COMMENTARY
May 2022
Federation Star
9A
Strengthening our bond with Israel this summer Rabbi Adam F. Miller
W
hen I first arrived in Naples, I often heard, “Nothing happens in Naples over the summer … unless you count the locals taking advantage of the summer meal specials.” Perhaps that was once true but, today, we know that to no longer be the case. Abundant activity, especially Jewish life, continues here year-round. Adult education classes, summer camp activities and worship services (with better attendance than many northern congregations!) occur throughout the summer. With Zoom and streaming technology, many will also stay involved in our community remotely. Truly, our Jewish community thrives year-round in Southwest Florida and so, too, does our love and connection for Israel. On March 31, more than 150
attended the first major event of Stand With Us hosted at Temple Shalom in partnership with Jewish Federation of Greater Naples and support from Baer’s Furniture. That event demonstrates just how deeply we feel the need to stand up for Israel on college campuses as well as speak out against the rise of antisemitism and BDS movements. Those Zionist feelings are not new to this area. Many recall the Israel solidarity rally at the Naples Pier and annual Israel festivals as well as Federation’s support for Ne’ve Michal Children’s Village, Yad LaKashish and teen travel to Israel. Individuals connect locally to Israel through organizations like Jewish National Fund, Israel Bonds, Hadassah and the Technion Society. At Temple Shalom, dozens joined learning sessions about Israel hosted by an Israeli guide (the wonders of technology!). Later this month, Rabbi Boxman and I will be attending the inaugural conference of the Zionist Rabbinic Coalition in Washington, D.C. and, in December 2023, we will have our next congregational trip to Israel.
While there is darkness, there is also light. We take heart, knowing that Israel remains an or la-goyim — a light to the nations through its acts of tikkun olam and emergency response to global disasters. The most recent example is the Israeli emergency field hospitals providing vital medical care in Ukraine. We celebrate Israel’s ability to overcome obstacles and persevere. Most importantly, we should know that we, the North American Jewish community, are an important factor in the survival of Israel. Rabbi Rick Jacobs, President of the Union for Reform Judaism, shares a story that should give us hope. During Benjamin Netanyahu’s last stint as Prime Minister, he leaned toward Rabbi Jacobs at an event and simply said, “Thank you.” Rabbi Jacobs gave the Prime Minister the answer instilled in him by his parents, “You’re welcome,” followed by, “Now I have to ask, what are you thanking me for?” The Prime Minister smiled and answered his question, “For believing in Israel, even at its darkest hour.” Netanyahu explained that the Reform
movement did not recall a single trip to Israel even at the height of what was then the most recent Gaza conflict. The Reform movement stayed steadfast in its unwavering support for Israel. That simple exchange demonstrates our hope. Israel needs us — just as we need the connection to Israel. Let us not wait for the next conflict, the next attempt to degrade, disenfranchise or destroy Israel for us to build on that connection. Rather, this summer should be a time for us to draw closer to Israel. To support Israel, read books about Israel, buy products made in or sold in Israel, and share with others the blessing that is modern Israel. Plan a future trip to Israel — to get beneath the surface so that we can better understand one another — Jews of Israel and Jews of the world. Just as we know that life continues here despite the myth of a quiet summer, our connection to Israel remains important 365 days of the year. May that bond only grow stronger this summer and in the years to come. Rabbi Adam Miller serves at Temple Shalom.
The season of sacred pilgrimage Rabbi Mark Wm. Gross
I
am a Southern Californian by birth and upbringing. For me, the traditional sign of the change of seasons is when the swallows come back to Capistrano. Here, in Collier County, however, the sure sign it’s spring is auto transport trailers heading north. Most of us are such digitally driven creatures, that we live our daily lives more by the clock and the calendar than by solar azimuth angle and, as such, don’t really pay too much attention to the seasons (particularly here in South Florida, where we don’t really have seasons)! But for our long-ago forebears in the land of Israel, the turn of the seasons — and the associated cycles of sowing and reaping, pruning and harvesting — were all seen as sacred and blessed manifestations of God’s orderly management of the universe. Not everyone takes such an exalted view of the seasons. Take this month of May, for example, which, in northern Europe, used to be seen as a stirring of
the earth mother goddess. Or, as Lerner and Loew put it much more directly in their lyric for “Camelot:” It’s May, it’s May — the month of “yes, you may;” That lovely month when everyone goes blissfully astray … The time for every frivolous whim, proper or “im.” While that salaciously frisky spirit of the month delights neopagans today, real pagans in earlier eras saw May — a critical juncture between winter’s cold and summer’s heat — as a dangerous marginal time, when supernatural forces were unleashed into our dimension. Nor did the arrival of ethical monotheism in Medieval Europe do anything to dispel such long-held dark and ominous convictions. In the opening of Bram Stoker’s “Dracula,” the innkeeper’s wife warns Jonathan Harker, “This fourth of May is the eve of St. George’s Day. Do you not know that tonight, when the clock strikes midnight, all the evil things in the world will have full sway?” All of which is perplexing to us Jews. Certainly, we have our own superstitions but none of them is that grim and ominous. Moreover, our religious convictions leave no room in our thinking for the existence of dark and inimical forces that
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are beyond God’s control. And while we have individual days (10th of Tevet; 17th of Tammuz; 9th of Av) and whole periods of time (the respective s’firah countdowns of seven weeks in the spring and three in the summer) when it is customary not to schedule affirmative celebrations, such self-imposed constraints are a gesture of solidarity with Jewish history, not because those times are viewed as inauspicious. In fact, our current season represents a transition that is completely involved with an alignment with Jewish history. Because the seven-week countdown from Passover (which was April 15 this year) to Shavuot (which will be June 5) sees us in between, living in a mythic dream, where every one of those 50 days not only commemorates, but reenacts, the trek from Egypt to Sinai.
This is the real reason we don’t traditionally hold weddings during the sevenweek spring s’firah. Until we have relived the trudge through the desert sands to meet at the Mountain the One Who brought us forth from servitude, and to enter into a covenant to be “a kingdom of priests and a holy nation,” any other covenant — including a marriage contract — is a subordinate commitment that we are not yet in a position to make. Because God comes first. May this season of sacred pilgrimage find us moving in good and affirmative directions, as looking back to Egypt last month and forward to Sinai next month aligns us to whatever lies beyond. Rabbi Mark Wm. Gross serves at Jewish Congregation of Marco Island.
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