By Rabbi Karen Strok
As weeks pass, memories linger – blossoming trees, smells of spring, stunning vistas. We made deep connections with the land, the Tanach, and the people with whom we shared this life changing experience. It sounds dramatic, I know.
Let me rewind. Every morning, we began in a circle in front of the Inbal Hotel, under trees that bloom for only two weeks a year. In fact, Melton Travel Seminar Director Haim Aronovitz and I had these blossoming trees in mind when we chose these particular weeks in March for our Melton Biblical InSights Seminar. Under these trees, we took a few deep breaths together and acknowledged with gratitude that we have the great privilege of spending another day with our feet touching this sacred land.
Our journey began with transporting a 500-year-old Holocaust surviving Torah from a deaf community in LA to Jerusalem, where this Torah would ultimately be donated to a deaf community in Belarus. Our first day included passing around this Torah and offering this scroll and our group a word of blessing. For thousands of years, the Torah has grounded us, sustained our people (it is a tree of life…) but it is our human hands that transmit this sacred object from one generation to the next.
Our journey continued for 11 glorious days. It is impossible to capture in words the beauty of the landscape from the vast desert to the hilly mountains that seemed to change at every turn. We saw vivid colors of countless flowers while driving from North to South, heard rushing waters near the Golan Heights at Tel Dan, tasted food inspired from the Tanach at Eucalyptus restaurant, listened to birds in the Biblical Gardens of Ne’ot Kedumim, smelled herbs in the sensory garden at Kibbutz Lavi. All the while, we stopped to enjoy the views while we opened our Bibles and explored our people’s story, the transition of leadership and how this connected to the development of our relationship with God.
How can one describe what it feels like to stand at the place our tradition holds as the burial place of our ancestors, which now carries added layers of meaning because of its location in Hevron? We learned about the leadership changing hands from Moses to Joshua, from Joshua to the Judges, and from the Judges to the Kings. We saw our Jewish Bible come to life as we studied the texts while sitting at the places that (according to our tradition) these events actually took place.
Our group’s story came full circle. On the last day, while we stopped for ice cream, Haim befriended the head rabbi at Kibbutz Ramat Rachel. He was the 7th generation in a line of rabbis from the Ba’al Shem Tov. He took us to the sanctuary where he shared the story of another 500-year-old Torah, which was gifted to the Kibbutz only one week before. This rabbi taught us that in his tradition, there is no such thing as a coincidence, and if you mix around the Hebrew letters of the word “coincidence” you find the words “and God weaves”. For my own spiritual journey, this idea of God weaving together moments in life began to settle into my soul. It is one of the many lessons that will continue to unfold as the months and years go by.
There is so much more I want to share, but suffice it to say that this was the most meaningful encounter I’ve ever had in the land of Israel. It is an experience that will continue to shape my Jewish identity. I have no words for my depth of gratitude to my colleague Haim for his dedication and leadership and to my students for having taken this journey with me. I will hold all the memories we created close to my heart for the rest of my life.
Rabbi Karen Strok is the Director of the Wise Melton School of our Center for Jewish Life.
To learn more about our award-winning Melton program visit WiseLA.org/CJL.
