From the Rabbi

It was an exceptionally stormy Monday when we arrived at Ben Gurion Airport on Feb. 6. On our way from the airport to the hotel in Tel Aviv, hail was falling on the windshield of our minibus. Our group of 12 pilgrims, none ever having been to the holy land, were ushered into the country by some of the worst weather in a century. That night, the enormous earthquake that hit Turkey and Syria, burying tens of thousands of people, was felt also in parts of Israel. For two days, the strongest winds and rains kept people inside. The windows were shrieking, crying out loud from the wind. And all this was happening before the political storm erupted.

Tens of thousands of people were flooding the streets of Tel Aviv and Jerusalem every weekend, demonstrating against judicial reform that the newly-elected government was instituting. (I intend to speak about this separately in the near future). Plus, terror attacks were occurring in Jerusalem. All of which goes to prove that if you wait for Israel to be quiet, you’ll never go. And many people do not.

Yet there is something about being a pilgrim, not simply a traveler. Despite what may scare some people from traveling to Israel, pilgrims see it as a spiritual obligation, not merely an educational trip or a vacation destination.  This is a call, a religious directive.

As many of you know, I am currently enrolled in a Columbia University course about the history of Jewish migration, and I see a connection between pilgrimages and migration: being away from home, being vulnerable and exposed, and having to face entry and exit points, often in a foreign language. Immigration is almost always for the purpose of upward mobility. Pilgrimage is for the elevation of the spirit, equally worth the risk, imbuing religious practices with inspirational meaning. Sacred space meets sacred time. A pilgrimage to the holy land is a deeply transformative experience of introspection. Those visiting the holy sites bring their everyday realities and transcend them through religious narratives.

It would be appropriate to associate pilgrimage with Jewish migration as part of the DNA within both. After all, Abraham, the first Jew, started his monotheistic enterprise in a migrating pilgrimage. Were the biblically commanded pilgrimages, three times a year, a preparation for the inevitable — human migration and immigration? A natural movement? Much like the natural migration of birds? What can we learn about pilgrimages from voluntary migration as opposed to forced migration? Is pilgrimage part of the psyche of the Jewish people that started with Abraham? Is it an exercise that transcends time and place? In this generation, we teach that the best skill is the ability to reinvent ourselves — to pack light, to pick up and go, to start over.

Holy Land pilgrimages are a dynamic and creative fusion of tourism and migration. Certain experiences are meaningful only when you are there, on the ground, visiting a new country, a living heart. As my Catholic counterparts like to call the land — the fifth gospel. For example, to experience the current judicial reform/revolution tension in Israel and the depth of the discussion, you need to be there, to plant your feet on the ground — an Aliya Laregel — with your feet. As it happened, I met by chance the man at the very eye of the current political storm, MK Simcha Rotman, chair of the Constitution, Law and Justice Committee. I saw him seated at the table next to me at breakfast one morning, and I approached him. I used the opportunity to reiterate to him, as a Conservative rabbi, the non-Orthodox movements’ need to be in the egalitarian prayer plaza at the Kotel — a small step I could take only by being there.

A pilgrimage is a mini-migration that is voluntary, not forced. It is designed to make you come back home with new vision. In the Jewish story, we will return home, perhaps only after millennia, but we are programmed to return home…eventually. It is an amazing phenomenon that in the past century, the entire Jewish world has immigrated. And today, most of the Jewish people live in the land. Is the whole Jewish journey a long pilgrimage that maybe is coming to its conclusion?  Could it be said that all the migrations of the Jews throughout the centuries can be seen as a grand pilgrimage that has led the people back to their eternal home in Israel? Happy month of Adar,

—Rabbi Gadi Capela

It had been raining all day last Thursday, but nothing could wash away my excitement. It was my first day back on campus after nearly a decade. The precipitation made me feel like a fish returned to the water. When I started at CTI, I was about to finish a second master’s degree at the Jewish Theological Seminary, this time in Modern Jewish Studies. But things got busy, and I was unable to complete the last two courses.

A perpetual student, I have been in and out of school most of my life. My August 31 birthday in Israel, where school always starts on September 1, provided my direction from the get-go. In second grade, I was already helping first graders. In college, it was a dual curriculum. A few years later, while working, I was back in school to get a master’s in Mediaeval Jewish Philosophy at Yeshiva University. And then rabbinical school. And another master’s. The past ten years have been the longest I’ve been away from an academic institution.

It was like a reunion — a few professors, the librarians, a couple of guards — I never forget a face. I saw an “Aviva” and an “Adam” that reminded me of my long-ago classmates. The campus was the same in some ways, different in others.  JTS has gone through a major renovation and architectural changes; it is gorgeous. Déjà vu, but not quite. As Mark Twain famously said, “History doesn’t repeat itself, but it rhymes.”

From my early days in New York City, I loved traveling uptown to walk around Columbia’s campus. The five years at JTS’s beautifully cloistered campus on the edge of Columbia University were a pleasure. As JTS students, we could use Columbia’s libraries and other facilities, and I used every opportunity to walk among the stately old buildings patterned after those of the Italian Renaissance, to stroll the tree-lined walkways that connect the many libraries, including the centerpiece — Low Memorial Library. The combination of a campus steeped in history yet imbued with young energy creates an academic electricity. It pushes one to want to be immersed in education.

Education is light. In the beginning, God said, “Let there be light…And God saw the light that it was good; and God divided the light from the darkness.” Education means to be brought out of darkness into the light. The Latin word “educare” means to bring out, to lead out. Out of darkness. It’s the theme of JTS — the Burning Bush that never fades — and it is the motto of Columbia in Psalm 36:10: “For with You is the fountain of life; in Your light we see light.”  

The course I’m taking this semester is about the history of Jewish migration. Even though many times it was a forced migration, migration of humans is a natural phenomenon, like the migration of birds. The soul is like a bird that needs constantly to move, otherwise it dies in its cage. The wandering Jew is a metaphor for the learning spirit we possess.

The spirit of learning is the humility of the soul. Going back to school is a mindset, a way of life, a gym for the mind. Going back seems to say, “I am thirsty, I need to drink, please give me water.” I feel certain I’m going to do well. I’m hungry for knowledge and thirsty for wisdom. Keeping the mind wet and ready to be reformed, you always want to go back to school.

Happy month of Shevat, the month of growth.

—Rabbi Gadi Capela