These past few weeks have been a surreal experience.
Wednesday night, June 11, Peni and I boarded an El Al flight from Israel to Miami, followed by a flight to Panama. We travelled to celebrate the wedding of Isaac and Perla. I was at Isaac’s Brit Milah, I officiated his Bar Mitzvah, and he was a student on my Sephardic Educational Center Hamsa Israel experience in summer of 2017. Being under his huppah was extra special, as thirty years ago, I officiated his parent’s wedding. Perla is from Venezuela, so Panama was the “connecting canal” that brought the Los Angelenos and the Venezuelans together. Both the Shabbat and the wedding were beautiful celebrations deeply rooted in Sephardic traditions – prayers, tunes, customs and foods – and genuine love between a beautiful couple.
Our joy was blended with deep concern for what was happening in Israel. For many at the wedding – myself and Peni included – Israel is our actual home. We have kids serving in reserves and friends in bomb shelters. Being away from home is unsettling and nerve wrecking. Isaac and Perla asked me to add prayers under the huppah for Israel, for IDF soldiers, and for the hostages. This was a poignant moment in an otherwise celebratory atmosphere.
From Panama we flew to Boston to celebrate my father-in-law’s 90th birthday and my mother-in-law’s 88thbirthday. This past weekend, the children, grandchildren and great- grandchildren all gathered to celebrate. Like in Panama, this joyous family celebration was blended with deep worries in our hearts over the situation in Israel. Sunday’s celebration was in the aftermath of America’s heroic mission destroying Iran’s nuclear sites. Relieved, but still anxious.
Now Peni and I begin the challenging process of finding a flight back home. As many have remarked, Israelis are the only people in the world who – if abroad while their country is under attack – scramble to get back home in a hurry.
As Peni remarked, in Israel, even as missiles fly over us and sometimes land and do damage, we are free to be who we are: Jews. We are free to wear a kippah, speak Hebrew, attend synagogue or go to Israeli concerts – all without the fear of someone in the streets yelling “Free Palestine” (as someone did to us here in Boston this week).
Peni and I are feeling a blend of Judah Halevi’s poem “My Heart is in the East” and Dorothy’s “There’s No Place Like Home.” We yearn for our morning walk that starts with “Boker Tov,” pauses for a “Café Hafukh” and continues with “Shalom, Ma Nishma”? In Israel – our home – we feel “ba’bayit” – at home.
In Hebrew, “Bayit” means “house” and “home.” We miss both – our physical “house” (apartment) in Herzliya, and our Jewish “home” – Medinat Yisrael. Praying to get back home soon.
Shabbat Shalom
Rabbi Daniel Bouskila is the international director of the Sephardic Educational Center.
