Israel

When I was young my mother dragged me three times a week to the synagogue. Each Hebrew class would begin the same; we’d stand at our desks and with our hands on our hearts and sing the Sh’ma and the HaTikva. The first, a prayer to God, and the second a devotion to the State of Israel, neither of which I had any relationship with until I was much older. I went through a phase before my Bat Mitzvah where I would talk to God during the silent prayer of the service. I’d gaze at the buzzing, electrical orange light that hung above the Torah ark as the eternal flame and I would sing my heart out to God’s ears. This phase was short and particular to only my pre-teens. After just a few years of maturity, I realized I was simply talking to myself in those silent moments. I discovered that there were no resolutions. I could find nothing to convince me that God, as I was taught to think of “him”, existed.

When I was sixteen, my father took me to Seattle to see the hugging Hindu saint, Amma. We sat on our knees for over an hour beside thousands of others with our offerings of marigolds in our hands. When we finally reached the front of the line, Amma hugged us each separately, transferring the power of her infinite source of love into our hearts. We drove home late that night in silence, smiles on our faces. It was on car rides like these that my father would teach me about Buddhist philosophy. On one of these drives, he gave me my first analogy of enlightenment.

“You know how when you’re on a large water slide, and all that exists is the thrill of the slide?”

I definitely knew that feeling.

“That’s what enlightenment is.” I decided then that God must be the feeling you have when nothing else exists but the present.

Throughout this time, I continued singing the HaTikva once a week beneath the Israeli flag. I don’t remember being given a translation, or told what we were supporting politically. We were just trained to love Israel. Sabbath after Sabbath we sang Hebrew prayers that blessed our homeland in Israel, the land of milk and honey, the land of Abraham, Isaac and Jakob. In my last years of high school, when I no longer attended Sunday School, I began to learn about a side of Israel that I had never heard of in Synagogue before; a side of Israel that dealt with Palestinians. I remember my Hebrew School teachers telling us about the intifadas only vaguely; I had conjured images in my head of buses exploding. I was taught that Israel was under attack and that it was not a safe place to go. In secular school, there was a different story to be told; a story where the attacked was portrayed instead, as the attacker. There was a Gazan boy that I tutored for two years. He was kind and goofy and spoke with a smooth, young voice. I watched his Arabic words quickly turn into English, and I listened to his laments of his Muslim brothers being pinned behind the M15’s of Israeli soldiers. The more I learned and investigated, the more disgust and shame I had towards Israel.

A few years later, I entered college. My relationship with Israel and God (or now, spirituality) became more complicated. The further into Buddhist practice I ventured, the more committed to Judaism I became. This growing sense of spirituality illuminated my sense of tradition and culture. It was also, of course, aided by the fact that for the first time in my life, a strong and supportive Jewish community surrounded me.

Before the end of my first semester I registered for the Taglit Birthright program. My views towards Israeli policy had not changed, and I knew the program to be a full-fledged brainwashing/dating-service system, meant to turn neutral American Jews like myself into Israel loving, tradition redeemers. At least… I presumed this to be so, and thus got on the plane with my analytical ear intact. However, as soon as land came into view from above the Mediterranean, and Tel Aviv glimmered below us, my heart pushed to my lips and I began to sing HaTikva. I couldn’t help it, maybe it was my nefesh yehudi overcoming my doubts, but I sang the HaTikva as the plane roared across the runway. As soon as I walked into the Ben Gurion Airport with my Birthright Group, a large man shook my hand with an explosive smile and said, “Shalom Emily, welcome home!”

During my first few days on Israeli soil, I tried as hard as I could to maintain my intellectual barrier of reason, but no matter what resistance I put up, “welcome home” hummed in the back of my mind. The food was fresh and tasted healthy and wholesome. Fresh grape tomatoes, cucumbers and milk coming straight from the kibbutzim was on every breakfast table and the blend of Mediterranean and Middle Eastern cooking styles made every meal savory. I found Israeli people to embody the definition of community and we were all welcomed enthusiastically as brothers and sisters. I loved the earthiness of the white stone architecture that faintly resembled biblical times. Ancient olive orchards scattered the landscape accompanied by wheat and corn fields. I loved the fusion of ancient and modern and the cultural richness it fostered. After five days of traveling throughout the country with my group, I found myself watching the sun rise from the top of the last Jewish stronghold, Massada. In the morning glory, the desert and Dead Sea slowly illuminated around me. I had forgotten about the Gazan War that repulsed the world, raging just a few miles west, and by the end of that morning I had fallen in love. He was tall, dark, and handsome and mesmerized me with an air of complexity and an aura of familiarity. The land of Israel now had a shining face with large brown eyes that reciprocated my love.

I mulled over a lot of thoughts and feelings at that time and one of them was distinguishing between the man I loved and the country I had discovered. To this day the lines are still not clearly defined. When I returned several months later to live with him, many of my experiences of exploring love were entwined with my blossoming intimacy with Israel. I was sleeping with both. The hours spent tracing the architecture of his face were matched by the hours I spent staring at the foreign block-like letters written across road signs and billboards and the afternoons I spent dragging my feet along the parched summer dirt. For all of the times we laughed and danced in each other’s arms, I also made close friends and observed how Israelis lived their lives. Alone on sweltering July afternoons, I’d walk alone through the fields with the sun beating heavy on my shoulders. I’d scan across the farmlands towards the slopes of Mount Carmel and feel a deep-seated excitement within me. This beautiful view was the home of my people, and the prospects of a future life in this land gave me a sense of happiness and belonging.

However, the sense of belonging was superficial. On the night his mother discovered my mother’s gentile identity, I was instantly branded as no longer one of the tribe. Simply put, I was the American visiting her Israeli boyfriend. Despite the whole of my cultural upbringing I could not seem to find an Israeli who could see me fully as a Jew. The columns supporting my entire identity cracked and I was hurt immensely. There was a brief period where I considered abandoning my image as a Jew. I had my guidance in the Dharma, and I never truly related to the spiritual practice of Judaism. But my roots were deep and being Jewish was all I knew how to be. However, my relationship with both Israel and the man I love, had taken on a new personality. One of struggle in definition and clarity. The sparkling welcome of the Israeli flag fell under the shadow of perspective and I was left to figure out if I had been dreaming all along. I know now that I was never asleep. I realized instead that I had been seeing my Israeli world through the narrow lens of new love. With my eyes wide open I was able to see that the things we love also carry dark shadows. My heart is still trying to understand this.