“What will you take home with you from your visit to Israel?”
I put that question to a group of American college students who had come to Israel for a week of volunteering and Jewish learning with Birthright Israel and Manhattan’s MJE. We were standing on the rooftop of the Aish HaTorah building, overlooking the Western Wall, after a beautiful Kabbalat Shabbat service.
Here is what they said. I think Israelis need to hear their answers too.
The first student said she had not felt well all week.
“But when I went to a pharmacy, I could tell that people really cared. They tried to help me and make me feel better. Our Israeli guides kept checking in on me too. That doesn’t happen in New York. I truly felt at home.”
The second student described her experience in two words: “beauty” and “healing.” She had grown up in Oregon with little connection to Judaism, and being in Israel had simply been good for her.
Then another student said he felt “a sense of magic and wonder.” Those were the words he chose to sum up an intense week of working in the fields, packing food for families in need, visiting a yeshiva, the site of the Nova festival, Tzfat, Masada and the Dead Sea, and finally spending Shabbat in Jerusalem.
Magic and wonder.
The fourth student was even more poetic:
“I feel whole. After spending a week with other Jews in the Land of Israel, I feel more complete as a person. But I also feel that when I am here, the Land of Israel is somehow more complete too.”
These were not poets or prophets. They were American college students who had spent just one week here.
I told them that this week’s Torah portion speaks to this very idea. Moshe urges those who will have the privilege of entering the Land of Israel to understand that this is no ordinary place. It is precious and sacred, and we must live here accordingly.
Thank you to the group, led by Rabbi Mark Wildes, for this important lesson.
