As I continue to process my 10 days in Israel this month, I can only do so in bite size pieces.  Here is my second bite at the experience and what it has meant to me and what I have learned.

On my trip in 2021, we had a number of Israeli men on our bus.  I wrote about Alex, whose son died on October 7^th, in my last blog post.  Another person I met on that trip has become a close friend. I can’t use his name or pictures for security reasons.

There were a few things that he spoke about that really resonated with me then and as I unpack the time in Israel, reinforce common themes that have come out of the trip and that I want to apply in my life.  One of the most significant was when he talked about holding his son’s bar mitzvah at Kibbutz Be’eri.  After being decimated on October 7^th by the Hamas terrorists, he wanted to bring light and life to Kibbutz Be’eri, so that is where he held his son’s bar mitzvah.  It’s like saying that I want to get married on the still smoldering ruins of the Twin Towers in 2001.  Let’s celebrate a significant event at the devastated site of the apartment building in Sunny Isles, Florida.  Let’s celebrate our 50^th wedding anniversary at any of the sites of school shootings a few months after children were murdered there.  In many ways, it doesn’t make sense.

Yet through a Jewish lens, it makes total sense.  We value human life more than anything.  The Talmud teaches that Whoever Saves a Life Saves the World.  The idea of bringing light and life to a place where light and life was destroyed is incredibly Jewish.  It’s similar to what Noa was saying at Shura Army base when she spoke about making a better dinner for her family, being better for her children and husband.  We can take the sad, the dark, the bitter, and find a way to make the light shine again.  That’s what he and his family did at Kibbutz Be’eri.  They door a place stained with death, kidnapping, torture and pain and brought light to it.  They brought joy to it, if even for just a few hours or a day. 

The lesson I take from this is that we all have an opportunity to bring light and joy to the world every single day.  It doesn’t matter what is happening in our own lives, in our country, or in the world.  We have the ability to make a conscious decision to do things that bring light to the world.  Sometimes it can be something as simple as holding the door for somebody.  Helping somebody cross the street.  Say a kind word to somebody that you see even if you don’t know them.  It doesn’t take much to bring light to our lives and the world.  It does take a conscious effort.  After this trip, one of the things I am going to do is find ways to bring light to the world around me.  Pay attention to the opportunities that present themselves every day and act.  The small random acts of kindness brighten somebody’s day and improve the world.  Thank you Yaron and Noa for inspiring and teaching me.

Our trip leader, Saul Blinken, was incredibly inspiring.  We spent most of our time based out of Jerusalem and he said something that had an immediate impact on me.  Saul said that every day we wake up in Jerusalem, it’s a miracle.  Every day we breath the air in Jerusalem is a miracle.  Every day we walk the streets of Jerusalem, it’s a miracle.  And every night we go to sleep in Jerusalem, it’s a miracle.  He asked us to imagine if somebody told the Jews who were being exiled by the Romans not to worry, that 2000 years later the Jews would be back in Jerusalem and there would be a Jewish state.  They wouldn’t believe it.  Yet it happened.

From the time Saul said that I took it to heart.  Every day when I woke up, it was an incredible feeling to know that I was waking up in Jerusalem.  As I walked the streets, I had a deeper appreciation of what it meant to be able to do that.  Going into the old city, visiting the Kotel, walking freely throughout the city – everything became a WOW moment.  It reminded me of what my friend Roni Akele, the Director General of the Ethiopian National Project said about being a Jew in Ethiopia.  He said that they always dreamed of returning to Jerusalem.  Everything was about Jerusalem.  The psalm we sing is “If I forget you, oh Jerusalem….”

I fell in love with Jerusalem on my first trip to Israel in 1989 and it has never changed.  I am not an overly religious person, yet going to the Kotel is powerful.  This trip I got to visit Temple Mount for the first time.  Incredibly powerful.  As we stood there and said the Shema, I felt a connection that is indescribable.  Saul’s words hit home and deeply.  I’ll never take Jerusalem for granted again.  I’ll never take for granted all the time I have spent there, all the sites I have seen, all the friends I have who live there. 

It’s an opportunity to think deeply about gratitude.  This was my 21^st trip to Israel and I hope to be back in Israel a few more times this year.  I don’t think much about it yet now I am filled with gratitude that I have these opportunities.  Each time I go to Israel, I get a deeper connection to Judaism and to understanding myself.  As I have said, I’m not very religious but I am very Jewish.  Israel brings that home to me.

I also think about how many things I have to be grateful for in my life.  Jerusalem can easily be representative of so many important things.  My family.  My health.  Doing work that is personally meaningful.  The success of my children as people and in life.  The life I have is truly beyond my wildest dreams.  It is easy to lose track of that and focus on the things that aren’t going well or that I don’t like.  Temple Mount was a good example.  I wish we could go there whenever we want.  I wish we could openly pray there and celebrate that holy space.  I could focus on the things we don’t have.  Or I can focus on the fact that we can go there.  That I did find a private place to pray quietly.  That I did feel the connection with God in this special place.  Our choices determine everything.  Do I want to focus on what I don’t have or what I have?  Do I want to be bitter about the things I think I deserve or be grateful for the wonderful things I actually have?  Just like I’ll never take Jerusalem for granted again, I won’t take the wonders and gifts of my life for granted either.  Nothing is perfect but it sure can be great.

The last thing I want to unpack in this post relates to Israelis.  Not since the second intifada have I been in Israel where I was thanked so much by Israelis for being there.  During the second intifada they were happy to see Jews coming because most were not.  It was the Christians who were coming to visit.  This time they were grateful for Jewish solidarity.  For knowing the Jews of the diaspora love Israel and support them as brothers and sisters.  That we are willing to come in the middle of a war because of our love for Israel and the people of Israel.   That the Jewish community truly is global.  There was a unity we felt and that they needed.  I never expected to get the thanks we did or for it to mean as much as it did to me. 

During the second intifada, part of the thanks was due to the economic benefit the country needed by our visiting.  While that is very true right now, that wasn’t what I was being thanked for.  The Israelis need to see us in person.  They need get our hugs and love.  They need to know they aren’t alone.  When the guys on our bus from an LA Jewish Day School gave the soldiers letters from kids at the school, they were deeply moved.  October 7^th, the hostages, and the ensuing war is taking an incredible toll on the entire country.  Seeing their Jewish brothers and sisters from America and the rest of the world makes an incredible difference.

It’s a reminder to me that not only do I need to show up both through WhatsApp and in person for my Israeli brothers and sisters, I need to do the same for my friends and family.  That random phone call, text, or email may often mean far more than I ever thought.  Checking in on friends and family doesn’t take much effort and the payoff is always significant and meaningful.  This trip reminded me that the 30 seconds it takes to send a text or email, or the 15 minutes I allocate for a phone call, may change a person’s entire day and outlook.  It doesn’t matter if they reply or if they answer the phone.  The effort is what is meaningful.

The other thing that was surprising to me was the Israelis response to my tattoos related to October 7^th.  I got them because of their meaning to me.  My children could have been at Nova.  I could have been there with them.  It hit home and hard.  The Mia Schem quote, “We will dance again” and the tattoo she got inspired me as well.  It is a reminder that we never give up hope.  We will overcome the challenges and not just survive but thrive.  Whatever is taken from us, we will get back.  They will never take our spirit or our soul.  Here in America, I get very few comments on them.  People are very used to tattoos and I have been surprised at the lack of comments or questions because of the uniqueness of them.  In Israel it was just the opposite.  Not only did they notice them, but people were stunned that October 7^th meant that much to me.  ‘Wow’ was the most common thing said to me, followed by questions and a conversation.  At a t-shirt store where I got a few meaningful ones for myself, the owner was so taken by my tattoos that he asked if he could take pictures of them and use them on t-shirts he would sell.  Of course I said yes.  On my next trip, I’ll swing by and see if he has them on a t-shirt.  How cool would that be??

Standing up for what you believe in matters.  The old saying, “If you don’t stand for something, you will fall for anything” really holds true.  I’m not advocating that everybody should get a tattoo.  I am advocating that whatever matters to you, whatever you stand for, make sure that you actually do it publicly.  It matters.  People notice what you say and do and what you don’t say and don’t do.  If they are your values, make it public.

Trips to Israel, especially the Momentum Men’s Trips, always have me returning with my head spinning.  There is always much to unpack.  More is coming as I continue to process the time I spent there, the people I met, the things I saw, and how I felt.   If you have never been, I urge you to go.  If you have been, I urge you to return.  It truly does change your life.