Seeing Israel through Someone Else's Eyes

By Rabbi Elyse Winick
KOACH Associate Director

I spent my high school years not in USY, like so many of our readers, but in Young Judaea. A friend and I founded a youth group in our synagogue and ultimately dubbed our group a Young Judaea chapter. It was an exhilarating experience, capped off by conventions and summer camp. There was always one thing with which I struggled, though. One of the basic tenets of Young Judaea was that you had to be a Zionist (not a problem) and that the definition of Zionism was making aliyah(moving to Israel).

This was very troubling for me. I was a very strong supporter of Israel, but I couldn't necessarily envision uprooting my life and moving there, particularly since I had never even visited. When I finally visited Israel when I was in college, the pull was strong and intense, but I still didn't think that aliyah was likely for me.

It's remarkable how many things imprint themselves upon your soul forever. To this day, my heart aches a little when I think about whether or not I'm a Zionist. If I'm living here, can I really earn that appellation?

Last night I ran into a student from our June 2005 Taglit-birthright israel group at a local ice cream shop. We only chatted for a few minutes, but I was immediately transported back to our trip together. This young woman, now a graduate student, is blind. Sharing Israel with her was a radically different experience for me than any other group I've accompanied. How could we make Israel come alive for her when ‘seeing the sites' wasn't an option?

There is so much of Israel we take for granted. With this student I ran my hands along stone walls and up and down the bark of trees. We held pomegranates in our hands and smelled their fragrance. We stretched our arms open wide over expansive valleys and listened to our voices carried off by the wind. We felt the chill of hiking through a churning stream. We lingered over the taste of tea and mint. Together we experienced Israel on a totally different level.

In its way, every trip I make to Israel with students is just that kind of opportunity: to see Israel through their eyes. I am a matchmaker, helping them to fall in love with their past, their present and their future. I am a signpost on their journey of self discovery.

It's a different kind of Zionism, but who is to say whether opening the doors to Israel isn't even a more generous form of Zionism than just keeping it for myself?

That said, I still bear the words of the poet Yehuda HaLevi, on a necklace just above my heart – Libi b'mizrah, va-ani b'sof ma'arav: My heart is in the East, and I am in the West. And every time my plane lands at Ben Gurion Airport, I am happy to be home.

[Posted 5/5/08]