September 2007 Archives

As Jews have done for thousands of years, I am in Jerusalem celebrating the festival of Sukkot. As one journalist put it to me the amazing thing about Israel is that on any given day there are 10 stories that each could make front page news. And yet with all the drama engulfing Israel, there seems to be one more story that can make you nod your head in disbelief. One of the highlights of celebrating Sukkot in Israel is the fresh fruit and produce.

For years the Chief Rabbinate has created a legal loophole to allow Jewish farmers to continue to sell agricultural products in the sabbatical year. For 119 years the rabbinate has permitted Jewish farmers living in Israel to sell their produce through the legal concept of heter mechirah. Yet, this year the increasingly Haredi, fundamentalist, group has outlawed the selling of any produce in the seventh year. In other words, when every Jewish person around the world is promoting "buying Israeli" the Chief Rabbinate is in effect promoting buying agricultural products from Hamas. As one source has reported:

Wednesday night begins the holiday of Sukkot, a time when Jews around the world move temporarily out of our comfortable homes and eat, and sometimes also sleep, in sukkot, fragile structures with three to four walls and a roof that lets in the wind and rain.

Sukkot was originally a harvest holiday, the original thanksgiving. It reminded our ancestors of their vulnerability to the vagrancies of the weather, and their concurrent dependency upon God.

Today we are generally insulated from the agricultural year and the vagrancies of weather by our home thermostats, global agribusiness, and car air conditioning. Even the effects of global warming do little to impact our daily lives, except perhaps to leave our lawns brown due to local water restrictions. We are unaware of the dangers of climate change, that is unless we live in New Orleans, the Midwest where floods have ravaged communities, or the West where forest fires have raged for the last few summers.

As American Jews prepare once again to pray, “next year in Jerusalem,” on Yom Kippur, they should know that plans are being made to prevent that from taking place. For better or for worse, if it were up to Ehud Olmert we might be switching our prayers from "next year in Jerusalem," to "next year in half of Jerusalem."

According to the JTA, Haim Ramon, Olmert’s top secretary, has devised a peace plan that would cede to the Palestinian Authority a good chunk of Jerusalem. Ahh... and I remember when Olmert swore over his dead body he would never give up an inch of Jerusalem. Its interesting how someone who swore he would never divide Jerusalem is now making plans to give it up to the PA. Olmert’s about face is just one more indicator of the truth of Ariel Sharon’s adage explaining his own about face once he became prime minster, “You see things from here that you don't see from there."

Rabbi Grossman’s post on the wish “Next year in Jerusalem” reflects the fact that for much of Jewish history Jerusalem has been more of an ideal than a historical or geographical reality. It is only in the last hundred-odd years that Jews have been able to return to Jerusalem in larger numbers and only in the past 40 that they have had access to the holiest sites in the city. It is only in our time that we must live with the tension Rabbi Grossman articulates-–between the vision of an ideal and the reality whose flaws and imperfections are thrown into even greater relief when compared with that perfect vision.

The gap between the reality and the ideal, I think, can bear great meaning for us in this season. We strive to do teshuvah –-to honestly reflect on our behavior over the past year, make amends, and change our ways--this is the ideal. In reality, we are lucky if we even make it part way there. And yet rather than denigrating ourselves for failing to live up to this impossible vision, we can reflect that there is still value in striving for the ideal while affirming what we have accomplished: Jerusalem as it is.

We are not perfect, the world is not perfect. When we say “Next year in Jerusalem,” we hold up that perfect vision to signify the damage and imperfection that remain in the world and within ourselves. Just as we break a glass at the conclusion of a wedding, acknowledging those places of brokenness even at our moment of greatest joy, we must be aware of our own shortcomings even as we come out of Yom Kippur, as sin-free and right with God as we will get in this lifetime. Jerusalem serves as a symbol both of the ideal we strive for and the lesser reality, which we attain. And that is precious despite its imperfections.

Why do we end our Yom Kippur services with the prayer: “Next year in Jerusalem?” Why not: “This year in Jerusalem?”

Last year when we ended our holiday services, many in my congregation meant just that: this coming year in Jerusalem. We were looking forward to a congregational mission to Israel that would bring us to the city of our prayers.

However, I think there is a lot more here than a travel advertisement for the Holy Land.

I think our Sages who crafted the Yom Kippur liturgy in the future tense--speaking of next year rather than this year--knew that Jerusalem is not only a very real city but also a prayer and a dream.

The name Jerusalem literally means City of Peace or ir shalem in Hebrew.

Throughout the centuries, Jerusalem has rarely lived up to that name. Destroyed by the Babylonians and Romans, fought over by the Crusaders and Muslims, and the fault line between Israelis and Palestinians. Jerusalem may not currently be seething with violence, but it is roiling with tension. Jerusalem is far from being a city of peace, at least right now.

And perhaps that is the point of the prayer--that if not this year, perhaps next year, or the year after, Jerusalem can live up to its name and be a city of peace. Despite our fears over terrorism and concerns over finding a reasonable partner among the Palestinians to broker a secure and lasting peace, we can never give up the hope that someday peace will be possible, not only for us and all of Israel, but for our neighbors as well.