It never ceases to amaze me how deeply passions run about Israel. And I don’t mean just among members of this congregation. I don’t even mean among Jews alone. It’s amazing how the whole world seems always so impassioned, so hyper vigilant, so ready to scream and yell and battle over the fate of Israel, the Jewish State. Why is that? Why is the media so focused on it? Why do so many people, everywhere it seems, have such definite, absolute opinions about who is right and who is wrong in Israel? Why is the whole world so quick to polarize over this place? At times, it really seems as if there’s something supernatural going on, something particularly energizing about the Land of Israel in the collective human unconscious. And maybe this really is so. If you read the Torah, there’s no doubt about the particular spiritual power of the Land of Israel. It really is a unique focal point of the world. According to our ancient tradition, things happen in that particular place that don...
A blog by Rabbi Gil Steinlauf