Our Name is Israel

Great teachers challenge our perceptions. As the Chagim (the holidays) have closed, and after two months here in Israel, I found myself reflecting on a class I took almost 20 years ago. “The question is not who is a Jew?” said Rabbi Herb Friedman in his booming bass voice with characteristic intensity, “the question is What is a Jew?” Herb was an impassioned teacher and Jewish leader. He was the inspiration for, and the founding President of, the Wexner Heritage Foundation - a two-year program of rigorous Jewish learning for community leaders that has had a major impact on Jewish communal life in the Diaspora and in Israel.

What is a Jew? I remember wondering as I sat in that class. Who asks such a thing. It’s obvious isn’t it?! But it is not obvious. Like most things important; it is complex, it is subtle and it is a question with which we must wrestle.

As Rabbi Friedman fielded the Wexner students’ responses, his goal and the answer became clearer. One said, being Jewish means practicing Judaism, it is participation in a religious community. Another said, being a Jew means belonging to a cultural community, a people that has contributed the Torah and the ethical precepts that have been taught by our rabbis over the millennia. Still another said, it means being permanently connected to the land of Israel as a kind of biblical inheritance. “You’re all right,” he said with emphasis, “to be Jewish is to be part of a sacred religious community, to be Jewish is to live by, and share with the world, the ethical code bequeathed to us, and to be Jewish means to settle this particular land; Israel. To be Jewish is all of these things.”

Living in Israel for the Jewish Holidays, the feeling of “being Jewish” in all three respects could not be more powerful. No matter where we are, Kol Nidre is an evening of intensity. The sea of people. The dominance of the color white in our clothes; kippot, tallitot (prayer shawls), dresses, and kittels (white robes). The seriousness of the prayers. Here in Israel everything felt magnified.

Then we left shul and began our walk home. The real power of Yom Kippur for me this year happened outside shul, after the services were over. We had been advised that no one drives on Yom Kippur, not even the most secular person, but we could not have prepared for the experience of walking home that evening. On Kol Nidre, all of Israel celebrates together. And I mean all of Israel.

Walking home we took the long way; through the adjacent town of Kfar Saba and then through Ra’anana. People poured out of their homes, out of their apartments and into the city streets, into the town squares and parks. Kids riding their bicycles and tricycles, teens walking and laughing together as if they had just completed the last day of school, adults smiling, talking, and greeting one another as if at a giant family reunion. There was a buzz of unrestrained joy in the air, coupled with an absolute sense of quiet and peace. I know it sounds like an odd juxtaposition, but it was real.

Road 4, one of the main north-south highways in the center of the country, was a perfect setting for a stroll, a bike ride, or an impromptu soccer game. Yet the absence of automation produced a natural quiet. Israel’s democracy was on full display that evening. Each individual was welcoming the New Year with the sense of hope, renewal and opportunity that each year offers, in a way most meaningful to them.

Then came Sukkot; always my favorite holiday. The physical and the spiritual seem perfectly blended on Sukkot. We build little huts in our yards, decorate them brightly, invite our friends and family over to share meals, and at times even sleep in them. This precarious little structure, physically reminding us of the uncertain nature of our lives, imploring us to look for meaning inside the sukkah; to our friends, to our family, and to God.

Sukkot started differently this year. We went to the Ra’anana Sukkot Street Market (shuk) to buy the necessary items for the holiday; the four minim (species) made up of palm, myrtle, willow, and etrog (a cousin of the lemon). The town square was alive with lulav and etrog salesmen, each offering us stories of why their table of goods was the best. Josh, Amy and I went with our neighbors and new friends the Maimon family. Josh and his buddy JoJo each received 100 shekels (about $25). Their mission was made clear to them; purchase your 4 species for less than 100 shekel and you can use the remainder to buy candies and goodies, also on sale in the square. It was a memorable evening, and Josh was proud to have completed his goal with plenty of cotton candy to spare! For Amy and me it was a wonderful first taste of Sukkot in the Jewish State.

And looking back now, Sukkot was my favorite Holiday again, fulfilling that emotional and spiritual need at the close of Yom Kippur. We were joined by both new and longtime friends in our sukkah. We were welcomed as guests by others. And, by the end of the week, we felt that the community we have entered is but a continuation of the one we have always been in.

The closing of Sukkot comes with Simchat Torah (literally; Rejoicing of the Torah). As Jews, we complete the annual cycle of reading the Torah in celebration, just as we begin the New Year with a renewed sense of purpose and hope that we can improve upon ourselves. We will read the same stories in the Torah again in the coming year, and we celebrate; hoping that we will glean just a little more in the coming year both from the Torah and from our lives. So as we danced with Torahs in one shul near our house, we went outside and danced in the street, meeting the community from another shul dancing in the streets.

The Holidays in Israel are a remarkable time. Life’s rhythms are altered, offering us space to engage ourselves and each other on a more spiritual plane, giving us a chance to remeasure and re-gauge. Looking back, I think we timed coming to Israel perfectly, arriving here just before the beginning, giving us a chance to engage in our own remeasuring and re-gauging.

In a little over a month we will read Parashat Va-Yishlach, during which we will read about Jacob wrestling with an angel and because he does so his name is changed to Israel, “for (he has) striven with beings divine and human, and has prevailed.” (Gen. 32:29) As I remember Rabbi Friedman’s class, now I understand even better his question, “What is a Jew?” Yes it is the religion, yes it is the culture and values, and yes it is the geography, but even more so, it is the engagement in all of it that makes us Jews. We wrestle with it all and because of that our name is Israel.

Where Else?

I had an “aha” experience last week. I think I finally get it. Having just spent Rosh Hashanah in Israel for the first time, I can better appreciate the Christmas experience most Americans enjoy. For me Christmas has always seemed a time of pretty lights, nice music, and commercial scenes of Clydesdale horses pulling sleighs filled with laughing people on a sparkling winter day along a rural picket-fence lined road. People greeting each other during this season with the warmth and niceness typically reserved exclusively for Disney World; with “Happy Holidays and Merry Christmas” completing each conversation. But I was never really a part of it. I never felt like I was in the club.

In Israel I am a charter member. Walking down the street a young man is hurrying someplace, as he passes he looks at me and smiles saying “shanah tovah” wishing me a “good year” as he races on. In the shopping mall the security guard at the supermarket, typically a pretty surly sort of guy, greets each incoming and outgoing customer with a steady stream; “shanah tovah,” and “chag sameach (happy holiday).” At the Druze village in the north we stop for lunch at the hummus restaurant, “shanah tovah u’metukah” (a good and sweet year) says the owner and his wife as our meal is delivered. Every conversation, every advertisement, every interaction is laced with the sentiment of the possibility and opportunity that new years bring.

My dad turns 80 in a couple of weeks. He likes to tell a story about me as a kid growing up in suburban Chicago. The way he tells it, he and I were taking a walk around our neighborhood on an unusually warm December day when I was 4 or 5. As we walked past houses decked out in Christmas splendor, I am said to have remarked; “we’re Hanukah people, aren’t we daddy?” In Israel, Hanukkah people are everywhere, and during the High Holiday season there is a sense of connectedness that I have never felt before.

For the past 15 years at Agudath Israel in Caldwell, NJ, the High Holidays found us in the choir, on the bimah, in the pews, walking through the neighborhoods on breaks, sharing dinners and break-fasts with friends. We’re not only members of a shul, we are part of a community. We know most people and most people know us and it feels comfortable and nice and like home.

So when people asked me “aren’t you excited to be spending the Holidays in Israel this year” my reply was simple, “I am thrilled about the prospect of spending a year in Israel, but I think I will miss being at home at Agudath for the Holidays.” So after Rosh Hashanah I can say I was right and I was wrong.

I was right because it is true, I do miss being at Agudath. I miss knowing everyone, and sharing the experience with people I have known for a long time. I miss my Rabbi’s sermons, my Cantor’s melodies, the familiarity of our space, and my seat in the choir.

But I was wrong, I am part of a community. Four Rosh Hashanah meals, eight invitations to people’s homes for our family. Attending services in an intimate setting where for the first time in my life, I understood the power of the shofar. I had always experienced the shofar from afar, and from a sort of anachronistic perspective. The ancient Jews blew the shofar from mountain to mountain to alert those in the neighboring towns of the coming holiday. I know it sounds a little hokey, but this year, the shofar sounds felt like they were aimed at me, calling me personally to heed the messages of renewal and selflessness that are thematic of the High Holidays.

As we prepare for Kol Nidre tonight I am filled with awe of the opportunity and blessing our family has been given to experience living in Israel. As we meet people who are here from America, the UK, South Africa, most of whom came on a six-month or one-year adventure five to fifteen years ago, I ask them all the same question; “why did you decide to come here?” The answers are all so similar and all so powerful:

“We have had a Jewish homeland for only the past 62 years after more than 2000 years without one. Given those odds where else would I be.”

I am grateful to be here in Israel this year, experiencing the adventure and possibility that is the Jewish homeland. I wish everyone who reads this a Shanah Tovah U’Metukah (May We Each Have a Good and Sweet New Year), and G’mar Chatimah Tovah (May We Each be Inscribed for Blessing in the Book of Life).

Will It Be Different This Time

I had been thinking about writing this posting all week. I was going to describe my impressions of the coming peace talks from my new Israeli lens. I was going to talk about complexity and complication. And then last night, sitting here in Israel on the eve of the first meaningful direct peace talks between Jews and Palestinians in years, terrorists murdered four Jews while they were driving their car near Hebron.

A terrorist attack. Four innocent lives stolen in an instant. There have been so many over the years. But being in Israel, being here with my family, it just felt different this time.

I spent all morning reading and rereading the responses from the various parties:

Israel’s leadership declared their anger at attempts to derail the peace talks, and further declare the IDF’s and Shin Bet’s commitment to “get their hands on those who perpetrated the attack.” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu urged settlers in the West Bank to show restraint and respect the rule of law in Israel in the wake of the fatal attack that took place near Hebron on Tuesday that left four Israelis dead.

The Palestinian Authority expressed their “outrage over the attack and accused Hamas of attempting to thwart the negotiations.” Salam Fayyad, the Palestinian Prime Minister, said measures would be taken to prevent further attacks. “We condemn this operation, which goes against Palestinian interests,” he said in a statement.

Hamas issued its remarks drenched in the evil of its own complicity with this barbarous act; “we praise the attack and consider it a natural response to the crimes of occupation.”

Those on the right described their insistence that; “the leaders of Israel wake up from their delusions of an imaginary peace...Netanyahu must at once freeze the talks and concentrate on securing peace for the citizens of Israel.”

While the left reasoned, “The shooting attack in the Hebron Hills yesterday could not have been a surprise. Palestinian opposition groups, especially Hamas, were highly motivated to embarrass the Palestinian Authority on the eve of the start of direct talks in Washington.”

President Obama said, “I want everybody to be very clear: The United States is going to be unwavering in its support of Israel’s security and we are going to push back against these kinds of terrorist activities.”

And, I saved the most pernicious response for last;

The US State Department, whose spokesperson P.J. Crowley offered the following remark; “Any time one human being takes out a weapon and fires and kills other human beings, it’s a tragedy. We just don’t know the circumstances under which this occurred.”

As I read and thought about all of these reactions it jumped out at me; not one reflected on the individuals whose lives had been stolen. Not one mentioned the families whose brother, sister, mother, father, daughter, son, and grandparent had been erased from the earth. The replies are all so banal and predictable. The claims are all so hollow. Has politics dehumanized us so far that no one even bothers to mention the individuals who were slaughtered?

At the end of the first chapter of the Torah, Bereshit 1:27 it says:

“And God created man in his image (B’tselem Elohim), in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them...”

There are no political sides in the Torah. There are human beings, male and female, each created in God’s image. Four images of God had their lives taken from them yesterday. Yitzhak and Tali Ames, parents of 6 children from ages 5 to 24 and grandparents for just six months. The other two have not yet been named though one was said to have been a pregnant woman.

As these direct talks begin, my prayer is that the individuals responsible for leadership accept each other as B’tselem Elohim, as being in the image of God. That way, this time it really will be different.

Access, Intensity and American-ness

When I was in fourth grade I remember coming home from school one day and telling my mom that I was having trouble seeing the blackboard. Like any good mom she promptly took me to the eye doctor who gave me my first pair of glasses. That first moment outside with my new glasses is permanently emblazoned in my memory. The blackboard wasn’t the only thing I had been missing. Lawns were made up of individual blades of grass! I was stunned. Leaves on trees were distinct and unique. The world was fresh and new and I was thrilled.

I loved that feeling of seeing the world anew. As my glasses have thickened over the years, each time I shift prescriptions I try to remember that sense of wonder and joy I had with my first pair. Sight, clear vision, is truly a gift.

I have been given another moment with my first pair of lenses here in Israel, and I am again in awe.

Going for a coffee (at any time of the day) is clearly a very normal Israeli activity. Social, business, political, community, whatever the excuse, going to the coffee shop is just what people do. So Amy and I went to the coffee shop a few days ago, invited by our friend Emily, to meet with a Knesset Minister, Yohanan Plesner from the “Kadima” party and the nearby town of Hod Ha-Sharon. (Kadima means forward and is Israel’s centrist political party.)

Sure this is a small country, but going to have coffee with one of the 121 members of the country’s legislative branch of government seemed like a big deal. Except that it isn’t. Here Yohanan is truly a people’s representative. Sitting in the coffee shop he greeted his constituents like any politician would anywhere in the world. Yet dressed just like the rest of us in short sleeves, chatting about the future of the country, he is just another Israeli intensely focused on the risks and opportunities facing the Jewish State.

And intense he is. Filled with youthful zeal and dreams, he spoke with passion about the critical nature of political involvement. “Too many people reject politics as dirty or corrupt,” he said, “but politics have an impact on each of us and we must encourage each other to become actively engaged.”

Following the meeting with Yohanan he asked whether I would like to attend a conference this week with Tony Blair as the keynote speaker. I said yes, and he asked me for my mobile number. Later that day, I received a text from him with my invitation attached. Hard to imagine that exchange happening with one of my Senators or my Congressman...

The conference was eye-opening. Held at the Recanati Business School in Herzliya (right on the Mediterranean Sea about 15 minutes north of Tel Aviv) the conference was titled “The De-Legitimization of Israel: Threats, Challenges and Responses.” My first reaction was disappointment that by holding a conference with such a name Israel would give credence to the mere idea that the State could be considered “de-legitimate.”

But after listening to the Israeli speakers (through translation) share their intense and energetic perspective on the importance of reinforcing Israel’s strengths and contributions throughout the world, I understood that the conference had critical purpose internally. With the whole world seeming to peg you as villain, holding a conference to discuss the implications seems rational. Then when Tony Blair spoke, representing the Quartet as Envoy to the Middle East, he reinforced the evil of de-legitimization, and his avowed admiration for, and support of, the rights of the Jewish State of Israel. I applauded along with everyone else as the crowd’s sense of pride from the support of a major player in the upcoming direct talks was palpable.

After his speech I walked out of the auditorium feeling almost buoyant. As I stood in the lobby I listened as two people shared their perspectives on the prospects for peace. Clearly at opposite ends of the political spectrum, the dialogue went something like this:

Left: So what do you think of the chances at the talks?

Right: No chance. I sure hope that Netanyahu doesn’t give up an inch. We have compromised over and over. It’s time for them to compromise!

Left: Or else what?

Right: Or else we stay with the situation we’re in today. It has gone on for 60+ years, it can keep going for 60 more.

Left: How can you say that! Don’t you care that our children and our grandchildren may not be able to live in this land? Have we been so perfect that we can’t compromise a little more to truly establish peace!?

Right: They don’t want peace! Can’t you see that!? I was in Gaza in 2000, taken through by a Palestinian human rights group. They were building spas and hotels, and resorts by the sea. I believed that they would never be willing to throw away economic opportunity if they could just see it. But they did! They believe that we do not have any right to be here and they will NEVER truly accept us.

As I watched and listened to this exchange, I cringed wondering who would resort to personal vitriol first or even lash out physically. But neither did. They concluded their disagreement by talking about friends in common and work they have done together.

I told one of them that such an exchange just cannot occur any longer in America. There we only speak about politics with those whose views are identical to our own. If we stray, we risk being ostracized, ridiculed, or worse. The individual said to me, we Israelis don’t have such a luxury, here we all have the same ultimate goal; survival.

Intensity appears to be at the core of being an Israeli. We see it everywhere, in the coffee shops, in the newspapers, walking through supermarket aisles, and especially on the roads. We were warned about driving in Israel, to be patient, to avoid engaging in any roadway debates, and to drive extra defensively.

One interesting observation about driving is related to what appears to be another of Israel’s technological firsts; car horns are apparently connected by a microchip to traffic lights! There must be a sensor in the cars that flips on when the light turns from red to green; how else to explain the cacophony of horns?!

But that intensity is critical to their real goal. Survival. I love seeing the individual blades of grass again. I look forward to seeing more.

Good News Matters

Just open any newspaper, anywhere in the world and it’s obvious: Negative sells. Bad news sells. Good news is boring...except when it applies to you.

If you are reading this entry, this good news matters because it applies to you! Hospitality, genuine caring for the stranger is legendary in the Middle East. In Va-Yera, just the fourth parashah in the Torah, Abraham and Sarah set the standard for hospitality:

He (Abraham) was sitting at the entrance of the tent as the day grew hot. Looking up he saw three men standing near him. As soon as he saw them, he ran to the entrance of the tent to greet them, and bowing to the ground, he said, “My lords if it please you, do not go on past your servant. Let a little water be brought; bathe your feet and recline under the tree. And let me fetch a morsel of bread that you may refresh yourselves; then go on -- seeing that you have come your servant’s way...”

The story goes on to describe how Abraham and Sarah did not just bring “a morsel of bread.” Instead they brought the best of all of their food, prepared a great meal including the finest meat from their herd, and waited on them while their guests ate. My own attempts at hospitality, while genuine, and I hope meaningful to my guests, seem feeble in comparison.

Not so regarding Israeli hospitality is our experience here. A little perspective; this past February I was here for a five-day mission with the Masorti Foundation Board and leading US-based rabbis to learn more about the 55 and growing Masorti communities in Israel. During the visit I got to know the lay Chairperson of the Masorti Movement in Israel, Emily Levy-Shochat. Emily spent several hours with our group during the 5 days.

A couple of months after the trip, as Amy and I were becoming serious about the move, I emailed several people about our nascent idea; Emily among them. Once we decided to come for a “pilot trip” to confirm that none of us would succumb to complete panic, her response was immediate, “you’ll come to stay with us (she and her husband Jack). You can’t stay in a hotel. That’s no way to live in Israel. You’ll stay in a couple of rooms in our house, we’ll give you a key and you’ll live like Israelis.” I was stunned. She barely knew me, had never met Amy or Josh, yet here she was opening her home to all of us!

We stayed for five nights. We all know about the correlation between guests and fish... We violated that rule, and still were embraced by Emily and Jack. As we came back a few days ago, this time to live, our house wasn’t ready for a few days. Emily and Jack again, now real friends, opened their door as Abraham did.

The family whose house we are renting were remarkable to us. Though introduced though our “commercial” relationship, they took making our transition into Israeli life a personal mission. As they prepared to move to China, they had us over for a Shabbat afternoon meal, introduced Amy to several NBFs, drove us throughout the area showing us shops for every imaginable item, giving us lists of every imaginable, and hopefully avoidable, doctors, telling us which rabbi gives the best shiurim (classes), helping find the right neighborhood 11 and 12 year old boys to bring Josh into Israeli sports life, and on and on.

Saturday night Scooter’s cousin Ilana and Joel made a party in our honor. Serving Josh his favorite schnitzel, inviting 7 couples over to welcome us to Israel while standing on their balcony overlooking the rooftops of Rishon l’Tziyon, it was memorable evening. The highlight came when a retired general from the Israeli army’s “Signal Corp” (the Communications Division of the army) gave a speech / toast. In it he described that the mission of Jews everywhere should be to come and help make Israel great. Speaking directly to Josh, he offered that his coming here was a great sign for Israel and the Jewish people, because the future in his hands; that he is the future of the Jewish people...needless to say, I thought it bit too much pressure for one 11 year old boy, but Josh seemed charged by the challenge!

Welcoming the stranger is one of the great mitzvahs in our heritage. I hope that we are able to extend ourselves to be hosts in the tradition of Abraham and Sarah as we have experienced during our first days here. As you come to visit us, you be the judge.

The Israeli Frame

( August 5, 2010)

The frame matters. We bring our perspective, biases, judgment, and experience with us. We can't escape it, and shouldn't try. We are and become who we are through the frames that encompass our lives. Husband, Father, Son, Friend, Executive, Partner, Business Owner, American, 50-something, Jewish Community Lay Leader...I know all of these frames. I do or have worn them all.

The frame of "now" is unusually powerful. This is especially so during moments of great change or stress. My business as a value investor is actually built on this very real human tendency to overweight the present. Making good investment decisions requires a willingness to examine the investment from all sides, from near and far, and most importantly with facts. As with investing, so too in life.

Our "pilot trip" a couple of months ago coincided with the flotilla incident surrounding the issue of the Gaza blockade. Tragic loss of life, caused by a premeditated attack on the Israeli soldiers who boarded the ships. Seven ships, one partially loaded with armed members of a terrorist group aligned with Al Qaeda, nine people dead, two Israeli soldiers badly injured.

While we were there and the details were beginning to become known, it was clear that as I observed this incident from my Jewish American lens, my perception was vastly different than that of most Israelis. We all were sickened by the unnecessary loss of life and the disdain for life inherent among these terror groups. But Israelis viewed their military as having terribly botched the situation. Their frame told them that their military must not be anything less than perfect, and when they are less so, the fault is theirs.

Over the last year Israel has been beset by an internal conflict that risks tearing the societal fabric of the country. One woman was arrested for wearing a tallit. Another women was arrested for carrying a Torah. Women riding on government funded buses have been physically and verbally assaulted should they dare to sit in the front of the bus. The debate about "who is a Jew" was reopened in the Knesset and tabled only after Prime Minister Netanyahu received over 50,000 emails from American Jews concerned for their rights as Jews.

My Jewish American lens sees basic issues of religious freedom that I cannot believe exist in the country that was established for all Jews after 2000 years without a homeland. Ask most Israelis about this dilemma and they wonder what we are talking about. They have lived in a country where everyone knows there is a state-sponsored religion, and if one isn't ultra-orthodox then they are simply not welcome in the religion.

The Masorti Movement in Israel today has 55 communities spread throughout the country. The opportunity exists to build upon this and offer the 85% of the people who are not ultra-Orthodox access to Judaism in a modern context. Connection to a spiritual base while living in the modern world. The Israeli government has a religious affairs budget of over $450 million. Of this only $100,000 is dedicated to non-Orthodox streams. I look forward to helping to support the enterprise of expanding access to modern, Israeli forms of religious expression through Masorti. I look forward to engaging in dialogue with others about the imperative of religious freedom. Israel must not be allowed to become a Jewish version of the fundamentalist and religiously intolerant states surrounding her.

We teach our children about Am Yisrael...the people Israel...it is with great fear that as our family prepares to enter Israel, the country is devolving into Shtai Am Yisrael - the two people of Israel. I hope and pray that will not be the case. One Israel for the haredi and one for everyone else must not be an acceptable outcome.

So as I write this blog I knowingly bring my life's experiences, my perspective, my biases into this journey. I look forward to building on those experiences and see life through an Israeli frame.

Moving to Israel – What are You Doing!?

Moving to Israel - What are You Doing!?

(July 9, 2010)

I was always fast. Really fast. As a kid, our games of choice had no wires, no components, and no bandwidth requirements…we played tag, we played pick-up games in the park until it was too dark to see, or your mom was yelling so loudly that even from two blocks away you heard her all too well.

But speed was my thing. I still recall the moment I realized that I was fast…I was about 9…funny thing is, I have never stopped running. Until now.

I have this image in my mind of a train. Traveling along the fixed tracks. Moving with certainty and purpose; no deviation. The train stays on its tracks. It’s not a prison train, it’s a nice train. Very posh inside, lots of services for the rider, speeding on to fantastic locations and destinations. I love the ride. I am blessed to be on this train. But still, I can’t help but notice those amazing sites racing by outside the windows. Sure, I know, “the grass is always greener…” But while the grass may not be greener, it is likely to be different. Maybe not even grass; maybe forest, maybe rivers, maybe people, maybe horizons…

Speed can be deceptive. Sometimes you can’t tell you’re going so fast. Traveling through a cloudless sky on a jet, even 500 miles per hour feels speedless. No reference points, no speed. Yet there we go, racing through space nonetheless. Too often, life on the train desensitizes us to speed. You don’t even notice time is going by so fast, until it already has.

A couple of years ago our son Josh (then 9) and I went to Kennedy Space Center in Florida with my dad. We had lunch with a rather remarkable guy named Story Musgrave. Among other things, Story is an astronaut who at the time had logged more hours on the Space Shuttle than any other pilot at NASA. His life story is inspirational. Born in 1935, he grew up on a farm in Kentucky and during his life of exploration he has earned master’s and doctorate degrees in math, physiology, medicine (surgery), biophysics, literature, business, computer programming and an undergraduate degree in chemistry!

I read an interview with him this month in “Flying” magazine on the dilemma of missing the forest for the trees from a pilot’s perspective. He described the pilot’s imperative of strict adherence to detailed checklists versus missing the miracle of flight and space travel and the experience of just looking out the window. The pilot’s dilemma that Story describes, just like the sole destination while on the “achievement train” helps me define the impetus driving me to pursue this year of exploration and adventure in Israel.

My friend and teacher, Rabbi (about to be Dr. too!) David Hoffman, shared some of Abraham Joshua Heschel’s thoughts on this topic with me last Thanksgiving. I have kept these words on my desk since he shared them with me because the message is so fundamental and yet so easy to miss.

Heschel said; “Indifference to the sublime wonders of living is the root of sin.”

As David wrote in his lesson; “an unwillingness to identify the wonders and acts of kindness present in each of our lives creates an obstacle for us to bring more loving-kindness and peace into the world.”

The writer who interviewed astronaut Story Musgrave reflected on the pilot’s dilemma as follows; “it involves balancing a left-brain, checklist focus with a far more right-brain immersion in a moment of experience. One might think that accomplishing that balance – in space or as a pilot within our own atmosphere – would be fairly straightforward, since we all have right- and left-brain functions going on within us every day. But…that balance can be hard to achieve.”

I look forward to engaging in the struggle to achieve more of that balance. I am asked frequently, “What are you going to do while you’re in Israel?” My answer so far is to be open to the experience, to explore the world, and to allow myself the privilege of seeing some of what’s going on outside the train. I’ll keep you posted.