Journey Home to Israel

Daily Journal for Monday, November 10, 2008

Questions – particularly those questions individuals need to ask themselves – were the subject of talks by Rabbi Yechiel Eckstein, IFCJ founder/president, as he filmed upcoming segments of his “Journey to Zion” TV program on Monday before an enthusiastic audience of participants in The Fellowship’s 2008 Journey Home Tour.

After seeing off bus loads of fellow Journey Home visitors, teary-eyed as they were driven from their hotel in Jerusalem to Ben Gurion Airport in Tel Aviv for flights back to the United States late Sunday night and early Monday morning, the remaining Fellowship partners embarked on an ambitious three-day tour extension packed with Rabbi Eckstein’s talks and studies.

The personable rabbi chose the site of Jerusalem’s Garden Tomb – where many Christians believe the body of Jesus Christ was entombed and then miraculously was resurrected three days later – for his Monday morning talk on anti-Semitism and the persecution of Jews.

Drawing a parallel between the death and resurrection of Jesus (which he labeled the “core of Christianity”) and the suffering and persecution faced by Jews throughout their history (especially during the Holocaust when 6 million Jews were murdered), Rabbi Eckstein said, “What makes us Jews is that we would always rise – there was always resurrection.”

Addressing the significance of Genesis 12:3 (“I will bless those who bless you [Israel], and curse those who curse you”), the rabbi said, “There are forces out there who want to curse the Jewish people … but God says, ‘You shall not curse them for they are a blessed people.’” He stressed that those societies who cursed or persecuted the Jewish people are no longer around while those who provided solace and safe haven to the Jewish people have been blessed.

After chronicling centuries of persecution of the Jews, Rabbi Eckstein remarked to his mostly Christian audience that it takes acts similar to their support of The Fellowship, Jews, and Israel to break down barriers. He cautioned that such acts of kindness from Christians might be met by Jewish skepticism, explaining, “Jews are reluctant to embrace, to let their guard down [because of years of persecution by some Christians]. We have our antennae that come up like Martians, and we ask, ‘Are you for real?’”

During the afternoon filming, with a panoramic view of the Holy City as a backdrop, the rabbi focused on two questions asked by God in Genesis. The first question, asked after Adam sinned and tried to flee, was “Where are you?” The second, asked after Cain killed his brother and tried to flee, was “Where is your brother?”

Rabbi Eckstein said God continues today to ask questions such as "Do you know where you are?” and “What is your relationship with me?”

Stressing the importance of two commandments – to love your God with all your might and to love your neighbor as yourself – the rabbi told his attentive audience, “Only when we are willing to face one another  … Christians and Jews … and extend our hand and outreach toward each other and heaven, will we hear from God.  Only when we face our fellow human being and see that other person in the image of God, with hands stretched out to each other and God, will we hear God’s voice.”

Rabbi Eckstein urged Fellowship partners to “look at life with a sense of awe, a sense of wonder, and with a sense that this is new” and suggested they daily record their blessings. “Ask yourself, ‘How have I been blessed today?’ – and then always be grateful.”