Page 19 - Issue 21

into the beauty of Israel to the Galut, but it also
threatens to corrupt and strangle the light that we
know Israel can be. We are not the first to
recognize this, either. In 1939, the chalutza
Hannah Senesh wrote:
“I think I have a good grasp of the situation; I
know the people living there make mistakes too.
What I love about it is the opportunity to make an
outstanding and beautiful Jewish state, and the
future depends on this”.

Israel is not an easy place to love. There is pain
here. There are deep divisions. It is not easy to
accept that there can be such beauty and such
terrible sickening hate, and they all exist in one
place. But we can not see one without the other.
We can not put on rose-tinted glasses and close
our ears to the truth. Neither can we let this bleak
reality become all we can envision.

The truth about beauty is that while we can leave
sights, feelings, and experiences behind, we can
also choose to carry that beauty we understood in
Israel with us. We can’t be in Israel, but we can
hold our values, our hope, and our passion with us
in our homes, and in Chatzav Mirachok, our initial
shlav achad vchetzi process. To Habonim Dror, we
will bring the beauty of caring, to our Jewish
communities we will bring a sense of wholeness,
and to our friends and our families we will bring a
renewed love and passion for each other. All that
we are now, and all that we hope to be , is
interwoven with Israel, and all of its complexities.