"My wife and I were in Israel for our third time one year ago, visiting our younger daughter during her year-of-study as part of her curriculum with the Ziegler School of Rabbinic Studies. We thoroughly enjoyed spending a week and a half with her during her semester break. The streets of Jerusalem were becoming familiar to us by the time we left.
Almost exactly one year later, our daughter traveled back to Israel as part of a fellowship with AIPAC. This time traveling to and visiting Israel was a VERY different matter. The entire time she was there, from dropping her off at LAX to having her back in Los Angeles, she and Israel were indeed On My Mind. She has her location enabled so we could track her whereabouts most of the time and all of her travels appeared quite ordinary, although our waking hours did not correspond with much of Israel time. We exchange texts and calls via WhatsApp occasionally, but most of the time it just felt like a part of me was beyond reach and at terrible risk, both physically and emotionally.
Toward the end of her trip, she called just to unload some of her experiences from the day, sharing some of the horrors she had been witness to. It was hard to hear, yet all too easy to visualize what she was describing having become so familiar with the Israeli landscape. Shortly after her return she shared some reflections of her experience during Shabbat services at the request of one of our senior Rabbis. Here is a link to the service.
Her talk begins at 1:21:50 for about ten minutes. This is a pared-down version of what she has shared with us and I have been processing all I have heard knowing it is only a portion of what she experienced. And at the same time, it brings back clear memories and visions of my own trip to Poland and Auschwitz when I was just about her age. While the two are not analogies, there are frightening parallels to what we each witnessed. And so, Israel is still On My Mind." |
