For each of us, home is where our heart is

Of all the unexpected visitors I ever received, none even come close to the surprise I got in the summer of 1994.

I was teaching a course on Jewish values deep in the mountains of Pennsylvania, near Indian Orchard, at Camp Moshava. We were in the middle of an intense discussion on Jewish ethics, when I noticed three men standing at the entrance to the lodge. Their features were Far Eastern and they were standing patiently at the door, taking it all in.

You must understand, we were really in the middle of nowhere. The group of teenagers sitting before me was part of a very special group of kids who had been chosen to join a Jewish experience away from all the hustle of computers and cell phones, television and stereos. I couldn’t imagine how these three fellows had ended up here.

“Where are you from?” I asked.

“We come from Tibet, though we are living in Nepal right now.”

What really shocked me was their next question: “Are you Rabbi Freedman?” I was amazed. They were actually looking for me, having arrived all the way from Tibet!

It transpired that they were followers of the Dalai Lama who, along with 80,000 followers, was forced to flee Tibet in the early 1950s, when the Chinese had taken over their country and destroyed the infrastructure of their Tibetan religion.

Recently, they had begun coming to terms with a new challenge. Having lived in exile for nearly 50 years, a new generation was coming of age who had grown up in India and never saw Tibet. So they were trying to figure out how to keep the dream of Tibet alive, in the hearts of their children who had never seen or experienced, the homeland they still longed for.

So the Dalai Lama decided to consult the experts. Who better to explain how to stay connected to a land in exile, than a people that managed to retain a dream over 2000 years, finally realizing their goal and coming home after nearly 50 generations?

The Dalai Lama then sent more than 300 students all over the world, to major Jewish organizations, particularly Zionist youth camps, to ask for help to learn how to respond to this dilemma. Somehow, after hearing about Camp Moshava, they had been given my name, and had sought out our discussion group.

I was stunned by their question, and didn’t have the heart to tell them that I really had no idea how we had survived for so long, against so many obstacles, to finally come home. After a long discussion, I told them I hoped they would not have to wait as long as we did.

In 1948, so beyond statistical probability as to be off the charts, the State of Israel was born. After 2,000 years of dreaming and wandering, the Jewish people were finally coming home. Never in history had an ancient language been reborn as a modern, spoken vernacular. Yet, today, three year olds in the streets of Tel Aviv are speaking the same language their ancestors spoke thousands of years ago.

What is the secret of our survival? How is it, after so long, that we can walk again the ancient cobble stones of the Old City of Jerusalem, or climb Masada, still hearing the echoes of prayers offered so long ago, while the Roman Empire has been dust for 15 centuries?

There is an exchange in this week’s portion Va’Yechi, that is as powerful as it is puzzling, and may contain the secret of Jewish survival.

Yaakov, aware that his death is near, has one request: He wants a promise from his beloved son Joseph, that he will not be buried in Egypt, but rather, that his body will be returned for burial in the land of his fathers.

For thousands of years, Jews have attached enormous significance to the place of their burial, viewing interment in the land of Israel, and especially in Jerusalem, as the highest merit. Even when Jews could not be buried in Israel, they often managed to have a small bag of dirt, from Israel, placed with them, or under their heads when they were buried. Why this fascination with burial?

If the essence in Judaism is not the body, but the soul, what does it matter where the body is buried when it is, in the end, only temporary, and survived by the spirit?

This request of Yaakov is so important, that he forces Joseph to actually swear that he will indeed fulfill this promise. And it makes such an impression on Joseph that he, too, in the final words of the book of Genesis (50:24), swears his brothers to perform the same kindness for him, and to one day not forget his bones in Egypt when they return home….

Why this pre-occupation with death and burial? Why is this so important that it is the concluding topic of the book of Genesis?

Indeed, all the way back in the beginning of everything (Genesis 3:19), the last words G-d tells Adam before exiling him from the Garden of Eden, are: “Me’Afar Atah, Ve’El Afar Tashuv” (“You are from the earth, and you will return to the earth”).

Why this pre-occupation with land?

Perhaps it is not surprising, our connection to the land; after all, the first challenge G-d ever gives a Jew is his words to Abraham: “Go … to the Land that I will show you…” (12:1)

Why, in order for Abraham to achieve his mission, did it matter where he was? One would have expected that what was really important was who he was?

And indeed, not long after Abraham fulfills his end of the bargain, he loses his only heir, his nephew Lot, to the lures of Sodom, and so G-d makes him a promise: “All of the land that you see will I give to you and your offspring, forever. And I will make your seed like the dirt of the land…” (13:15-16)

What a strange blessing! Your children will be like dirt.

The Jewish story really does begin with Abraham. Four thousand years ago, one man, alone in a morass of pagan idolatry, believed it could be different. Life didn’t have to be idols and child sacrifice, and the worship of the cruelty of nature. The world could learn to change. The beginning of a society based on an objective ethic, that might did not necessarily make right. Perhaps one person could teach the world, not by preaching, but by example.

Judaism has never been about telling anyone what to do. In his entire life, Abraham never tells anyone else how to behave. Even prior to his death, and after Sarah’s, he never tells Yitzchak how he is meant to be. Abraham is the example par excellence of teaching by what you do, and not by what you say.

And G-d tells Avraham that if he wants to be His partner, to be a model for what the world could be like, he needs to let go of where he is. If “through you will be blessed all the families on the face of the earth,” then you need to be separate.

People have often misunderstood the essence of what Judaism is all about, because although Judaism is a religion, it is also a nation. And to be a nation, you need to have a home. To be a role model, you need to be visible. Judaism dreams of creating an entire society based on ethics and love; based on Torah. And that can only begin in our own land; only in our own place can we truly build a model society as it was always meant to be.

And being apart isn’t just about how the world sees us; it is also about how we see ourselves. When you are in a separate place, it forces you to consider who you really are.

Further, Yaakov wants to be buried in the land of his Fathers, because if I don’t know where I am from, I don’t really know who I am. Avraham, Yitzchak and Yaakov, Sarah, Rivkah, Rachel and Leah, are not just part of my past; they are a part of who I am today.

For the last fifty years, the Jewish people, especially in the land of Israel, have been going through an identity crisis. Who are we? Are we a Jewish people, or are we Israelis?

Joseph, in these last few portions, represents the first Jew to experience exile.

When Yaakov commands Joseph to take him home to the land of Israel, he is making a statement not of where we are, but of who we are. Our place, in the end, is at home, in the land of Israel.

And what does it mean to be buried in the earth? The blessing of being ‘like the dirt,’ given to Abraham, reflects the fact that no matter what one does to the earth, it can never be destroyed. Burial represents the belief in eternity; where I choose to be buried represents where I really want to be, and therefore, who I really am.

At the end of the book of Genesis, the family of Yaakov is about to become the nation of Israel. Becoming more and more entangled in the culture and land of Egypt, Yaakov, and then Joseph, reminds them that one day they will return home. And that will depend not on where their bodies are enslaved, but where their hearts and souls freely yearn to be.

For two thousand years, at every wedding and every funeral, at the entrance to every home, and after every meal, we dreamed of Jerusalem. You learn a lot about a person from what their dreams are, and the same holds true for a people. Our bodies were in exile, but our hearts never left home.