Dear friends:(I wrote these words en route to Israel in the early morning hours of Feb. 14.) A congregant asked me the night before we departed for Israel, “are you excited?” I had been asking myself the same question for days and wondered why I had not been more excited.
Looking back, it had proven to be a challenge to get “spiritually prepared” for Israel for more than one reason. I guess I only had so much emotional energy to go around. I had to deal with responsibilities at home … i.e. being a husband and a father. Then there were the responsibilities to our temple, such as four funerals in only a few weeks, in addition to my regular responsibilities.
Finally, at 30,000 feet somewhere over the Atlantic, at last I got excited about Israel. My last visit had been 1993-1994. In many ways, I had become a different person. I could only speculate about how Israel had become a different country. With anticipation, I wondered what was waiting for us.
For my last visit more than 12 years ago, I was filled with a sense of adventure: my first year at Hebrew Union College; gone for nearly a year; single; at a relatively quiet and safe time. (The first Intifada had burned itself out.)
This time, I departed with a greater sense of risk; now I am a husband and father; there is a greater sense of risk; more people depend upon me.
But I have missed this place, a locale I called home for 11 months, a place our people have called home for millennia.
Our temple group re-enacted a journey dating back to the time when Abram and Sarai departed from their fathers’ home: Lech l’cha — go forth, depart.
We have called many places home through the centuries. Can we go home again? Absolutely!
L’shalom,
Rabbi Barry Cohen
