Thursday, August 30, 2012

Achdut in Israel: What We Sometimes Forget

So Ben and I have been here in Israel for about 8 months now. Pretty Wild. 

We have BH been blessed with a smooth klita (absorption). As I wrote in an earlier post, we both have jobs, we have a lovely apartment, we are making friends, getting fat, and life is good. 

We made the decision before we came to Israel to try to rent an apartment with two bedrooms so that we could always host friends and family; we also made the decision to try to bring as many Jews with us back home as we could. 

Still working on that second part.  

It was and still is very important to us to be able to offer hospitality to those who come home to Eretz Yisrael, even if they do not intend to stay for very long.

We usually have at least a night or two to give over the Torah of Aliyah to most of our guests; the exchange is equitable we always say. Free room and board in exchange for unabashed Aliyah propaganda (the spreading of information for the purpose of helping an institution)).  Most of our guests have taken it in stride, smiled, and some even leave thinking more seriously about what it means for a Jew to come home. 

This week we have been blessed to host very close friends of ours from Boston. Each day they go out, shop, tour, walk around, and get a little peak into this beautiful country, this complicated capital, and what it means to live as as Jew in 2012 in our homeland. I try each evening to ask what they did, who they met and what their impressions were- of people, places, spaces, anything really. Inevitably the conversation gets divided into what they expected things and people to be like and what they were surprised to learn things and people were actually like. 

Last night I met them for dinner at the uber chic, expensive, but surprisingly enjoyable Mamilla outdoor shopping center. We sat down in a cute cafe and I asked my girlfriend, who had spent a great deal of the day walking around neighborhoods in Jerusalem, what surprised her the most. 

As we sat and talked we both noticed the tables around us were filled with so many different types of Jews. Safardi, Ashkenazi, and Mizrachi were only the tip of t he iceberg. There were women wearing pants but covering their hair, women wearing skirts and covering their elbows but allowing their lovely locks to flow free. Falls, sheitles, tichels, headbands. Streimels, black hats (pointed up and down), black caps, knitted kippot, velvet kippot, no kippot. Kaputas, sport coats, tank tops, no tops. There were long beards and short beards and no beards, straggly peot and wound tight peot, tzitzit tucked in, pulled out, and missing altogether (Dr. Seuss would have a field day). 

There were Israeli teens from Russia, Ethiopia, Iraq and who knows where else. We heard French, Yiddish, Hebrew, Russian, Amharik. Some people washed before they ate bread, some did not. We saw benchers for nusach Sefard, Ashkenaz, Chabad, Yemini. We saw shakshuka, ravioli, burekas, chummus, tzimmus, malawach, taboule, and quesadillas. We certainly smelled Schug. We saw all sorts of Jews sitting and eating. . . together. 

At one table you could hear 3 languages, see 4 types of dress and attire, and understand there were more than likely 5 minhagim (customs). 

My girlfriend responded to the questions I posed after a slight pause. She said she was surprised to see how integrated and mixed all these different types of Jews were. In one neighborhood there were so many levels of observance, types of observance, minyans to attend, restaurants to patronize, space to share. To share as one. The Baskin Robbins of Judaism. 31 Flavors and then some. 'That's Israel' I said.

I guess I had forgotten, momentarily, how much diversity there is among Klal Yisrael (the shared community of all Israel). Moreover I had forgotten how inspiring this diversity can be. But as I spoke with my girlfriend and as I thought more about it myself, I realized it isn't exactly the different languages, dress, food, customs, and beliefs of all the different types of Jews- but it's the togetherness of it all. 

It the penny idea- out of many, we are one. One Am Yisrael. One nation, one people. And yes, we come in all sorts of flavors and we don't always see eye to eye and in the worst cases we don't always recognize one another as part of this beautiful and complicated Am, but in the best cases we break bread together at one table, in one Cafe, on a Wednesday night in Jerusalem. 

It's all about Achdut (Unity). It's why we are here. It's the tikun (repair) that we are meant to be doing here in Israel today. It's both the ends and the means to an end. Through Achdus we will be able to discover and accomplish amazing things. for our people and for the world.

Here is an awesome music video from Kutiman that captures the 31 Flavors of this amazing city pretty well. Enjoy, and remember, if any of yall want to come home for any amount of time הבית שלי הוא הבית שלך (my home is your home).