Israel: The Sealed Room in
Which We're Clustered Together

Rosh Hashanah Day 2, 5759 (1998)

A few years ago, I went to a movie sponsored by the Boston Jewish Film Festival at the Coolidge Corner Cinema in Brookline. It was a short movie entitled, "The Sealed Room," and it was about one family's experience during the Gulf War in 1991. As you may recall, after Iraq invaded Kuwait, America launched an attack to repel the Iraqi forces. During that conflict, Iraq sent over a hundred Scud missiles into Israel. In order to defend themselves from possible chemical weapons attacks, all Israelis were forced to seal off rooms in their homes and apartments and get gas masks for every member of their families.

In the film, we see an entire extended family forced to spend time together during the air raids. The inconvenience, the dislocation, the fear are considerable. But the film is also amusing. In one scene, just as an argument is heating up between the mother of the family and her son, the siren sounds, and they both have to put on their masks, momentarily stifling the argument. In another scene, the boy's girlfriend and grandmother end up in the same room even though they have very little in common. It makes for some hilarious moments, even as the film effectively reminds us of the anxiety, the vulnerability, the claustrophobia, of that period.

I thought about that film during this past February. I had the privilege of travelling to Israel to attend the Rabbinical Assembly convention and to participate in a study tour exploring the role of the Conservative/Masorti movement in Israel. Unfortunately, it was at a time when there was, once again, great tension in the air because of Iraq. Iraq had refused to allow weapons inspectors into the country and the United States was threatening military action. In response, Iraq was threatening to send missiles bearing chemical and biological warheads into Israel.

I remember waking up one morning and turning on the television. After fifteen minutes of hitamlut - "aerobics" - there was a fifteen minute presentation by an army commander explaining how to put on a gas mask if necessary and how properly to seal up a room in the event of a missile attack. I can recall in particular - it's funny how these things stick with you - this commander's calm assurance that it is fairly easy to survive an attack of biological weapons if you keep your mask on for a few minutes. The germs tend to sink, so one should avoid low places, but they do dissipate and decompose rapidly.

At the time, I'm not sure how comforted I was by that news. On the contrary, the sense of being under siege once again reminded me how vulnerable Israel is, and how much Israel needs American support and American Jews. How much the fundamental security that we take for granted here in this country -- whether we should or not: the confidence that our homes are still going to be standing in the morning, is absent in Israel.

Now, that wasn't the focus of my trip. The focus of my trip was to explore Conservative institutions throughout Israel and to get a sense of how they were doing and how they were contributing to Israeli society. But I found that that image, that metaphor of "the sealed room" was a useful one which kept coming back to me. The notion that, just like that extended family in that sealed room, all Jews in Israel are essentially stuck with one another, and therefore need to get along, for mutual survival.

For Israel remains a dramatically heterogeneous country. Even setting aside the conflict between Jew and Arab, which is considerable, the Jewish population is remarkably splintered. There are Jews from North Africa and Jews from the former Soviet Union. Jews from Ethiopia and Jews from America. Religiously, as many of us know, it is equally divided. There are so-called secular Jews, the vast majority of the Israeli population, and then there are so-called "religious" Jews, or "dati'im." There are very few Jews who associate with any of the liberal Jewish denominations, such as Conservative or Reform Judaism.

There's a reason for that. The early Zionists, those who drained the swamps and built the settlements, were, for the most part, secular Jews who had rejected traditionalist religion and its coercive power. They came not from Central or Western Europe where Enlightenment and Emancipation had made possible the creation of Reform and Conservative Judaism, but Eastern Europe, which had never known such religious reform. Together with these avowed secularists came some religious Zionists, comparatively few, but again primarily from Eastern Europe.

Thus, the Jewishness of early Israel was formed by those who had either rejected pre-modern, traditionalist Judaism or those who had embraced it. And shortly after Israel was established, David Ben-Gurion, the first Israeli premier, and the Hazon Ish -- one of the great rabbinic leaders who had narrowly escaped the Nazi conquest of Lithuania, reached an agreement. In order to garner the support of Orthodox Jews for his political party, Ben-Gurion promised the Hazon Ish that matters of personal status would remain under the authority of the chief rabbinate, to be constituted and maintained by the Orthodox establishment. Henceforth, the only state-recognized Judaism would be Orthodoxy.

Given that genesis, and given the challenges Israel faced in her early years, there was really neither the incentive nor the opportunity for liberal religious Jewish communities to develop.

But there are signs that things are changing; there are signs that the other perspectives are making inroads, slowly but surely, contributing to a broadening of the country's religious vision. At least that is what I observed on my trip.

I had a very interesting experience one Shabbat morning in Tel Aviv, which I think typifies the potential for growth and development. In many ways, I felt that morning as if I were in an American city. There was plenty of hustle and bustle as I walked to shul, and of course plenty of folks who were on their way to other places. When I got to the shul, which is a small Conservative congregation on a side street in the city, a small, friendly crowd greeted me. During the service, I noticed that there was a young couple sitting quietly to the side. During the Torah service, the woman came forward for an aliyah. She recited the brachot with a quiet, calm demeanor, and then immediately afterward, the rabbi recited a blessing invoking the memory of her father. After services, he explained to me what had happened.

"This was the first time this woman had ever been in a synagogue," he said. She was Jewish, and had been born and raised in Israel, but had simply never gone to a synagogue. The previous week, her father had died, and this rabbi, although he is Conservative, had been somewhat involved. During the course of helping her with the funeral arrangements, he had told her about his synagogue and had welcomed her to attend. She was apparently intrigued enough to come with her husband and children, and had experienced, for her, a unique moment. Would she ever return? He didn't know. But he had a sense that she might.

Others are also experiencing these unique moments. That shul in Tel Aviv offers regular programs of Jewish adult education, practically unheard of outside of the Orthodox world, which attract hundreds of so-called secular Israelis.

This is happening outside of Tel Aviv as well, but there are obstacles. In Beer Sheva, we visited Rabbi Gila Dror and her energetic congregation, Eshel Avraham. We saw a day care center filled with 60 children. It was wonderful. She told me why, though, they don't have one hundred and 60 kids there. "We compete," she said, "with SHAS." SHAS is one of the religious parties. "Because of their government subsidies, SHAS can offer all-day day care, practically for free!"

"And of course," she added, "by the time the children are four or five, they and their parents are hooked. They're ready for all-day elementary school, and before you know it, they're card carrying supporters of SHAS, studying in a yeshiva, applying for army exemptions and raising families who, in turn receive the government support that allows their institutions to flourish."

The strength of the religious establishment is astounding. Hundreds of millions of dollars went to support ultra-Orthodox institutions during the past year. A recent official state report listing support for religious programs didn't even bother to list the Conservative and Reform movements: the amount was too minuscule to show up on their charts.

We can do something about that. We can support pluralistic options in Israel. Even if the government doesn't support non-Orthodox institutions, we can. And there's something else we can do: and that is to refrain from promoting institutions whose values we do not share.

It's no secret that the government of Israel is not the only supporter of ultra-Orthodox institutions in Israel. They also receive vast sums from non-Orthodox Jews in America. Jews who would never consider being Orthodox themselves are somehow willing to support extreme, in some cases, fundamentalist institutions in Israel. As nostalgic, as sentimental as many of us may be for that "old-time religion", we shouldn't assume that the only religion good enough for Israelis is a form of Judaism that we've rejected. By supporting such institutions, we are contributing to the suppression of liberal Judaism in Israel. I certainly hope we consider that when we next receive a solicitation, as we all do, from any of the many places that are happy to take non-Orthodox money, even though they do not recognize non-Orthodox religiosity as deserving of any consideration.

Fortunately, our congregation is establishing multiple links with Israel. I am very proud that this year, two members of our congregation spent an entire year there. (Beth Greenberg with Nativ and Erica Rashap with Young Judea.) One student spent a portion of her spring semester there and many young people from our congregation spent several weeks there this summer.

Many members of our congregation have been to Israel and/or intend to travel there. I can’t encourage you enough. We should be doing all we can to help Israel become the kind of place that welcomes and affirms us and our Jewish identities.

Conclusion
I want to remind everyone of that image of the sealed room. That image gives us, I think, two obligations. First, we have to support Israel. We've got to do what we can to strengthen her. This is not a political issue. Her vulnerability cuts across political lines. And, of course, there are several ways to do this. The particular way that we are urging you to consider today is through the purchase of Israeli bonds, about which Judy Sacks will be speaking with you shortly.

The second obligation arising from that metaphor is to help Israel become the kind of place where the many different strands of Judaism can get along with one another. Not just be shoved together but actually get along respectfully with one another. And that can only happen if we strengthen the liberal denominations in Israel, which you will also, shortly, get the opportunity to do.

In a few weeks we're going to be celebrating the holiday of Sukkot. One of the most prominent customs on Sukkot is the shaking of the lulav and etrog. I wish that I had them here to show you. There's the palm branch, the willow, the myrtle and the etrog. You couldn't have four species more different from one another, and yet we hold them all together in a cluster.

To the rabbis, those four species symbolize the various kinds of Jews in the world. And the symbolism of holding them together to fulfill the mitzvah of shaking the lulav is that they're all important. They all need one another. All are necessary to fulfill the Jewish mission in the world.

One rabbinic midrash on the mitzvah of shaking the lulav concludes by saying that God is pleased when he sees the four species clustered together. "To lose any member of the household of Israel is unthinkable. Rather, "Yeasu khulam agudah ahat," "They should all be gathered up into one bundle so that they can strengthen one another."

That phrase should be familiar to all of us because it is taken from the High Holiday liturgy, from the special paragraphs added on Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur. We pray on these days that "all of God's creatures shall be gathered up into one bundle." Should we Jews be any exception?

This should be our vision of Israel in the twenty-first century:

First, a place which is safe. A place where Jews don't have to live in sealed rooms or keep gas masks in their basements. A place where, in the words of the mahzor, we experience "simcha l'artzecha v'sason l'irecha," "joy in the Land of Israel and jubiliation in Jerusalem." Halevai! It should only be! And it will only be if we continue to support Israel.

But also a place where, long after the rooms get unsealed, long after, God willing, the plastic wrap comes down from the windows, we as a people are a bundle which stays together.

We pray that Israel becomes a place, a homeland that is strongly united, despite its diversity.

Ken Yehi Ratzon! So may it be.

I urge you to give your fullest attention to Judy Sacks, our Joint Israel Appeal chair, who will now speak to you regarding the envelopes in your hands.

The End.