blogs/rabbi-huberman

Concern About Visiting Israel 

Earlier this year, an Israeli friend-- a tour guide--shared a surprising statistic about tourism in the Holy Land: of the nearly four million people who visit Israeli each year, only twenty-five percent are Jewish.

This number has dwindled in recent years, and it's continuing to fall.

What is equally fascinating is the parallel rise of visits from American and European Christians, along with tourists travelling from Asian countries.

Statistics for the latter part of 2016 show a record number of tourists to Israel. Some of the countries from which the tourists are coming registered a staggering uptick: China (+69%); Croatia (+62%); Belarus, Latvia and Georgia (+41%); Malaysia (+35%); and the Philippines (+ 27%).

In recent years, my friend told me, the face of Israeli tourism has completely changed.

There are now fewer Jewish tours of the Western Wall, Tzipori, and the synagogues of Sefad, and more Chinese excursions to Masada, the Dead Sea, and Caesarea.

In 2015, when our congregation last visited Israel, I was amazed at the lack of synagogue and Jewish community tours. During my two-week stay, I noticed only one other congregational tour.

Jerusalem, meanwhile, was bubbling over with Christian tourists, excitedly boarding tour buses, reveling in the stories and lessons of their faith.

"Aren't you nervous about safety in Jerusalem?" I asked a middle-aged Spanish tourist as he boarded a bus outside the King David Hotel.

He smiled. "God is with us," he said. "And," he added, "I have never felt so alive."

I've been reflecting on that -- and on what my Israeli friend told me, and American Jewry's connection with Israel generally -- as I iron out the final details of our fourth congregational trip to Israel since 2008.

At the end of this month, our group of thirty-one will begin a twelve-day tour of the Holy Land. A third of them will come from outside our congregation. Some were unable to find appealing congregational tours in their communities: many synagogues have stopped trying.

So, what is the Jewish hesitation concerning Israel about -- especially since so many of us see no problem in spending time in England, France, Italy, or China?

In a word: security. For many, the frightening headlines of a decade ago continue to resonate.

Of course I understand their concern: it's natural. All the same, though, this week I asked myself which city I'd feel safer visiting this summer: London, Paris, Brussels, or Tel Aviv?

This week's Torah reading is interesting, because it makes a startling connection with Jews' sometimes tenuous relationship with the Land of Israel.

In Parashat Shelach Lecha, with the Israelites poised to enter the land of Israel, God instructs Moses to send twelve spies to the Promised Land. Indeed, there are questions to answer.

Will the Israelites encounter a stark terrain, or a fertile land brimming with milk and honey?

Will the local residents welcome the Israelites as friends, or will they confront them as enemies?

Of the twelve spies, Joshua and Caleb return with optimistic reports. They declare that Canaan is a beautiful land. They have no doubt that the Israelites -- with faith and determination -- can overcome all obstacles which lay ahead.

But Joshua and Caleb are in the minority. The other ten spies return with sour reports, speaking of a land of giants within a country which "devours its settlers."

"We looked like grasshoppers to ourselves, and so must we have looked to them," they declare. (Numbers 13:33)

As is often the case, the masses rally behind those preaching fear, division, and pessimism.

Observing the moaning of the people -- months after their liberation from Egypt -- God condemns the Israelites to an additional thirty-nine years wandering in the desert -- waiting on a new generation to be born.

The founder of the Chassidic movement, the Baal Shem Tov, commented three hundred years ago that the ten spies who claimed that Israel was a land to fear were well-intentioned. They were, after all, "princes, chieftains, leaders."

He noted that, in the aftermath of all the Israelites' military successes in the desert, the spies did not necessarily doubt their ability to conquer the land.

More accurately, the Baal Shem Tov suggested that the Israelites did not fear failure: they feared success.

Friends, our grandparents would have walked thousands of miles to experience this legendary land of milk and honey. They carried in their hearts a light which never dimmed.

This is something we could do any day. Twelve hours after boarding a plane at JFK, we could be be walking the beach, just half a mile from where Jonah boarded a ship, three thousand years ago.

An hour away, in Jerusalem, we can walk in the steps of Abraham and Sarah.

Within the United States, Jews enjoy unprecedented security. Here, we have known perhaps the longest period of sustained peace that Jews, as a wandering nation, have ever enjoyed.

It is hard to leave that behind. But our Sages teach us, and Biblical characters show us, that there is great joy ---and peace and meaning ---to be gained from daring to venture towards this sacred new and ancient place that God has shown us.

Just before I left Israel in 2015, an Israeli friend sat with me in Tel Aviv and asked, "Where are all the Jewish visitors we used to have from the United States?"

I told him of security concerns that many have expressed. "If security is such an issue, Rabbi, how can you return to a country where a man can walk into a church in Charleston, and kill nine people?"

I thought of his question this week when -- in what is apparently becoming a weekly national occurrence -- a deranged man shot and critically wounded several public servants on a baseball field.

Yes: travel to Israel is challenging. It is costly; it requires strength and stamina that some simply no longer have. But many American Jews plan to travel this year. And so many of them have yet to experience this land of youth, and vibrancy, of innovation and optimism.

This land, now -- our Israel --is the land that Joshua and Caleb spoke of.

Indeed, in 2017, the perceived security threat within Israel pales in comparison to the current threats, and very real dangers, on the streets of the United States and France and England.

If not now, then perhaps in the years to come, couldn't we, our children and our grandchildren benefit from connecting with the land where our Jewish story began? Shouldn't we be part of an effort to raise those statistics to above twenty five per cent?

Let us stand with our undaunted Christian friends. Let us have the courage to match our rhetoric regarding Israel and its politics with our curiosity and excitement: let's experience it on the ground.

Let us stand with Joshua and Caleb, who declared more than three thousand years ago, "The land that we have traversed and scouted is an exceedingly good land...a land which flows with milk and honey."

Indeed, Israel is there to share with other religions and cultures. But we mustn't forget to share it with ourselves.

Shabbat shalom, v'kol tuv (with all goodness)

Rabbi Irwin Huberman