Preview of Israel from a Rabbinic Colleague

My AJR colleague, Irwin Huberman, who serves as the spiritual leader of a conservative synagogue in Glen Cove, NY (Long Island), has been in Israel for several weeks and will be joining our seminary group for the tour itinerary in my pervious post below. He gave me permission to quote parts of a "letter" to his grandfather, z"l, which was distributed to his congregants and friends. His comments are a taste of what I hope to experience in Israel on my first trip there. I hope that my Orthodox Zaidie knows, somehow, about my Jewish journey.

JERUSALEM, ISRAEL: Friday, July 11, 2008

Dear Zaidie Duddie,

It's been a while since we've seen each other in person, but from to time, on my rabbinical journey, I think about you, and how you’d sit quietly at the dining room table with your hearing aid turned off, immersed in Hebrew books which I never really understood....As your hearing began to fade, I never really knew what to say. You, navigating ancient paths of the Talmud, and me, with my head swirling in the sights, sounds and colors of the 1960's. But here I am today Zaidie, in Israel, with my congregation, family, and friends from Canada....

We have spent Shabbat in Safed where within the solitude of the mountains overlooking the Galilee, we danced with the mystics. We've experienced both the joy, and the pain of its people at a hospital in Nahariya, where amidst flower beds which circle the parking lot, retractable showers are buried, ready to spring up to wash wounds in the event of war. We've sat in the living room of Ethiopian Jews who walked weeks in the desert to taste freedom in Eretz Yisrael. We've picked food directly from Israel's holy earth. And Zaidie there are thousands of people here who are hungry, and yesterday we met and fed some of them.

There have been so many highlights which together form a chain between your life in the schtetl and this fast paced modern country....We have walked the paths of the Torah and we have heard both the echoes and the new voices of a Biblical people. We have danced, laughed, cried, and even kvetched a little. For we are Jews.

Zaidie, you always told me that there is a great God who lives among us, and sometimes things happen which are difficult to understand. As a working rabbi, I have seen tragedies which I cannot explain. I have seen people hurting. But I always believe there is a plan and purpose, which is sometimes beyond us....

I also just wanted to tell you Zaidie that in spite of its problems, God is still in this place. This is a holy land, and I believe that each member of our group, Jew or Christian, is returning home with [his or her] own Israel moment....What you dreamed of for your children, grandchildren and great grandchildren, [is] alive in this land of possibilities....

Please give my regards to Bubbie. I hope you are both at peace. Shabbat shalom from Israel.

Your grandson Irwin