In our Torah reading this week, Joseph, sold into exile in Egypt by his brothers, having risen to prominence and influence, reveals his identity at long last to his siblings, who have come to him seeking sustenance.
This week I have particularly enjoyed reading the online observations on our Torah portion by my friend and former rabbinical student Lila Veissid, now Rabbi at Kibbutz HaMa’apil and regional Reform Rabbi for the Hefer Valley region in Israel. And, although it is a conceptual stretch (but then, what rabbinic interpretation isn’t?) and far from an exact parallel, I cannot help thinking of resonance between Joseph’s improbable story and some aspects of Lila’s.
Kibbutz Hama’apil, where Lila’s husband Yossi was raised, is by origin a 1938 product of the HaShomer HaTzair Labor Zionist youth movement, built on land purchased in 1932. In some historical ways HaMa’apil represents a bygone Israel in which I still stubbornly believe – a labor-oriented liberal social democracy, deeply rooted in a legacy of Jewish peoplehood, and progressive. In some ways that makes me, and Kibbutz HaMa’apil, die-hard dinosaurs – but also not, and more on that in a moment.
Meanwhile, let me explain that, following Lila’s ordination at the Rabbinical School of Hebrew College in Newton, Massachusetts, where I was part of the founding faculty, Lila and Yossi and their two daughters took advantage of a program encouraging b’nei kibbutz – literally, progeny of the place where Yossi was brought up – to return to life in the present-day and much-evolved collective community. Let me also explain, in case it is not already clear, that as a Labor Zionist offshoot of HaShomer HaTzair, Hama’apil is, by deep and abiding character, a decidedly secular, even secularist community – in a land where ‘secular’ and ‘religious’ constitute a far more extreme and totalizing dichotomy than we generally experience in North American Jewish life. That pervasive and often stark divide in Israeli society makes it all the more remarkable that, while Yossi was welcomed back to the Kibbutz in his profession, as an architect, Lila was welcomed by the Kibbutz as their first Rabbi and spiritual advisor.
Lila’s position is far from being merely some cute contrivance – she has made it into something far from that. Rather, what Lila now is by profession – a deeply literate and progressive rabbi in a Kibbutz rooted in secular Labor Zionism – reflects a whole new set of voices and long overdue echoes in Israeli society, ones I pray are not arriving in the landscape too late to make the fundamental difference I pray they can.
Rabbi Lila, Rav Lila, has said about her position: “My rabbinic work here has been a delicate dance between the worlds, and involves a lot of listening and constant inner work and fine tuning. I am a member of a kibbutz and live in a region of rural, mostly secular communities. I accompany individuals and families in times of joy and sorrow, offering a Jewish perspective that is often new to them. I am also involved in bridge-building activities with Israeli Arabs, teaching and learning about each other’s cultures, sharing ideas of tzedek (justice) and chesed (compassion and loving kindness). There is nothing obvious about being a liberal female rabbi here in Israel, and every day brings with it new challenges and surprises. I experiment with ancient words and new melodies, modern ideas and chassidic niggunim. When they echo from the lips of those second and third generation pioneers, when I see tears in the eyes of parents singing the priestly blessing with their hands on the heads of their children – that is when I feel truly blessed.”
There is so much naches, as one says in Yiddish (a term deriving from the Hebrew nachat ruach, tranquility of spirit), so much requitement of hopes and dreams and such deep gratification that comes of having having had anything to do with Lila’s path. In Lila two worlds I love are brought together at long last: the world of progressive Torah, and the founding visionary spirit of modern Israel.
In her writing about the moment of Joseph’s revealing himself to his brothers this week, Lila reaches to the prophetic passages paired with our Torah-reading, and particularly Ezekiel’s vision of strong bonds and fellowship among the people of Israel. In the same prophecy, Ezekiel says, “Never again shall they be two nations, and never again shall they be divided into two kingdoms” (Ezekiel 37:22).
I think of Lila, and the sacred and the secular in Israel – and I think of Joseph, the time of his alienation from his brothers and their rediscovery of one another amid apprehensions, misgivings, relief, tears, and embraces. Joseph’s siblings had no place among them for his childhood dreams, there was no such thing in their minds as the future self he dreamt himself to be. With due regard for large differences in the respective stories, and for the long and complex journey of my friend Lila’s path – there was no such thing in Israel, decades ago, as the rabbi Lila is today, much less on Kibbbutz HaMa’apil, where I cannot imagine Yossi in his youth ever imagined he would be a rabbi’s spouse. Sometimes one must travel away from one’s clan – even in some ways be pushed away by it and push away from it – in order to find one’s way back as who one truly is.
“I will take the Israelite people from among the nations they have gone to, and gather them from every quarter, and bring them to their own land. And I will make them a single nation in the land, among the hills of Israel” (Ezekiel 37:21-22).