By Jonathan Marx
After a night of reflection, prayer, and delicious food, we concluded our first Shabbat evening together in Israel with an enlightening session of text study. Rather than focusing on the week’s Torah portion, we looked at different English translations of the Prayer for the State of Israel from Reform, Conservative, Orthodox, and Reconstructionist siddurim. Working in small groups, we looked through the different texts, analyzing similarities and differences in the structure and wording of the prayers. In the process, each person had the opportunity to think about which prayer spoke most to them and, more broadly, about the nature of his/her individual relationship with Israel.
Given how easy it can be for American Jews with little knowledge of Hebrew to simply recite prayers during services without knowing what exactly we’re saying, this exercise provided a valuable opportunity to more thoughtfully consider our feelings about Israel, both politically and religiously. For some people, one of the prayers stuck out especially as aligning with their personal views. For most of us, though, pieces of each text were appealing while other sections left us feeling uneasy.
In addition to considering our personal beliefs about Israel, we managed to examine another important dimension of our Jewish identities by splitting up into groups and thinking about the various movements. We discussed the differences between Reform, Conservative, Orthodox, and Reconstructionist beliefs through the lens of their interpretations of the meaning and role of the Jewish state in our larger worldwide community. From there, each person had a chance to consider their own movement in particular – thinking about how the statement on paper does or does not align with their personal experiences in that movement, and considering what changes they would like to make in order to fit their individual beliefs to the larger denominational mentality.
The final activity of the night, though, provided the most clarity and meaning to each of us and to our cohort as a single entity. After our small-group discussions, we came together in one big circle and each chose a single line (from any of the prayers) that most spoke to us and portrayed our prayers for Israel. Then, one by one, we went around the circle reciting our lines and constructing a unique Nachshon Project prayer for Israel.
Much of our focus this semester, both during Nachshon programming and merely through living in Israel, revolves around exploring a wide range of ideas – comfortable and unfamiliar – and beginning to determine what we believe and care about moving forward. By bringing together individuals from different movements, different backgrounds, and different life experiences into a single group, we are able to examine the people, land, and state of Israel from numerous perspectives. With our collaborative tefillah-writing, we each took major steps towards one of our ultimate goal – finding our own way to love Israel, one line at a time.
