A Rabbi's World: One Person, Two Homes…
Posted By James BesserA Rabbi's World: One Person, Two Homes…
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One of the early op-ed pieces that I wrote for the Jewish Week was titled Between Two Flags. Written during the second intifada in Israel, it spoke to the cognitive dissonance I often feel when I stand up to preach a sermon in my synagogue, my podium located between the Israeli and American flags. One person, two homes…
This morning, I returned from ten days in Israel, and I am feeling that dissonance acutely. As I was leaving, family and friends in Israel wished me a "safe trip home," and of course their wish made perfect sense. After all I live in Forest Hills, and work there, pay taxes there- you get the point. By all objective criteria, it is my home. It feels good to walk into my house, sleep in my own bed, see my cars in the driveway.
But coming home from Israel is a uniquely unsettling experience for me. It challenges all those basic assumptions about home and hearth, and forces me to once again encounter those lingering, nagging questions about why I am here, and where I belong.
It was, strictly speaking, work that brought me to Israel this time, as I've written about recently in this blog. There were certainly moments during this recent congregational mission that I felt as if my work as an American rabbi was at its highest level. Introducing American Jews to the magic of Jerusalem and Israel and helping them appreciate their timeless and timely significance is why I do what I do. Many of them were there for the first time, specifically because I was there with them. Without a doubt, traveling through Israel with them was a far better use of my time than attending meetings here in New York. I listened to them closely as they were leaving, and their interest in Israel had been sparked and stoked. Score one for the good guys, I thought to myself.
But at the same time, I never, ever leave Israel- not even with such satisfying professional feelings as I had this time- without that difficult to shake feeling that I might be doing even more important work there, no matter what I was doing, simply by living there. I am not necessarily convinced that a Jewish studies teacher in Israel is not doing more important work for the Jewish people than an American rabbi is doing here in New York. Both are engaged in the cause of Jewish survival, and only one puts his/her life on the line in the name of that cause by serving in Israel's army.
You might read this and think "gratuitous guilt." I'm sure some of my friends in Israel read it that way, and I understand them. I also understand why I do the work I do, and hence the source of my conflict.
At the end of the day, I'm here and not there, so no matter what mixed feelings I might have, I have made my choice. Like the fictional Private Ryan, I feel a special obligation to insure that my life and how I live it justifies the circumstances. After a trip like the one just concluded, I allow myself a few minutes of feeling good about my work. But it's never easy to leave Israel.