Hazak 2008 Mission to Israel

by Bernard Newman

This February, United Synagogue’s first Hazak mission to Israel took us from an ice storm at New York’s JFK into pouring rain at Ben- Gurion. But the fury of the weather never slowed us down. Our tour guide met us at the airport, and we all felt a rush as we recited the Shehecheyanu as we rolled into Jerusalem. Luckily, the hotel held the dining room open for 45 tired, hungry tourists.

The group included people from Florida to Massachusetts and as far west as Missouri. United Synagogue’s Hazak is for people who are 55 and older, and we ranged from our mid-50s to 91. A wide range of mobility contributed to a sense of cohesiveness as the days passed. Someone was ready to help, no matter whether we were climbing the steps of the bus or walking on the slippery streets of Caesarea. Anyone looking for a cold remedy or a tenth person for a minyan found a ready friend. Even if we didn’t know anyone else when we started, by the time the tour ended we each had a busload of friends.

Beginning after breakfast every day, each stop and site gave us a deeper appreciation for the land and its people, despite the rainy weather. After a moist view of the Jerusalem hills from the Haas Promenade, we went to a mall to dry off. Surprisingly, on February 14 gift shops had the same teddy bears decorated with hearts and love notes that we see back home. These bears, though, spoke Hebrew.

At the kotel, the Western Wall, we were soaked by the rain, so we headed into the nearby tunnels to walk back through thousands of years of history. The narrow passageways are interrupted by cavernous areas, where arches and alcoves mark the street where merchants had stalls during the Second Temple period. Excavations provided a view to the base of the wall tens of feet below. The tunnel runs close to the barrier wall between the outside and the Temple structure that housed the Holy of Holies, visited only by the High Priest on Yom Kippur.

As we left Jerusalem, we were treated to an early morning snowfall; the big wet flakes coated the palm trees and the early spring flowers, and the city’s children built snowmen and sledded down hills. As we neared Tel Aviv, the weather turned springlike. Our first stop was Independence Hall, where in 1948 2,000 years of homelessness for the Jewish people ended. Our guide painted a passionate, heartfelt picture of the birth of the modern state of Israel. There were tears in our eyes as we sang Hatikva. We cried a different kind of tears as we walked through the Yad Vashem memorial to the martyred millions.

After our fascinating visit to the Israel Museum’s Shrine of the Book, where bits of the Dead Sea Scrolls glow in their display cases, some of us decided to wander through the Machane Yehuda market. It was Friday afternoon and Shabbat was approaching. The vendors were pushing their wares, and the carp were jumping in their crates, some almost leaping over the edge. We wormed our way through the crowds, through narrow aisles, past mounds of aromatic spices, past bottles of fresh squeezed pomegranate juice, past fruits and vegetables in shades of red, green, orange, brown, and yellow. We relished the smells of fresh hallah, cakes, and burekas, buying some to sample before returning to the hotel.

We enjoyed the choir welcoming the Shabbat at the Great Synagogue, but we found the haimish congregational singing at United Synagogue’s Fuchsberg Jerusalem Center on Shabbat morning even more appealing. The warm sun of Shabbat afternoon gave us an opportunity to walk into the Old City, down the sloping stone streets of the Arab market, slowly descending through the crowds. The breezes carried the drifting odors of exotic foods and spices; ornate fabrics and brass and tarnished silver souvenirs swayed in the archways.

What’s a trip to Israel without a visit to Masada, where Jews prayed more than 2,000 years ago? As we davened mincha in the ancient synagogue between the stone columns, spring flowers poked through the rocky hillside along the snake path that leads down from the ancient sanctuary. Later that day, the hot sulfur spa at Chamat Gader in the southern Golan provided a welcome respite from the day’s tour. The stark orange hills glowed in the evening sky as the sun went down.

Our patriarch Abraham greeted us at the hilltop restaurant, Eretz Beresheit, explaining that he welcomed all strangers into his humble tent, giving them food from his fields and meat from his flocks. Unfortunately Sarah was busy preparing the meal, he told us, and so she could not greet us as we watched the moon rise over the hills to the east.

We left footprints in the snow in Jerusalem, splashed in the puddles of Caesarea, got wet on the heights overlooking the Baha’i Gardens in Haifa, and saw the blessed rains painting the Judean desert green. These wonderful memories will draw us back again.