Places make you proud for a moment; people fill your life with love.
Ever since I went to Israel on birthright, the idea of that place has dominated my imagination. But it is ultimately land, as special as it may be ultimately it has not sustained me.
The time I’ve spent there, means nothing to me when I compare it to the people I’ve met both here and there. Israel is a spark inside me, but the people who nurture that spark and help me keep it safe are the gentle wind that makes it burn.
This week one such good friend returns to Eretz Israel, hatzlacha.
1 comments:
So you may be interested to know that is very much the theme of Judaism! Our nationhood is predicated upon our choice to dedicate ourselves to God, our keeping of Torah and mitzvot, no matter where we are throughout the world. We have sustained ourselves as a nation throughout the world for centuries, and while Israel is a fantastic place and wonderful for the Jews, if God forbid it should ever fall, it would not mean the end of the Jews.
Or, as Samuel Clemens/ Mark Twain wrote:
"If the statistics are right, the Jews constitute but one percent of the human race. It suggests a nebulous dim puff of star dust lost in the blaze of the Milky Way. Properly the Jew ought hardly to be heard of, but he is heard of, has always been heard of. He is as prominent on the planet as any other people, and his commercial importance is extravagantly out of proportion to the smallness of his bulk. His contributions to the world's list of great names in literature, science, art, music, finance, medicine, and abstruse learning are also away out of proportion to the weakness of his numbers. He has made a marvellous fight in the world, in all the ages; and has done it with his hands tied behind him. He could be vain of himself, and be excused for it. The Egyptian, the Babylonian, and the Persian rose, filled the planet with sound and splendor, then faded to dream-stuff and passed away; the Greek and the Roman followed, and made a vast noise, and they are gone; other peoples have sprung up and held their torch high for a time, but it burned out, and they sit in twilight now, or have vanished. The Jew saw them all, beat them all, and is now what he always was, exhibiting no decadence, no infirmities of age, no weakening of his parts, no slowing of his energies, no dulling of his alert and aggressive mind. All things are mortal but the Jew; all other forces pass, but he remains. What is the secret of his immortality?"
And the answer is exactly as you said: the core of the religion, God and His people. We are a nation predicated, not upon time and space, but upon ourselves- how we act, the ethics, morals and virtues laid out for us...this is what makes us Jewish.
Post a Comment