Rabbi's Message

Shalom from Jerusalem!

I had an experience this week that made me think about the well-known words that we will read on our Torah portion this week: “Mah Tovu Ohalekha Yaakov - How good are your tents O Jacob, your dwellings Israel.” These words have become the opening words of our morning service in our Siddur. We say them every morning  The ironic thing is that the evil prophet Bilaam, who was hired to curse the Israelites, ended up blessing them with these words. This reminds us that blessings can come from the most unexpected of places.

This week, Rachel and I asked Moshe Gold, an Israeli tour guide who has guided our groups in Israel and come to our community, to take us to a few places around Jerusalem we wouldn’t have visited before. One of the places he took us to was Abu Ghosh. Abu Ghosh is an Arab village in Jerusalem that has a history, since 1948, of remaining neutral during the many conflicts. It is now a place that is known for having the best hummus in Israel. Moshe took us there not just for the hummus (though it was excellent), but to visit a French Benedictine monastery. This monastery was established on the ruins of a Crusader church in the 12th century.

We entered the church and discovered a group of Russian tourists who were meeting with Brother Olivier. Brother Olivier came from France to Israel more than 40 years ago. Moshe said that he first met him when, as a soldier in the IDF, Moshe came to this church to learn about Israel’s minorities, and Brother Olivier spoke to his unit. We listened as Brother Olivier spoke to the Russian group, through a translator, about how Jerusalem is often seen as a place of conflict, but that is not what it should be. Rather, Jerusalem should be, in his words, a place of communication, connection, and harmony. It is hard, he said, with people living in their bubbles today, but it makes it that much more important.

To make his point and to show off the acoustics in the church, Brother Olivier then sang Im Eshkakheh Yerushalayim. The powerful words from Psalm 137 that most often, for us, express the long and deep connection between the Jewish people and Jerusalem. Hearing a Monk sing them in a church, which is located in a mostly Arab Muslim town in the Jewish state of Israel, helped me think about them in the context of today’s Jerusalem, and its rich tapestry of people. You can click here to hear Brother Olivier sing these powerful words: “If I forget You, O Jerusalem, let my right hand wither. Let my tongue stick to my palate, if I do not keep Jerusalem in mind even at my happiest moments.”

Mah Tovu - what a beautiful vision of what Jerusalem is, and can be.