Drash on Parashat Nitzavim-Vayeilech 2024

One afternoon in Jerusalem, I told my Hebrew tutor—who was Israeli—that an American friend had taught me and some other friends an Israeli folk dance.  “Rikudei am?!” she exclaimed.

“Kein (yes)!” I replied proudly, thinking she was so impressed.

“That’s so funny,” she said, amused.  “Israelis never do this sort of dance.”

“You don’t?” I replied, confused.

“No,” she said, drily.  “Americans do.”

Well, thankfully, Australians do too, and rikudei am is a hobby I enjoy when my schedule permits, now that I’m a rabbi.  Yet that exchange with my tutor has nagged at me all these years.  It reminded me of when university friends from small towns would come visit me in New York City, where I’d grown up, and I would watch them marvel at all the famous sites that I had never bothered to go to on my own.  They saw something in those sites that I didn’t, having grown up in the thick of it all.  There was a sort of envy or romanticisation they carried into the ice skating rink at Central Park, Grand Central Station, and the flagship FAO Schwartz store.  I recognise in myself something akin to that envy and romanticization whenever I dance Israeli folk dances, hear those classic songs, and imagine groups of pre-state era kibbutzniks swaying in circles to the music.

What is that envy about?  What was it that I wanted to feel part of, whenever I took up my spot in the circle of folk dancers?  What exactly do Israelis have that we idealise and yearn for, here in Diaspora?

A rabbi of mine once wrote, “Israelis seem to have a culturally [or] socially-imbued sense of purpose and meaning in their lives… They know what they are about in a way that we [Jews in Diaspora] don’t.”[1]  Is this what we long for in the Diaspora?  A clearer sense of Jewish identity?  Deeper meaning and purpose to our Jewish lives?  A stronger sense of belonging?  Or maybe, a meaningful connection to the land in which we live?

I suspect it’s all of these things.  Because all of them are bound up in something much larger that Israelis have: an ancient narrative that gives their current lives context and helps them know who they are.  “Once upon a time, we lived in a Promised Land,” the story begins, before going on to tell of exile, near extermination, return, and rebirth in the Land.  Just by carrying out their daily lives today, they are living a miracle, and continuing an age-old Jewish story.

It’s okay to envy that.  But it’s also important for those of us making our lives here in other lands to recognise that there’s more than one age-old Jewish story.  There’s one that we’re living out, here in Diaspora—here in Australia—which gives Diaspora Jewish life context, meaning, and purpose.  That narrative, too, contributes something vital to Jewish continuity.  It begins in this week’s parasha, when the people gather around Mount Horeb, another name for Mount Sinai.  The narrative could be told this way:

“Once upon a time, we had Sinai.  In the middle of the desert, where no one ever would have thought it possible, we encountered the Divine, at Mount Sinai.  In that moment of Revelation, we felt unshakable communal solidarity, there outside the Promised Land.  We discerned with crystal clarity the moral imperatives of our time, there outside the Promised Land.  We experienced an indescribable moment of mystery and awe—a life-changing spiritual high that left us shaking in our sandals—there outside the Promised Land.  We heard the voice of the Divine, there outside the Promised Land.  At Sinai we learned that something of profound spiritual consequence can be found righthere—profound communal, ethical, and spiritual consequence.  This is our story, and it’s firmly rooted in Torah.  Our lives are Sinai unfolding.

Sinai is the ancient story that our Diaspora lives continue.  We continue that story every time we experience moments of holiness here where we live—every time we create communal moments that help us really know what we’re about, and what our purpose is on this planet.  We need to see those moments in their sacred context—as chapters in an age-old sacred story, and as expressions of a Jewish existence that is authentic and consequential, as is the story being lived out by our brothers and sisters in Israel.

We all know Israel offers something that simply cannot be experienced anywhere else.  There’s a reason we call it “the Holy Land.”  But holiness happens here too.  Israel’s early leaders articulated a compelling narrative and gave every modern citizen a purposeful role in it.  They fleshed out that narrative and put it into song and movement—celebrated it at every turn.  We can do the same.  “Once upon a time, we had Sinai…”  This is our story to write and to live.

At the turn of the Jewish year, we turn the page and begin to compose another chapter together.  May it be a shanah tovah.

[1] rabbizemel.blogspot.com.au