Bikers Making Kiddush in Jew Land

This is Aryeh Ben Yaakov.  Aryeh is from Cleveland, Ohio, and he made aliya in 1961 at age 21.  After his IDF service as a paratrooper, he settled in Kibbutz Misgav Am which is located literally on the border with Lebanon.  In this picture you can see this Hezbollah flag as a tiny green dot in Lebanon just over the fence of the kibbutz.

Aryeh is a prolific and passionate spokesperson who meets with many of the groups that visit Misgav Am to better understand the dangers of living in a border community as well as to see firsthand the Zionist spirit and dedication of those who live there.  I have heard Aryeh on numerous occasion, and I visited with him on Tuesday along with the Ramaz 8th graders on their class trip. 

Aryeh doesn't like to talk too much about himself, but he is not shy about why he lives in Israel or what the Jewish State is all about.  As usual, though, he left his listeners with a lesson in Jewish pride and a certainty in the justness of Israel.  I think it's a critical lesson for all Jews, and I'm glad my students heard it loud and clear. 

"Why do I live in Israel?  I'm Jewish...This is home for the Jewish people.  It's a miracle.  It's wonderful...Israel is Jew Land...Whenever you come, we'll be ready for you."

We all know that there is a lot about Israel that is complicated.  At the same time, Israel is a special place.  We must remind ourselves of this, while making sure our children (and all around us) hear - and feel - this unique quality.

The Torah predicts this phenomenon in our parsha. 

וישבתם לבטח בארצכם

And you shall dwell in safety in your land. (Vayikra 26:5)

The Midrash explains:

וישבתם לבטח בארצכם – בארצכם אתם יושבים לבטח ואין אתם יושבים לבטח חוצה לה.

In your land you shall dwell in safely, but you will not dwell in safety outside of it.

What exactly does this mean?   Why can’t we live securely outside the land?  Even with all that is going on, I still feel pretty safe as a Jew in America. 

וישבתם לבטח בארצכם    is not only about safety.  It is a reality that the natural state for the Jew as a Jew is in Israel.  It is in Israel that Jewishness permeates everyday life, where it is part and parcel of one's identity.  It is in Israel where we are naturally and organically Jewish.

This is not to say that one can’t be a proud, passionate Jew elsewhere in the world.  I’d like to think that we do a pretty good job here, but Israel is the land of passion and pride.  Israel is the place that attracts Aryeh Ben Yaakov's, that inspires American high school graduates to spend a year in the IDF or national service before college, and that elicits pride just by setting foot in the country.  Israel can provide an automatic and instantaneous infusion of religious spirit and passion for laid back teens, and it is only in Israel where bikers naturally make Kiddush.

A former neighbor of mine made Aliya to Israel and spent a weekend with his family at a Field School in Midreshet Sde Boker - near Kibbutz Sde Boker, the former home of David Ben Gurion.  Shortly after arriving on Friday, they heard the roar of motorcycles and watched as a large gang of bikers rode into the parking lot.  It was a group of graying, beefy older men riding a very fine collection of classic bikes – and they were all speaking Hebrew.  All of a sudden, my friend is 
approached by one of the bikers who wanted to apologize in advance for any noise they might need to make on Shabbat morning when they were planning on leaving to continue their ride.  Bikers with manners.

After Friday evening services in the shul, the family went to the dining hall for the Shabbat meal.  It was a communal dining hall, so that is where everyone ate.  And in walk the bikers.

The leather was gone, and they were now wearing clean t-shirts and blue jeans tucked into dusty engineer boots.  They sat down right near my friend’s family.  All of a sudden, one of the bikers stood, filled, his cup with wine, and the rest stood up on cue.  They all took the neatly folded pink dinner napkins from their place settings, and perched them carefully on top of their heads as makeshift yarmulkes, while the leader began making Kiddush.  

Kiddush recited by a bunch of “secular” Israeli weekend motorcycle warriors.  My neighbor said to his wife, "I think that has to be the holiest Kiddush I've ever heard".

It is a cute story, which reinforces for us that things are very different in Israel.  It is a reminder of what remains at the core and foundation of Israel.  In Israel, Judaism is natural.  Israel is the place where Judaism infuses and inspires the religious, the secular, the cynical, the student, and the bikers. 

What Exactly Do We Celebrate on Lag B'Omer?

What is Lag B’Omer?

Lag B’Omer, the 33^rd day of the Omer (it falls out on Sunday this year), is a festive day on the Jewish calendar.  For many, it marks the end of the subdued behavior and no haircuts of the Omer period.  It is celebrated with outings on which children play outdoors – traditionally with bows and arrows, bonfires, parades and other joyous events.  Many people travel to visit the resting place (in Meron, northern Israel) of the great sage and mystic Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai, the anniversary of whose passing is on this day.

Say what???

Where does all this come from?  Why the joy?  Why the bonfires?  Why anything on a day which is not mentioned ANYWHERE in the Talmud or early Jewish sources?

One reason recorded is that Rabbi Akiva’s students, who died during the Omer period, stopped dying on the 33^rd day of the Omer.  If we are sad during the Omer period due to our continuing grief over the loss of all of the Torah of Rabbi Akiva’s students, then the cessation of their dying is a reprieve from that grief.  The day became memorialized as a day of relief and celebration.

A second source for Lag B’Omer being a happier day is based on a number of Kabbalistic explanations that find spiritual significance in the 33^rd day of the Omer.  Since the day is spiritually elevated, it deserved to be celebrated.  The most well-known of these spiritual reasons is the tradition that Lag B’Omer is the yahrzeit of Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai, whose teachings form the basis for the Zohar, the primary book of Jewish mysticism.  On this yahrzeit, we celebrate the “light” of the Torah that Rabbi Shimon revealed.

This is all very nice, and I enjoy a nice bonfire just as much as the next person, but do these reasons rate a holiday?  I am not alone in my skepticism.  Not everyone is so enthusiastic about Lag B’Omer.

Rabbi Moshe Sofer (1762-1835, Hungary) questions whether it is permissible to establish a new holiday that is not based on any type of miracle.  (So Yom Ha’Atzmaut and Yom Yerushalayim are safe!)  Rabbi Yosef Shaul Nathanson (1808-1875, Poland) also objects to the celebration on similar grounds.  He notes that the proper response on a yahrtzeit is to fast and not to celebrate.  He also questions the practice of making bonfires to burn clothing as it seems like it is bal tashchit, wasteful.

So where does that leave us?  What is the message of Lag B’Omer?

As usual, my Friday Torah session with Ramaz Third Graders shed some light on the matter.

The two major sources for celebrating Lag B’Omer are the end of Rabbi Akiva’s students dying and Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai’s passing.  Both of these episodes teach an important lesson of continuity. 

How did the passing of Rabbi Shimon impact his students?  They rededicated themselves to spreading his teaching. 

What did Rabbi Akiva do after losing his students?  He immediately taught new ones. 

Lag B’Omer is the holiday of moving forward.

This may be why the day revolves around children.  The children have outings, and the young children get their first haircuts.  On Lag B’Omer, we look to tomorrow.

I realize this may not fully answer the question, but it makes me smile and gives me a reason to celebrate.

Put Yourself in Their Shoes to Really Celebrate Israel!

There is something so overwhelmingly emotional about Yom HaZikaron and Yom HaAtzmaut.  As Israel transitions in a mere 24 hours from somberly remembering those killed establishing and defending the State to joyously celebrating her independence, we ride a roller coaster of emotions.  Personally, it is so powerful to see the images and watch the video clips from Israel today.  Naama pointed out how even seeing the Ramaz students commemorating Yom HaZikaron in their assembly with a recording of the siren is powerful enough to move one to tears.

I don’t think any of us who has grown up with a State of Israel can appreciate just how incredibly blessed we are.  Today, we take so much for granted that we need to try and put ourselves in the shoes of those who did NOT know what it was like to live with a State of Israel.

Can you imagine what it was like to survive the Holocaust and then live to experience the miracle of a State of Israel?!?  Would anyone in 1944 even dream that Israel would exist let alone accomplish all that she, thank God, has accomplished in 69 years?

Rabbi Yisroel Zev Gustman (1908-1991) may have been one of the greatest rabbis of the 20th century that nobody has ever heard of.  While he avoided the limelight and was therefore unfamiliar to the general public, he was well known to connoisseurs of Torah learning, and his writings are experiencing something of a renaissance in yeshivahs today.

His meteoric rise from child prodigy to the exalted position of religious judge in the Rabbinical Court of the famed Rabbi Chaim Ozer Grodzinski at the age of 20 was the stuff of legend -- but nonetheless fact.  While a long productive career on the outskirts of Vilna could have been anticipated, Jewish life was obliterated by the pain of World War II.  Rav Gustman escaped, though not unscathed.  He hid among corpses.  He hid in caves and under bushes.  He hid in a pig pen.  He somehow survived.

After the war, and a brief sojourn in America, Rav Gustman became the head of a yeshiva in the Rechavia section of Jerusalem, Netzach Yisrael.  He taught a small group of loyal students six days a week.  But on Thursdays at noon, the study hall would fill to capacity: Rabbis, intellectuals, religious court judges, a Supreme Court justice and various professors would join along with any and all who sought a high-level Talmud class.  When Rav Gustman delivered a lecture, Vilna was once again alive and vibrant.

One of the regular participants was a professor at the Hebrew University, Robert J. (Yisrael) Aumann.  Once a promising yeshiva student, he had eventually decided to pursue a career in academia, but made his weekly participation in Rav Gustman's class part of his weekly schedule.  The year was 1982.  Once again, Israel was at war. Soldiers were mobilized, reserve units activated. Among those called to duty was a reserves officer, a university student and young father who made his living as a high school teacher: Shlomo Aumann, Professor Aumann's son. On the eve of the 19th of Sivan, in particularly fierce combat, Shlomo fell in battle.

Rav Gustman mobilized his yeshiva: All of his students joined him in performing the mitzvah of burying the dead.  At the cemetery, Rav Gustman was agitated.  He surveyed the rows of graves of the young men, soldiers who died defending the Land.  On the way back from the cemetery, Rav Gustman turned to another passenger in the car and said, "They are all holy."

Another passenger questioned the rabbi: "Even the non-religious soldiers?"

Rav Gustman replied: "Every single one of them."  He then turned to the driver and said, "Take me to Professor Aumann's home."

The family had just returned from the cemetery and would now begin the week of shiva -- mourning for their son, brother, husband and father.

Rav Gustman entered and asked to sit next to Professor Auman.  He spoke, first in Yiddish and then in Hebrew, so that all those assembled would understand:

"I am sure that you don't know this, but I had a son named Meir.  He was a beautiful child.  He was taken from my arms and executed.  I escaped.  I later bartered my child's shoes so that we would have food, and I gave it away to others.  My Meir is a kadosh -- he is holy -- he and all the six million who perished are holy."

Rav Gustman then added:

"I will tell you what is transpiring now in the World of Truth in Gan Eden -- in Heaven.  My Meir is welcoming your Shlomo into the minyan and is saying to him 'I died because I am a Jew -- but I wasn't able to save anyone else.  But you -- Shlomo, you died defending the Jewish People and the Land of Israel.'  My Meir is a kadosh, he is holy -- but your Shlomo is a Shaliach Zibbur -- a Cantor in that holy, heavenly minyan."

Rav Gustman continued: "I never had the opportunity to sit shiva for my Meir; let me sit here with you just a little longer."

Professor Aumann replied, "I thought I could never be comforted, but Rebbi, you have comforted me."

Rav Gustman and his wife would attend an annual parade held in Jerusalem before Pesach.  They would join their fellow spectators and excitedly watch the children march through the streets.  When asked by a colleague why he participated in this annual event, he replied, “We who saw a generation of children die, will take pleasure in a generation of children who sing and dance in the streets of Jerusalem.”     

Rav Gustman and many others of his generation are the perfect guides for us.  He and many like him (even though not Zionists) felt a love for the land of Israel, for the people of Israel, and for the heroes of Israel.  It is a love we need to make sure to absorb within ourselves and pass on to our children.

This Yom HaAtzmaut, take a moment to reflect on how blessed we are to have as our reality an Israel our ancestors couldn’t even dream of.  Share this feeling with family and friends. 

Ashrei she’zachinu l’kach – How fortunate are we to have merited this!