Please permit me to add a few words about the Bergen County/Mizrachi mission to Israel in February. My wife and I had the privilege of participating in the mission which focused on the activities of the former and future residents of Kibbutz Kerem Shalom who had been subjected to the October 7, 2023 attack. The residents have not been able to return and are planning to rebuild when given the approval of the Israeli government.
We also heard from parents of murdered Israelis and from a wounded soldier undergoing extensive rehabilitation at the Hadassah Rehabilitation Center on Mount Scopus. The speakers, some Orthodox, some not, had different approaches toward the future but one common thread was evident. They all are striving for achdut, unity of the Jewish people in Israel. They see the lack of it as calamitous for the country and strive to teach that if it can be achieved, the results will be remarkably good. My inspiration comes from people who have been through tragedy and trauma and still have the resilience and the strength to speak about their experiences and inspire others.
The reading for the Shabbat after the mission was Parshat Mishpatim. In Shemot 22:30, there is a phrase which does not seem to fit the context. After listing many civil laws and verses about first-born animals, the Torah states: “You shall be holy people to me ואנשי קדש תהיון לי” followed by the law of not eating flesh torn by beasts and then laws about false witnesses and more civil laws. What is the phrase about being holy people doing there? Commentators offer explanations for its proximity to the laws surrounding it. Rabbi Marc Angel suggests, more generally, that its location signifies that “Holiness is linked to the way we live our daily lives; it isn’t an ethereal concept restricted to prayer, meditation and study.” Being holy includes not only ritual laws but being moral, considerate to our fellow humans, respectful of each other and adhering to the civil laws included in Mishpatim.
The prayer for the State of Israel characterizes the medina as “the beginning of the flowering of our redemption—ראשית צמיחת גאולתנו.” (There are other translations as well.) Our goal should be to advance the geulah to the next stage, for the medina to be not merely the beginning but the flowering of our redemption. I believe that the people we met and listened to, Orthodox and non-Orthodox, who are striving every day for the achdut of Am Yisrael are in the vanguard of those who can advance the medina to the next stage of redemption. They speak, they teach, they act in order to achieve achdut. They are anshei kodesh, holy people.
Alan Schoffman has been a member of Congregation Bnai Yeshurun in Teaneck for over 50 years and is a retired chemist.
