I am starting to write this from a cramped seat on an El Al flight to join the Center for Jewish NonViolence action from May 14-23 in the West Bank. I’ve been asked to drash Beha’alotecha in light of this trip, but, full disclosure, I have to write now because there won’t be enough time after my return.
About 130 of us will be making our way there to contribute in whatever capacity we can in the effort to end the occupation.
This trip and this parashah’s haftarah combine in my heart and together they provide a unique meaning for me. You see, 53 years ago this was my bar mitzvah parashah, and 50 years ago, I came to Israel for the first time just after the Six-Day War. And that haftarah from Zechariah colored my experience of those first weeks of the occupation and has been there in my heart during my decades-long work in regard to Israel and Palestine.
For my Orthodox bar mitzvah service in May 1964, I studied and practiced for two years to learn the full k’riah (Torah reading). To my 12-year old mind, I found nothing in the parashah as compelling as the civil rights movement taking place in the United States at that time. At long last, I started to study the haftarah from Zechariah. It is partly about how the prophet is to use his visions to instruct Zerubavel, the administrative leader of the exiles returning from Babylon.
And as I read it, something in the text inspired this sixth grader. It was the prophet’s vision of a menorah surrounded by olive trees. An angel discloses to the prophet that the vision means he must give the following instruction to Zerubavel on the manner of executing the repatriation: “Not by power and not by might, but with my spirit.” Lo v-chayil v-lo v-ko’ach, ki im b-ruchi” (Zechariah 4:6). Today we have songs with that verse, but I did not remember hearing anything like it before. Wow, I thought, maybe the Tanakh can speak in Gandhi and King’s language.
Three years later, at 16, I was expected to go to Israel for the summer of 1967. In May the trip was cancelled. War was likely and it looked bad for Israel. When the war ended quickly, we rejoiced that Israel survived. The trip was rescheduled. And so it was that within a month, I was in Israel. So much jubilation around me. And the word was, get out and see all the places that were once forbidden: the Old City, Bethlehem, Jericho. Do it soon, these territories are bargaining chips for peace, and they are not likely to remain long under Israeli control when they reach a peace agreement.
We were going to see the Kotel, the Western Wall, the next day. I remembered my Hebrew day school teacher telling us about her dim memory of how she visited the Wall as a child during the British Mandate. She showed us the same picture I saw in shuls—a high wall on a fairly narrow street facing a line of houses at the edge of a neighborhood. Men and women davened scattered helter skelter wherever they wished to pray facing the Kotel. I was ready to walk into that picture.
And when we arrived, it was totally different. A mechitza separated men and women, but that was the least of it. The wall faced a cleared open area. I turned to the tour guide. “Did the Jordanians tear down the houses that were here in the years since 1948?” “No, we did it last week.” Then I asked the question that seemed obvious, “What happened to the people who lived here?” With a look of some incredulity and disdain he replied, “What does that matter?”
I thought about how I would feel to have my home suddenly bulldozed. Lo v-chayil v-lo v-ko’ach!
Within a year or two, I learned that the military was setting up outposts and that civilians were moving in. I came to understand that a takeover of land was happening under a military occupation. Lo v-chayil v-lo v-ko’ach!
For 50 years I have watched successive Israeli governments using their power to illegally build settlements on those “bargaining chips” for peace. Lo v-chayil v-lo v-ko’ach!
I have mourned the deaths of Israelis killed by terrorists, and I know the killing of the innocent is a destroyer of worlds. And I watch the TV and see bombs falling on Gaza and I know that the death of those civilians too is the destruction of worlds and will bring no security to anyone. Lo v-chayil v-lo v-ko’ach!
I’ve seen how, with its might, Israel has placed barrier walls for security that too often separate people from their fields and often with little connection to real security needs. Lo v-chayil v-lo v-ko’ach!
And I’ve learned how late night raids on arbitrarily chosen Palestinian homes enforce a continuous atmosphere of intimidation in the West Bank. Lo v-chayil v-lo v-ko’ach!
I have seen the ruins of the homes of Palestinians demolished for a lack of an impossibly obtainable permit, while illegal settlements receive electricity, water and sewer services supplied by the state authorities. Lo v-chayil v-lo v-ko’ach!
Here I am, facing the 53rd anniversary of my bar mitzvah and the 50th anniversary of coming to Israel as the occupation began.
I have lived it and yet, I cannot believe that fifty years, a full yovel has passed. And so I am flying to Israel/Palestine in this cramped seat hoping against hope. Could this occupation pass before I die? Do I sit down and wait to find out? Or do I do something? Whatever humble contribution I can make is so minute in the larger scheme of this situation. But if for no other reason, it is necessary for the sake of my soul. Ki im b-ruchi!
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For more on T’ruah’s Yovel Project, visit www.truah.org/yovel
For 18 years, Rabbi David J. Cooper has served Kehilla Community Synagogue, a socially activist Jewish Renewal shul in the Oakland-Berkeley-Piedmont area of California.