Memories of living in Israel

MICHELE MARR

Fourteen years ago, when I spent a year living in Israel, I could not

step up into a public bus without a quick, private acknowledgment

that, before my stop, it might be blown up. I would take a seat or

grasp the overhead handrail, close my eyes momentarily and say a

prayer.

Every time I went to a market, a department store or a movie

theater, my handbag or tote, like everyone else’s, was opened and

searched before I could enter the door.

I lived in Tel Aviv in the early days of the Intifada, the

Palestinian uprising in Israel. It was impossible to be too cautious

and for some, it would turn out, it would be impossible to be

cautious enough.

Intifada is an Arabic word that means to wake up abruptly from

sleep, from indifference -- what we might call a rude awakening.

There would be days of quiet then a bomb would blow in a

neighborhood cafe -- maybe the one where, just the afternoon before,

a friend and I had stopped for coffee. Gunfire would break out in old

Jerusalem where I sometimes shopped before walking along the Via

Dolorosa.

My first months in Israel, during the early days of the Intifada,

truly were a rude awakening but it was an awakening that,

paradoxically, also enriched my life. It taught me not to take my

blessings for granted and made me more open-handed in sharing them.

It made me stop to more deeply consider God’s purpose for my life in

this world.

Every year, at least twice, I revisit those lessons anew -- once

at Lent, a season of penitence that precedes Easter for many

Christians, and again at Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur. Although I am

not Jewish, it was my first passage through the High Holy Days in

Israel that finally brought me to believe in God.

Rosh Hashana, too, is a period of self-examination and repentance.

Except in years like this, when the first day of Rosh Hashana falls

on Shabbat, it begins with the blowing of the shofar, a ram’s horn

instrument that is sounded much like a trumpet.

Rabbi Stephen J. Einstein of Reform Congregation B’nai Tzedek in

Fountain Valley describes the blowing of the shofar as “a call to

conscience ... a wake up call” and the days themselves as “a time to

take a full, personal moral inventory.”

The web site www.chabad.org says, “The sound of the shofar is to

‘awaken’ people to repent and return to G-d.”

It quotes Amos 3:6, “Shall the shofar be blown in a city, and the

people not tremble?” and the Jewish scholar Maimonides, “Awaken, ye

sleepers, from your slumber, and ponder over your deeds; remember

your Creator and go back to Him in penitence...Look well to your

souls and consider your acts; forsake each his evil way and thoughts,

and return to G-d so that He may have mercy upon you!”

Last year, as the High Holy Days were about to begin, Rabbi Aron

David Berkowitz of Congregation Adat Israel in Huntington Beach

reflected, “The experience is a very, very important one. We have to

face God. We think about how our year went, what we did and did not

do [and we] commit to doing what is right.”

In view of the prospect of standing in judgment before God, the 10

days from first day of Rosh Hashana to Yom Kippur are sometimes

called the Days of Awe. They are filled with repentance,

reconciliation, good deeds and prayer, seeking God’s forgiveness and

mercy, for happiness, prosperity and health.

It is a tradition during Rosh Hashana to eat apples dipped in

honey, and other sweet foods, to symbolize the hope for a sweet new

year. Another custom is Tashlich, the symbolic casting of personal

sins into a flowing body of water, preferably one that contains fish,

while reciting biblical verses and psalms.

Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, follows the Days of Awe. It is

the holiest day of the Jewish year, a day of total fasting from

before sundown on the day before, until after sunset on Yom Kippur.

No work is allowed and life’s usual pleasures are set aside. Most of

the day is spent in prayer in the synagogue. It is a day of

reconciliation with God.

Recalling the abrupt deaths of so many on Sept. 11, 2001,

Berkowitz said, “It put people on edge. We don’t know when our time

comes either. We just have to make sure while we’re here we are doing

what we are supposed to do.”

We don’t have to be Jewish for that wisdom to apply. Berkowitz’s

words reminded me of words spoken to Fodor by J.R. Tolkien’s sage

Gandalf in “Lord of the Rings.”

“I wish none of this had happened,” Fodor lamented over all the

misery that had flowed from lust for the Ring and its powers.

“So do all that come to see such times,” Gandalf replied. “But

that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do

with the time that is given to us.”

* MICHELE MARR is a freelance writer from Huntington Beach. She

can be reached at [email protected].