Our first full day...

Today, our first full day of the trip, was intense and amazing and tiring and wonderful. We began in the City of David and hiked Hezekiah's Tunnel, then went to the Kotel, went through the Kotel Tunnels, toured the Jewish Quarter, had some shopping time, and then visited Yad l'Kashish, a nonprofit organization through which elderly people create Judaica and crafts to sell. As you might imagine, especially with jet lag, this was a tiring day for everyone but quite rewarding.

As Elizabeth said, there are few things more rewarding than helping our families to experience Israel, especially the Kotel. We all know that there are challenges at the Kotel--as Reform Jews, we have a place that is sacred to our people but asks us to set aside much of our authentic practice of Judaism to visit it. There were a lot of questions from our young women, most about to become b'not mitzvah this Shabbat, about why we have to enter through a separate entrance, go to a separate side, and wear clothes below our knees to preserve someone else's definition of modesty. There were good questions from all of our participants about the Kotel's present and future, trying to understand the politics behind this place.

I encouraged everyone to go to the Kotel and touch it for themselves. "Let it speak to you, rather than letting the other people define the experience." How wonderful that several mother-daughter pairs touched the wall together--taking a personally profound moment as a Jew and amplifying it by teaching it to your children. It is a reminder that we have to carve out our own meaning beyond the external requirements that feeling alienating. 

The questions continued all afternoon from our young women. Truly this is the legacy from this Kotel visit for me--watching these almost-Jewish-adults wrestle with the feelings of someone else defining how they should appear, act, and be. I asked them if they ever felt pressure at home to appear a certain way, to follow someone else's opinion of what is best. As you might imagine, we had a lot of food for thought today from these conversations.

Regardless of the struggles (physical and spiritual), or perhaps because of them, today was a special day. As one father said this morning, "I can't explain it, but being in Jerusalem just makes me feel full of light." And a mother said, "I don't know what I find so special about this exactly, but I know it is and can't explain it." We walked through some of the most sacred and iconic places in Israel, and while we can't fully put it into words, it has touched us all.

Rabbi Lapidus