Adina Roth – Head of Jewish Life

I’d like to share three seemingly unrelated things that happened to me this week. I have been learning with my group of bat mitzvah girls the story of the daughters of Tzelafchad. These five women, who appear in the book of Bamidbar (Numbers) challenged the gendered laws of inheritance in the Torah. When the Israelites are still in the desert and preparing to enter the land of Israel, all men were apportioned land in Israel. These five women approached Moses and asked for a portion of land too. Their challenge resulted in an amendment to the law; if a man died and didn’t leave any sons, the land would pass to his daughters. Go Israelite feminism circa 1100 BCE! Beyond feminism, I was reminded of an interpretation by Rashi which says that the daughters of Tzelafchad are praised for their love of the land of Israel. Unlike the spies who were scared to enter the land, these women showed desire to connect to the land. Indeed, a shard of pottery has been found in Israel with the name of one of the daughters, testifying to their eventual settlement there. As I said to my students, the daughters of Tzelafchad were ‘the first Zionists.’

The second event that happened is I attended the wonderful night of Strings at Emanuel. At the beginning of the evening, I recited a Psalm for Israel and introduced the singing of Hatikvah. I received an email afterwards from a parent saying how moving this was for him and sharing that a woman behind him was crying. Indeed, the opening line of Hatikvah evokes something ancient and soul-stirring for our people, our connection with and longing for our ancient land; Kol od beleivav penimah, nefesh Yehudi Homiya/As long as the Jewish spirit is yearning deep in the heart.

I then turned to the Parsha of the week Chayei Sarah which recounts the death of our first matriarch Sarah. At the time, Avraham and Sarah had been living in Be’er Sheva (in ancient Cana’an, before it becomes the land of Israel) but Avraham wants to purchase a burial plot for Sarah. He asks to buy the Ma’arat Hamachpelah from Ephron the Hittite and insists on paying the full price. He is thus able to put Sarah to rest on land that he can call his own, in Chevron. This story is written in Bereshit, our oldest book of the Torah about our ancient patriarch and matriarch and their connection to the land of Israel. The Midrash elaborates on the story. After Sarah dies, the king Avimelech of the Philistines died. Avraham leaves Be’er Sheva and goes to the land of the Philistines to comfort Avimelech’s family. The Midrash concludes ‘and afterwards he returned home.’ For our ancient patriarchs, Be’er Sheva was home and Ma’arat Hamchpelah was our burial ground. Our ancient texts, our prayers and our souls have been intertwined with the land of Israel. We are indigenous to Israel, we are part of it and it is part of us.

To hear people today slurring that Jews are colonialist settlers and must return to Europe and the lands that we come from is almost as foreign and untrue as saying that the Torah is not Jewish or that circumcision is not a Jewish practice – it is to rip out the essence of who we are. What’s more, the image of a conquering colonialist doesn’t tally with survivors of Auschwitz who came to the British Mandate of Palestine in 1945 looking for refuge.

Without looking for it this week, I was reminded in three different ways that Jewish people, have an ancient, indigenous connection to Israel. Whatever ways forward we chart with Palestinians after this war (and chart a path forward, we must), we will need our story, our ancient history, to be acknowledged, the simple truism that Israel is our ancient home, in our bones and in our souls. I must say that when I recited the Psalm on that Night of Strings, I choked up a little too.

Please click this link to register for a vigil for the hostages on Sunday.
Please click this link if you would like to read the d’var torah I wrote for my rabbinical school blog this week.

Shabbat Shalom