Why we're here

I'm often asked why we moved here to Israel from the good old U.S.A., and I really never quite have an answer, even though I know that it was what we needed to do. Last night, at our synagogue, Rabbi Israel Horowitz gave a drasha (sermon) that perhaps explains it as well as is possible. The drasha was in Hebrew, of course, but every week, just before the drasha is delivered, they pass out written translations into Spanish and English for those who want them. This definitely helps me to follow the Hebrew better. The English used, however, is a little rough, so I edited it a bit, and here it is for you to ponder [with a few of my own clarifying comments enclosed in square brackets like these]:

Drasha on Parashat Va'era

by Israel Horowitz

We find in this parasha [the Torah portion read this week in synagogues around the world] four statements relating to the liberation from Egypt:

1. I brought them out.
2. I saved them.
3. I redeemed them.
4. I took them for Me.

Because of this, in the Pesach Seder we drink four glasses of wine.

If we carefully consider these points, we will see that each has its own importance.

I brought them out: it can be coming out of slavery, out of the suffering, out of the heavy work, or only extracting them from this situation. The blows were finished, the pain was over. A person used to all this feels a mitigation but, in the end, does not understand the situation very well.

I saved them: Some people understand that what is happening to them is not only an exit from the sufferings. They realize the danger they were in, and, now that it is over, they feel that they have been saved from terrible dangers.

I redeemed them: Some people understand that the salvation in the diaspora from the sufferings, from the dangers, is not only a salvation, but it also has something of redemption. They feel that they were not only saved, but also redeemed. The process of redemption brings them to a different status from the one they were in until now, to a higher one.

I took them for Me: Here are those who understand and have faith that the return from the diaspora, the salvation from its dangers, and the soon-to-be redemption are the steps that will bring them near to God, their Creator and Redeemer, to be His elected people. "I took them to be My people."

These four steps toward redemption can be applied not only to the exodus from Egypt but also to our own days.

When the terrible process of the Shoa [the Holocaust] began, and an infinity of sufferings fell upon the Jews of Europe, they thought of going out of the countries of the troubles and went away to countries that were not under the Nazis, and they went out from the sufferings.

They thought that leaving the dangerous places would remove the problems from them. These are the Jews of "I brought them out".

The Jews of "I saved them" thought that it was not enough to leave Germany for nearby countries. It was necessary to move far away, for example to South America [a large number of people in our congregation, probably a majority, are immigrants from South America], to North America, to Australia.

They understood the danger and moved far away to be saved.

These are the Jews of "I saved them".

For the Jews of "I redeemed them" it was clear that the depths of slavery must bring them to the land of redemption, Eretz Yisrael. They were not content with the countries that were sheltering them.

The opposite of the danger of the Shoa was the Redemption. They were not content with "I saved them" nor with "I brought them out". They realized it was not sufficient to escape from the Nazis. The Shoa must lead to the creation of the State of Israel, the Redemption of Israel. "I redeemed them".

Others understand that after the Shoa, after the creation of the State, the people of Israel is forced to be different from how it used to be before these two events.

They understand that what happened to the Jewish people is part of a mystical and eternal process of "I took them for Me".

These four statements are current. And from the exodus from Egypt until our days, the Jewish people split into these four positions.

Shabbat Sahlom!

Blessings for Gazans and for Israelis fighting there

I just received a very moving message from the Masorti congregation in Kfar Vradim, which David and I used to attend regularly (although we haven't had the energy to do so for some time now).

The first part of the message was about the children of the village, who decided to send care packages to soldiers currently fighting in Gaza. This was good to hear, but no so exceptional, since many people are sending such packages. In fact, when we went to our regular supermarket yesterday, even we agreed to buy a box of goodies to be sent to the soldiers.

The second part of the message was what really moved me, though. The children (5th and 6th graders) also wrote Misheberachs (blessings), and two samples were included. These really blew me away, especially the first one. Here they are, as translated into English in the message (images of the original papers that the children wrote, in Hebrew, of course, were also shown):

May He who blessed our ancestors Abraham, Issac and Jacob, Sarah, Rivka, Rachel and Leah, bless the citizens of Gaza who do not cooperate with Hamas, who live in fear and suffer from the air raids, who lack food, medicine and even a roof over their heads. May the Holy One see to it that these people are not dragged into hate by what they are seeing, death and destruction, and instead will become our partner for peace. Grant peace, well-being and blessing on each and every one of them. May it be Your will, and let us say, Amen.

- Or-el Haim

May he who blessed our ancestors Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Sarah, Rivka, Rachel and Leah, Shaul, David, Moshe and Aharon bless the Israeli soldiers who are defending us by fighting Hamas non-stop and who are currently on a very dangerous mission and cannot spend time with their families, friends or loved ones. May the Holy One strengthen the citizens of the South that are being wounded by missiles and rockets and who are not used to a situation like this and cannot leave the city or their homes. Grant peace, well-being and blessing on the Jewish People, and grant them serenity and a normal routine without surprise bombs or sirens. May it be Your will, and let us say, Amen.

- Roe Kiper

China

This afternoon, I had an interesting experience. First, a little background.

In addition to my teaching for Berlitz, I also do some work for Auralog, another company that actually contracts for my services through Berlitz. The Auralog lessons are different, though, from the Berlitz ones in several ways. First, they are designed only as practice supplements for an online learning program, to help students practice spoken English. Each lesson has a topic and some materials to go with it, but the main purpose of the lesson is for the students to have lots of speaking time to discuss the topic. The lesson lasts 40 minutes, but students can come in and go out at any time during that interval. Also, they don't have to sign up for the lesson in advance but can't simply drop in if they want to. In each lesson there are generally two teachers: one who leads the discussion, and the other who simply listens in the background, ready to jump in if the first one either doesn't show up or is unable to conduct the lesson due to technical problems. Both teachers are paid the same.

So, that's the background for this story. This afternoon I was scheduled to be the back-up teacher for an Auralog lesson, and the topic was "The Chinese Boom". The first-slot teacher (who is in the U.S. or Canada, I believe) did show up and encountered no technical problems, so all I did was sit and listen to the lesson.

It was fascinating! About 4 or 5 students showed up, and ALL of them were in China! Most were fairly advanced students, but they all had to struggle just a bit to find the words they wanted to say. One question in the materials asked whether the Chinese boom was a positive thing for the world. Naturally, all the students felt that it was (and I suspect even most people from other countries would also agree), but each was also able to defend this position with good reasons. Another question was about whether Chinese would become the dominant 2nd language taught in schools around the world. Most students doubted that this would happen, including one who admitted that she WISHED that it would! The consensus seemed to be, though, that Chinese would be too difficult for most non-Chinese people because its words are so different from those in most other languages. One or two of them did note, however, that many foreigners in China for business are, in fact, learning some Chinese.

The materials for the lesson were clearly not really designed with Chinese students in mind, but the discussion was really very interesting, and I felt quite privileged just to be able to listen to it and to hear the opinions of real people from China on this subject.

Pontoon bridges

On Shabbat afternoon, after I had finished feeding the snakes, we decided to go for a little drive. First, we explored a little in the area near where the Jordan River flows into the Kinneret (the "Sea of Galilee"). Just before the road crosses the river, there is a small road that turns of towards the Kinneret. A short distance down that road, this is what we saw:

At first, I wasn't sure what it was, but then I figured it out. It's a pontoon bridge, just sitting there on the dry land for now. Although you can't see it very clearly in this picture, there are a dozen or so big round barrels which are no doubt sealed so that the air can't get out of them. That way, they would float on the water. They can also serve as wheels to move the bridge into the water, I think. I walked up the ramp that you can see and along the top of the bridge. From up there, I took this second picture, in which you can see the Jordan River itself curving around on its journey to the Kinneret, which is less than a kilometer away.Not far from this same spot, there was another similar (if not identical) pontoon bridge, also sitting on dry ground. It's quite obvious that these two bridges are positioned here so that they could be quickly rolled into place across the river if the road bridge nearby were to be destroyed. The sign next to this bridge stated (in Hebrew) that it is the property of the IDF (the Israeli Defense Force). I had, of course, heard of pontoon bridges before, but I don't think I had ever seen one or even thought very much about how it would work.

A tiyul to the Hexagon Pool

I had a 5-hour break in the middle of the day today, so we decided to take a little tiyul to the Hexagon Pool, a place in the Golan where we had not been before. Here are some pictures that I took on this trip, with a few comments after each.
We drove a bit in the Golan before getting to the entrance to the nature reserve where the Hexagon Pool is located. Here's a bizarre sight that we saw along the way. Isn't is a little dangerous to graze cattle in a mine field!????

Here's a view of the Hexagon Pool itself, looking toward the point where the stream flows into it. It got its name of the hexagonal (6-sided) rock pillars that you can see a little in this picture on the right side.

Here's a view of the pool from above at a spot just to the right of the stream entrance.

Here's a view showing the cliff, which is like a "curtain" of hexagonally shaped rock pillars.

Here's an interesting plant (perhaps a relative of the Nile lilly?), shot from above with the pool and the cliff in the background.

I also saw quite a number of other beautiful flowers. I think these pretty white flowers with gold centers are probably daffodils.

This is a very zoomed close-up of a delicate little purple flower. Perhaps it's a cyclamen. It's really much tinier than this large picture makes it seem!

This is a close-up of a beautiful yellow flower. It actually grows on a fairly large round bush with many others like it covering much of the plant.

Here's another pair of delicate small flowers. I don't know what these are, but I think they're very lovely. Notice the leaf on their plant, as well!

Just before we got back from our little hike (one parks at the top and walks down a trail about a mile into the canyon to get to the pool), a few drops began to fall. Not long after we started driving home, the drops became steady rain, so we made it back just in time.

Right before we turned onto the main road, an olive green UPS truck drove by! The contrasts here in Israel can be quite wonderful. We followed the truck all the way down to near the Kinneret (the "Sea of Galilee"), across the Jordan River, and up the road on the other side, at which point I passed him.

We had brought a lunch with us, but we were a little concerned about the time since I had a student scheduled at 4:00, so we didn't eat it until we got back home. However, on the way up to Tsfat, I got a call from the Berlitz office that my student had canceled. Since this was a late cancellation, I will still get paid. When we got home, it was still raining here, so we just ate our lunch in the car, and, by the time we finished, the rain had stopped!

A visit to Jerusalem and Yavne

For the final weekend of my vacation from Berlitz, we arranged to visit our friends, Shaul, Omri, Yasmin, and Shirli in Jerusalem. I met Shaul through Facebook, and his 12-year-old son, Omri, is interested in snakes. We had visited them once before, and they have visited us a time or two.

One purpose of this trip was to take one of our male snakes (Gur) to Omri to breed a couple of his females in the Spring. Of course, Omri was very excited about this, and we also answered his many questions about breeding snakes, since this will be his first experience.

Another reason for the visit was so that they could take us to בית חיות Beit Chayot ("Animal House"), a place just north of Yavne, where they raise and sell many kinds of animals, including, of course, snakes. It was a very interesting visit, and the proprietor, Shimon, was very friendly. He has quite a diverse variety of snakes, including a number of morphs of corn snakes.

In order to get to there, we drove through the city of Yavne, which we had never visited before. Shaul assured us that there would normally have been a lot of traffic there on a Friday, but there was hardly any this time, since several Hamas rockets had fallen in the vicinity. We saw none nor any evidence of them during the short time that we were there, however. By the way, Yavne was once the center of the Jewish world, after the Jews were exiled from Jerusalem following its destruction and the destruction of the 2nd temple. For quite a few years, Yavne was the seat of the Sanhedrin.

On Friday night, we went to prayers at כל הנשמה Kol HaNeshamah ("The Whole Soul" or "All Souls"), a large Reform synagogue in Jerusalem that I had visited once before, when I came to Israel in the summer of 2005, but which David had never attended before. The prayers were led by a woman rather than the rabbi because he had recently been diagnosed with some kind of cancer and had had surgery. She did a great job, and the prayers had a restful feel to them, filled with רוח ruach ("spirit").

On Shabbat, we returned home. Normally, the shortest (and perhaps quickest) way to Jerusalem from here is through the Jordan Valley and past Jericho. On both directions of this trip, however, we avoided the Territories (areas under Israel's control but not formally considered part of Israel pending negotiations with the Palestinians), meaning that we traveled on Highway 6 instead. We even took highway 70 instead of highway 65 because the latter passes through an area (Um al-Fakhem) where many Arab-Israelis live. We knew that there had previously been some protests in some Arab-Israeli communities, and that these had at least once led to highway closures. We didn't want to get stuck somewhere for hours in case anything like that happened again!