It is a memory emblazoned in my brain.
It was
the mid-1980s. I was in my late teens
and having a glorious time working on kibbutz Rosh Tzurim. It is located in the Gush Etzion region
between Bethlehem and Hebron. It lies just
over three-and-a-half miles away from Efrat, the home of Rabbi Leo Dee and his
family.
Back to
my memories.
I had volunteered
to work on the kibbutz and spent the morning picking nectarines. This was the life! I was due to return to London to complete my ‘A’
Levels but soaking in the atmosphere served to convince me of something that I
had wanted to do for a very long time.
I stood
at the rusty phone box and called home.
“Mum? Hi. How
are you?”
“Fine. You?”
“I’m
great and I’ve decided that I’m not coming back. I’m staying here. Israel is my home. That’s it.”
Silence.
At that
moment, nothing in the world would convince me to change my mind. I’d sort myself out. I had family and friends in Israel and they
would help me settle. This was it. I was going to make Aliyah.
It didn’t
hurt that my first love lived (and still does) in Israel and she really wanted
me to stay.
My mother
however, knew better and soon she and my girlfriend, with whom she had a very
special relationship, decided that it was best that I returned to the UK,
finished my studies and then came back. When
you’re in love, everything your lady says makes sense, even if you don’t think
it does. To sum up, she convinced me to listen
to my parents. I came back and that
Israel dream still lies unfulfilled, nearly forty years later.
There
were other opportunities and I even came close to applying through the Aliyah
department of the Jewish Agency but my efforts came to nought. As an only child, leaving your parents behind
is not an easy option and, in hindsight, despite my hopes and aspirations, I
now realise that it was the correct course of action to take.
What is
it about Israel that ignited my inner passion, from the moment I entered the
country for the first time at the tender age of seven? What is it about Israel, a country which has
witnessed some of the most devastating and cruel terrorist attacks on Jewish
men, women and children since the end of the second world war, that fills me
with such a longing to be there?
A country
which has so much promise but, at the same time, is so fragile and faces
existential threats from within and without? Why does that memory burn so fiercely inside
me?
During
the night of 15th January 1948, a convoy of thirty-eight Hagana
soldiers was sent to the Gush region to deliver much needed supplies to the residents
of the four kibbutzim who were blockaded by Arabs and militiamen in the
surrounding villages. They had no option
but to travel by foot, following previous attacks on motorized convoys. After three of the group were sent back as
one of the men had sprained his ankle, the others were unable to reach their
destination before the onset of daylight.
Having been spotted, they faced hundreds of armed Arabs who blocked
their way and although the ‘35’ fought as valiantly as they could, they did not
stand a chance and the last of the group was killed at about 4.30 pm that
afternoon. By the time the British
authorities had reached them, a number of reports stated that their corpses had
been ‘mutilated beyond recognition’.
This
convoy, which had originally been called "Machleket HaHar" (The
Mountain Platoon), was renamed as the ‘Lamed Hey’ – the ‘35’ even though only
23 could be identified when they were interred on Har (Mount) Herzl in
Jerusalem.
All of
this taking place not far from where I made that phone call.
So, what
is it about the country that calls me to return again and again and again?
Rav Kook, the first Chief Rabbi of (pre-State) Israel (who died in 1935) wrote that the sacrifice of thousands of Jews (who would tragically include the thirty-five a decade later) was not only physical but spiritual too. These men knew what they were doing but like countless others before and since, they risked and tragically lost their lives to protect those of their fellow Jews.
Israel
has always been the spiritual centre and beating heart of the Jewish people. For thousands of years, between the
destruction of the Second Temple and the rebirth of the State (Hakamat
HaMedina), it could not serve as a physical home but in our hearts and souls it
cried out to us ‘from the depths’. Throughout
history, we looked to Zion as a beacon of hope – Tikva. And seventy-five years ago, this coming
Tuesday night and Wednesday, our prayers were finally answered.
This
week’s double Parasha of Tazria and Metzora focusses on the inexorable
connection between physical and spiritual health. The plague of Tzara’at (which has been
erroneously translated for centuries as ‘leprosy’) came about when a Jew spoke
Lashon Hara (gossip) about another Jew. What
was manifested on the body, could spread to the person’s clothes and finally
the home. Why? Because, when our spiritual health is
diseased, it automatically impacts on our physical health. It destroys everything in its wake.
The pen may
be mightier than the sword, but the tongue is more destructive than both.
Those
thirty-five martyrs sacrificed their physical beings to protect the spiritual
health of our nation. It is the actions
of these brave men and subsequent generations of Israelis, that called out to
someone like me to make that phone call.
As it transpired, my modest contribution to our spiritual welfare lay beyond
the borders of our beloved country.
Yom
Ha’atzmaut always follows Yom Hazikaron.
One cannot appreciate the miracle that is Israel without first mourning
those of our brethren who paid the ultimate price for its establishment. Life and death are intertwined. One cannot exist without the other. But whereas death is the final step in our
physical existence, it does not extinguish our spiritual entity as the soul
lives forever.
So,
despite all the deadly knocks that our Israel endures on a frequent basis, she
refuses to give in. She epitomises the
Jewish soul which never gives up.
Today, it
is Rosh Chodesh Iyar. If you write the
name Iyar in Hebrew (אייר), you have the acronym of Aleph Yud Yud
Resh which can stand for ‘Ani Hashem (the two yuds) Refo’echa’ or ‘I am the
Lord, your healer’.
This month contains three notable days which are (as I mentioned), Yom Hazikaron, Yom Ha’atzmaut and Yom Yerushalayim (which as we know is the anniversary of the recapture of our capital, Jerusalem in 1967). Despite everything that our people endured, in this month, within the last three-quarters of a century, Gd healed us through the gift of the State of Israel.
And
returning to the story of the ‘35’…Could they have envisaged that nearly
half-a-century later, one young man, proudly wearing a kippah, standing in a
tee-shirt and shorts at the end of a hot, sunny day clinging onto a telephone
line (it was a collect call!) would have the opportunity to tell his mother
that he wanted to live in the Jewish homeland?
A few
hundred feet away from the place the ‘Lamed Hey’ fought for the heart and soul of
Am Yisrael – the Jewish people.
That, my friends is but one reason why I made that call and would hazard a guess that it’s why every time we leave Israel, a piece of us stays behind waiting to be reclaimed when we return.
Kol od ba’le’vav p’nima, Nefesh yehudi ho’miyah. U’lefa-atei mizrach kadimah, Ayin le’Tziyyon tzofiyah.
Od lo avda tikva-teinu, Ha’tikvah bat sh’not al-payim Lih-yot am chofshi b’ar-tzeinu Eretz Tziyyon v’Yerushalayim.
As long as within our hearts
The Jewish soul sings,
As long as forward to the East
To Zion, looks the eye.
Our hope is not yet lost,
It is two thousand years old,
To be a free people in our land
The land of Zion and Jerusalem.
Shabbat Shalom, Chodesh Tov and Chag Sameach
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