Mattot Massay 28 Tammuz 5767 / July 14, 2007

South of the so-called Kotel, on the other side of the pathway up to Al Aksa mosque, now undergoing renovation, is an area that has obtained the sobriquet of Kotel Masorti. It is the section of the western wall that the Israeli Government, after much legal action, has granted with a number of restrictions, to the non-Orthodox movements to use for their prayer services. At least here one is not subject to arrest if one has a mixed minyan.

If you stand at Kotel Masorti you are standing on one of the main streets of ancient Jerusalem. As guides will point out, those little buildings that line the sides of the streets were shops. They will also point out the fragment of an arch above you which has the name of Robinson’s Arch. As you can readily figure out, Robinson is not a prototypical name associated with 1^st century Jerusalem. So who was Mr. Robinson and what was this arch?

First the arch. It was first assumed that it was the remnants of an arch supporting a bridge across the valley between the Temple and what was called the Upper City. Since the excavations after the Six Day War, it is now surmised that it was the arch of a giant staircase built by Herod that led from the lower level, where the stores are, up to the Temple Mount. And indeed if you go to the archeological center nearby that is what you will see in their reproduction of 1^st century Jerusalem.

But Mr. Robinson is even more intriguing. In 1838, Professor Edward Robinson visited Palestine for the first time. He was 46, not exactly svelte, near-sighted and not so incidentally a professor of Scripture at New York’s Union Theological Seminary. He wanted to see the land which was at the heart of what he taught. He was drawn in part because of some of the effusive and exaggerated accounts of the land. One such account, that of William Thomson, published a few years later, was typical. He wrote of the land as a paradise of “lofty mountains, covered with snow,” “wide plains carpeted with gay flowers,” and “lakes, rivers and streams baptized with beauty.” Despite more accurate reports of other travelers, Thomson’s book went through 30 editions in the United States. (It has recently been reprinted.) But back to Robinson. Robinson traveled through the land. It was not the paradise that Thomson described. Indeed, in his dairy he noted that the countryside was marked by “stagnation and moral darkness.” He entered Jerusalem on Easter Sunday and after settling in, went around with tape measure in hand, measuring the walls and ruins of Jerusalem. It was part of his exploration that led him to the arch which now bears his name. Clearly he was not the first to notice the stones jutting out of the wall; he was the first to realize their significance; that they were remnants of a vast structure that spanned the valley below.

Robinson was far from the only American explorer. Some years later, William Lynch, an American naval officer, navigated the Jordan—hard to believe that one can sail down the Jordan; but before agricultural diversion of the waters of the river, the river was much wider and deeper. He made it all the way down to the Dead Sea and then explored the ruins of Masada and when he came across the spring at Ein Gedi he re-named “In honor of the greatest man the world has yet produced,” namely George Washington.

Robinson and Lynch are just two figures in a long sequence of individuals from these shores who had a connection with the Holy Land. Michael Oren in his new book, Power, Faith and Fantasy: American in the Middle East 1776 to the Present, explores in exceeding detail---it is 600 pages long, exclusive of the notes—the relationship of America and of Americans with the area, and in particular with the land of the Bible.

If you visit Israel now, you will undoubtedly encounter pilgrimage groups from around the world. The ones from the United States are predominantly drawn from the evangelical and fundamentalist communities. Indeed, there are now spots on the upper Jordan created just for the purpose of enabling these groups to take their pilgrims down to the River Jordan to be baptized. They have changing rooms and stands and areas designated for the ritual. This represents part of the on-going link that non-Jewish Americans have with Israel; it is the Holy Land, in which they can walk with Jesus. At home they are among the most determined supporters of Israel. And yet not all of us are comfortable with the embrace offered by them and their leaders, be it the late Jerry Falwell or Benny Hinn, who was born in Tel Aviv. (It was believed for a while that he himself is an apostate, but his biography suggests otherwise: his father was Greek Orthodox and his mother Armenian.)

Indeed, what makes their embrace even more problematic is the fact that for many of them, the boundaries of the land are immutable. They take seriously this morning’s text which speaks of boundaries extending to the Euphrates and to Nachalah Mitsrayim, the Wadi of Egypt, that is identified with El Arish in the northern Sinai. They make common cause with those elements in Israel and in the Jewish community that have resisted making concessions to the Palestinians.

Many scholars recognize that the boundaries mentioned in this morning’s reading either represent the area of influence of Israel at its strongest point, or are exaggerated; as archeology provides contrary evidence, For example, the area of Gaza was not a Jewish area, at least not in Biblical times; rather, it was settled by the Philistines and the northern coast was the territory of the Phoenicians.

So we find ourselves wrestling not only with a text but also with those who uphold the text and view it as a promissory note. Tom Segev and others may now at the remove of 40 years express some dismay that Israel conquered the area of Judea and Samaria, the West Bank of Jordan. But 4 decades ago, in the euphoria after the Six Day War, it appeared that the Israeli conquest was a further down payment on the Biblical promise. It is hard to separate oneself from that territory which historically was part of ancient Israel and areas in which Jews had lived on and off for centuries. And vast numbers of Jews have flooded into the area; most around Jerusalem in very comfortable extensions of the city be it French Hill, incorporated into Jerusalem, or in nearby Efrat How can these Jews be displaced at this point in time?

We find ourselves recalling the prophecy offered Rebecca as she struggled with her pregnancy: “Shnay Goyim Bivetnaych, two nations are in your womb.” That is a reality, whether we like it or not. How to live apart and separate from each other and in peace is the trick. And whereas ancient Edom agreed to live on the other side of the Jordan; the nation with which we now wrestle is less amenable to such a solution. And yet to be honest, the existence of Fatahland and Hamasland, the new split of the West Bank and the Gaza into separate entities, doesn’t leave us hopeful that a solution is truly at hand.

As Americans we can view with pride the interest that this nation and its citizens has had in the Land of Israel over the course of its history. But the question for us as Jews and as Americans is what should be the nature of this relationship? Is it Biblically rooted or dependent upon realpolitik? Or is it a combination of both? In this period of recollection, in this period of time leading up to Tisha B’av, the date marking the downfall of Jewish sovereignty in the past, the questions of who is supporting Israel, how and why, are not philosophical issues, but rather of existential import.

Shabbat shalom.