Israel, a 20-Year Reflection

I hope all in Cape May County are enjoying a thoughtful summer and a peaceful time of leisure. As our community prepared for our July 4 holiday, I was spending it on a 10-day rabbinical conference in Jerusalem. As I prepare to travel to Israel this July, I am contemplative of what my first experiences were 20 years ago in 1991 when I was a young man and first moved to Israel.
I first arrived in Israel in the fall of 1991 as a recent graduate of college. There was so much newness and fear that grappled me as I began my adult life in the post college world and entered Israel during a time of turmoil.
Israel always seems to be in turmoil but in 1991 right after the first Gulf War there was a sense of hope and possibility and maybe even peace. The Berlin wall had fallen and the old USSR finally saw the dustbin of history and Israel seemed to have so much potential. I arrived on a small kibbutz in the Jordan Valley with many new immigrants to Israel, mostly from Russia. In fact almost a million people moved to Israel in the 1990’s, changing the face of this young country.
The old joke in Israel is that when the Russians came Israel inherited, for the first time, an immigrant population that was more educated than the locals. I remember being fascinated when I learned that the kibbutz plumber was a former physicist and the chicken keeper was a former veterinarian from Leningrad.
I was so young back then, only 22 years old, fresh out of college, trying to understand this fascinating and conflicting country while also trying to figure out my future and my life. I found my way to Jerusalem, this holy city filled with Arab nationalists and Yeshivah students all trying to find their place. I ended up settling in at a Yeshivah in the Jewish Quarter of the old city and there I stayed and learned for almost two years. I ended up spending almost five years in Israel before I became a Rabbi and now I return looking back at those 20 years and seeing the same ancient city again with so much potential and, yes, so much conflict.
The city of Jerusalem was supposed to be a unifying city that Kind David founded as a bridge between the tribe of Judah, which was his tribe, and the other 10 tribes in the north. Around the year 1010 B.C.E., King David defeated the Jebusites in Jerusalem and decided to make the city his administrative capital.
He brought the Ark of the Covenant to the city, establishing it as the capital of the nation and hoping to create unity and central worship in one place for all to connect to God.
King David wanted to build a great Temple for God as a permanent resting place for the Ark of the Covenant. According to tradition, David was not permitted to build the Temple because he had been a warrior and had bloody hands and the Temple needed to be built in a time of peace. The task was to fall to a man of peace, David’s son, Solomon. The Temple would become the focus of all holy worship and we Jews still mourn its destruction on the 9th of Av every year.
After Solomon died in 931 B.C.E., a civil war led to a split in the Israelite nation. Jerusalem became part of the southern kingdom of Judah, while 10 of the northern tribes formed the new kingdom of Israel. That kingdom lasted until 722 B.C.E., when the Assyrians conquered it and eventually even Jerusalem fell to the Babylonians. This city has been one of conflict ever since.
There is a story in the Talmud that when Jerusalem and the Temple were destroyed, the Messiah was born. This is often seen as an analogy to hope being born even after great tragedy. Today as I enter this beloved city after 20 years there is still conflict and strife but the city still represents the greatest hope for the possibility of true peace and true redemption.
Looking at the western wall and offering a prayer, I will be placing a letter in the wall that I had written to my brother 20 years ago when I first arrived to the city. That young man who I was is now gone and sadly so is my brother, but there is a new generation that follows hopefully caring the same idealism I had as a young man. Many Jews continue to look at this ancient wall and dream of the possibility of rebuilding that Temple and making Jerusalem the city of peace that was first envisioned by King David 3,000 years ago.
Rabbi Jeffrey Lipschultz is the spiritual leader Beth Judah Temple in Wildwood. He welcomes your comments at dvjewish @rof.net