitting there, whether conservative or liberal, pro-Likud or pro-Labor or pro-Meretz, or just pro-peace, were touched. For what we had experienced at that moment was something truly inspiring, truly liberating, truly an emotional gut check. Why indeed does the destiny of a people who make up less than 1 % of the world’s population, whose nation’s landmass is comparable to a postage stamp in the midst of the football field of the Arab Countries who are her neighbors, demand the world’s attention and hopes and dreams and derisions?

The world is obsessed with the plight of Israel and Palestine. It’s as if we are the crucible of the world and only when finally we figure out how to make it work there, will the whole world figure it out as well. Bayom hahu yihyeh Adonai Echad ushmo echad. The Aleinu, and we with it, insists that on that day, that someday, far off day, God will be one and God’s name will be one. The dream of peace in Israel seems to be symbolic of the dreams for peace in the world. As if when peace happens there, it can happen anywhere.

Why? I am not sure but here is my guess. Perhaps its because its one of the few things in our day and age that is truly of biblical proportions. These loves and hates, moments of generosity and eons of fear, instances of brotherly and family commitment and generations of lament for the too much loss of family on both sides, drives forth the dream. God is watching – it seems. Perhaps more closely there, than anywhere else. And dreams are dreamt, and poems are recited and songs are sung. Because Israel is a beacon to the world, in ways that defy rationality, in ways that defy reason. More than Tibet, and Chechnya, and Darfur, and the Schezwan Province, Israel and her struggle remain l’dor va dor, from generation to generation, from religion to religion. I don’t believe that it’s because God actually cares more about this sliver of land and her people any more than any other. I think it is because the stories of the Torah insist that the greatest struggles between human beings are those between people with whom we are closest – our family. And the stories of the Torah happened there. Brothers and sisters and fathers and mothers and cousins and nephews and nieces need to stop having to attend the family reunions that come as a result of burying their loved ones. That is the real dream. Too many Ishmaels and Isaacs, Jacobs and Esaus have only put down their weapons in order to bury their fathers or their brothers or their daughters of their sons. The stop for a moment, long enough to mourn. Perhaps, there are moments when they do identify their mutual loss. But then they return to a world that won’t allow them time and space to stop hating and resenting and accusing.

Hearing Yair perform for all of us was one of those moments in life when I truly became aware of the holiness as it was unfolding. Usually, grand moments of life, like births and weddings and deaths, happen so fast or with such emotional tumult that it’s hard to be fully present. But there was something so special in this moment; so much love came pouring out of his soul. And it reminded me of why every Jew needs to visit our Land. And more than just once in their lifetime. Israel is truly unique. When you are there, it feels as if what the Rabbis taught is correct. That the center of the world is the Holy Land. And that the center of the Holy Land is Jerusalem. And that the center of Jerusalem is the Wall. And at the center of the wall is every Jewish heart praying for peace, praying for wholeness, praying for a fulfillment of the promise and command that Israel will become an or l’goyim. That the world we will have been able to create there will be a world that others all over the world will seek to model. Because our neighbors and we figured it out. Everyone is watching us. That’s just the reality. Its Time for Peace. Its time for the dream to be fulfilled. And it can as long as our neighbors and we center ourselves on the passionate belief in our text – that all people are created in God’s image, that all of us need a dream for peace to keep us going. Dreams, hopes, visions keep alive a hope for peace that we can seek and pursue.

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