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Tending To Hope
We are delighted to share this week’s installment in our spring series on Leadership, Learning, and Love. At sundown tonight we will mark a transition. We will move from Yom HaZikaron—from Israel’s Day of Remembrance—into Yom Ha’atzma’ut—Israel’s Day of Independence—when we celebrate all that has been created in Israel over these last seventy-two years, when we give thanks for the vibrant, complex, beautiful, thriving and still striving reality that Israel has become and is becoming.
To our friends and partners in Israel, thank you for opening your hearts to us. To our faculty, students, and alumni whose voices are included in this week’s special installment, thank you for opening your hearts and helping us to open ours through your music, your poetry, your artwork, your words of Torah. To all of you who are reading or listening, thank you for being part of this journey.
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Reflections from Kibbutz HaMa'apil During This Time of CoronaBy Rabbi Lila Veissid `11
A rainbow, a cloud, and ministering angels.
Right now, a rainbow over Kibbutz HaMa'apil. You have to make a bit of an effort to see it, but it's there. Jewish tradition teaches us that there is a special blessing one says upon seeing a rainbow. The blessing reminds us of the first rainbow, the one Noah and all the dwellers of the Ark saw after the flood. The rainbow is a sign that the world will not be destroyed: Blessed are you Adonai our God, Ruler of the Universe, who remembers the covenant and is faithful to His covenant and keeps His promise.
This past month we read of the amazing project of building the Mishkan, the Tabernacle, in the wilderness: from the collection of funds and raw materials, through the planning and design work conducted by Bezalel—the first Jewish artist, to the construction of the Mishkan and its completion, ready for the holy work. Throughout the project, there is constant use of the beautiful expressions khokhmat halev (wisdom of the heart) and nedivut halev (generosity of the heart), which characterize all those engaged in this holy work. Their work is that of connecting: curtains are attached to loops and hooks, planks are connected to pegs. The Tabernacle consists of many different parts—flapping sheets and solid planks, vertical pillars and horizontal sills, and in the center, a basin of water and an altar for fire.
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Blessings and Hope from Jerusalem
"Ana Elekh Merukhekha" sung by Rabbi Minna Bromberg`10
Where can I go from Your spirit? Where can I flee from Your presence? If I ascend to heaven, You are there; if I descend to Sheol, You are there too.
Life’s center is neither there nor here but within you, in your “I.”
If I take wing with the dawn to come to rest at the ends of the sea, even there Your hand will be guiding me, Your right hand will be holding me fast.
"Ana elekh merukhekha? Wither can I go from Your spirit?” asks the psalmist wondering how it can be that the Divine can find us wherever we are. This ancient question feels immediately relevant: how can we connect with this Presence in times when so many of us feel at once stuck in place and adrift at sea?
Rabbi Minna Bromberg’s song juxtaposes verses of Psalm 139 with a quote from a letter written in September 1916 by Zionist thinker and teacher A.D. Gordon. The letter is to a young pioneer wondering whether it’s better for her to stay in the Land of Israel or go back to Europe. If she does go to Europe, will the war prevent her from being able to return? Gordon’s answer offers us a different approach to wondering about whether we are where we ought to be. “Life’s center,” he writes, “is neither there nor here, but within you.”
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Postcards from Israel
We are pleased to share with you 18 photos from Israel, courtesy of Rabbi Michael Silbert `12, spiritual leader of Temple Beth David in Rochester, NY. We chose the number 18 to celebrate the vibrancy of these photographs and the life-affirming spirit and beauty they capture.
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Coronavirus from the Holy LandBy Rabbi Arthur Green, Rector of Hebrew College
I am an American Jew, living out this Corona season in holy Jerusalem. Caught here in the midst of a visit by the cancellation of my flight home, I get to view this universal disaster from the place that Jews, Christians, and Muslims once agreed was the very center of the world.
We are all watching pictures of the world’s great cities with empty streets and public places. We listen to daily news broadcasts as one after another of them declares a lockdown and fines those who violate it. But nowhere more than in Jerusalem do those empty streets call forth the opening verse of the Bible’s ancient Book of Lamentations: “How doth the city sit solitary!”
Jerusalem bears both the glory and the burden of being a symbol as well as a real city. The divisions within this city are deep: Jews and Arabs, religious (of many stripes) and secular, eastern and western, and so forth. All of these seem very real and contemporary. But the psalmist’s cry echoes through them: “Rebuilt Jerusalem will be like a city joined together.”
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Compositions from the Arava DesertBy Rabbi Micah Shapiro`17
In 2014-2015 (my Shanah Gimmel year of rabbinical school), I lived in Jerusalem and was blessed to be mentored by Rabbi Ruth Gan Kagan and Nava Tehila. When I saw the immersive, transformative power of the Nava Tehila Levites leading 250 people in inspired song-filled prayer, I realized my mission to write original musical interpretations of Jewish prayer designed to push tefilah towards dynamism, evocative artistic expression and singing community. Here are two pieces from Kabbalat Shabbat that I wrote in the Arava desert on a solo writing retreat that year: Yedid Nefesh, featuring Rabbi Arielle Rosenberg `17 on harmony vocals and Hod v’Hadar (Psalms 96:6) featuring Molly Bajgot on lead vocals. Enjoy!
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Spring Semester ReflectionsPastel and poem by Guilia Fleishman, rabbinical student
I stretch my hands
Out cupped catch
Drops of this journey
Delight collects
A tiny pool of treasure
We stumbled off the highway
Into green grass
Yellow flowers
Red white poppies
Sprinkled across the land
Lichen-covered rocks
Knobby trees
Nibbling cows
A vignette so perfectly made
To look unintentional
As if by human hand
We climb the hill
Atop the grassy peak
Rocks scattered
Ready for Jacob
To arrange to lie to dream
I don’t remember where he was
But I know it was here
This vision already in me
From the first time I read of murderous brotherly flight
We follow trail blazes
Across a land already inside us
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Please Join us Tomorrow Evening Online
for Our Virtual Spring Event
Leadership, Learning, and Love
Wednesday, April 29 | 8:00 to 8:30 pm | via Zoom
Our 30 minutes together will include:
A blessing for Rabbi Meirowitz by
Rabbi Sharon Cohen Anisfeld, President
Remarks by
Rabbi Marc Baker, President & CEO of CJP
Andy Offit, Chair of the Hebrew College Board of Trustees
Music with students and alumni
Free Admission | Registration Required
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Gifts and Blessings
Please consider making a gift to Hebrew College in honor of Rim using our secure online form or mailing your check to: Hebrew College Office of Institutional Advancement, 160 Herrick Road, Newton Centre, MA 02459.
We are also collecting blessings and "love stories" for Rim, which we will present to him in May. Please share some words about how Rim has inspired you and email them to Mia Tavan, Development Associate, by Friday, May 8.
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Missed our previous digital offerings?
Read the first two issues of our spring event series, Leadership, Learning, and Love: Let Us Sing a New Song! (Vol. I) and Leadership, Learning, and Love: Caring for One Another (Vol II) online here. Each issue is filled with multimedia spiritual nourishment for this challenging time.
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Please support continued leadership, learning, and love at Hebrew College
Please invest in a creative, vibrant, and meaningful Jewish future rooted in thousands of years of wisdom by making your fully deductible gift now.
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We thank our Leadership, Learning, and Love Corporate Sponsors
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