Israel, the Spectacular, Israel, the Normal

by Ner Tamid | Apr 27, 2025 | Sermons

The other day, Miri, my four-year-old, got on the phone with my mother, her grandmother. “How is Israel?” my mother asked.

“Great!” my daughter replied.

My mother followed up with the classic question, “What was your favorite part?”

I started listening. Would she say it was kissing the kotel? Seeing so many Jews at Birkas Kohanim? Spending so much time with her immediate and extended family?

“The ice cream.”

That’s what she said. “My favorite part of Israel was the ice cream.”

Now there happens to be a really great chain of Israeli ice cream stores called Katzefet, and the ice cream is great. But I was a little disappointed. I packed seven huge pieces of luggage, spent all this time, money, effort, and energy, for my daughter to come home and say she enjoyed Israeli ice cream. Meh.

Kids are a lot more insightful than we give them credit for. I think Mirir was actually onto something when she described the best part of our trip to Israel was the ice cream.

I’ve been to Israel quite a few times over the past few years; each time for either on a mission or to attend a conference. At conferences, I would inevitably meet high-ranking politicians, great rabbis, Jewish leaders. Whether it was in the lectures they delivered, or the conversations I had with them in in the hallways, I would typically walk away from such encounters more educated and inspired and feeling pretty elevated after meeting such special people.

On these missions, we’d typically visit unique places, places like the Nova site, and those tours would be led by people who survived. Moving. Chilling. Inspiring.

Sometimes they’d take you to places that no one else has access to. Thrilling.

Maybe we’d go to some special prayer gathering led by someone with a soul-stirring voice. Transformative.

The trip I just went on with my family from the beginning to the end was the exact opposite. We stayed in Katamon, a predominantly Israeli and Hebrew-speaking community. As a tourist I stood out.

We shopped in the Israeli supermarkets. Which by the way are insane. It’s like someone took all the products in Costco, threw them in the air, and let them land wherever. “Where’s the oil?”

“Ehhhm. The oil is next to the garbage bags.”

Interesting.

We didn’t daven in any fancy, uplifting, unique shuls. We davened in what is known as the Katmon shtiblich. The shtiblich are like Rabbi Eichenstein’s shul. It has better traffic control outside, but inside it is far more chaotic. There is no set nusach in that shul. Whomever gets up to be the chazzan can lead in whichever nusach he wants. It’s like a game. We finish shemoneh esrei and there’s a short pause. Everyone’s guessing, what’s he going to do next? Sefardi one day, Asheknaz the next. Teimani. Hodge-potch of both. I was waiting for some Christian Missionary to get up one day and start leading davening. It was a mess. And was also genuinely Israeli. No games, no performances. Everyone from all walks of Jewish life crowded into a small space with no air conditioning.

There is a book that someone wrote about what he learned from Israeli taxi drivers. These guys, often times with no kippah on their head, spout forth so much Emunah, so much faith, it’s incredible. On our trip, we barely used taxis.

When we arrived, I somehow persuaded my family not to take a taxi. We did what every Israeli does and took the bullet train from the airport to Jerusalem. I made everyone in my family lug this huge piece of luggage with them, even Miri. We got off the train and then we took a bus to where we were staying. Now here they made a mistake by listening to me because I have no sense of direction and I took them – after a stopover flight with seven huge pieces of luggage, after a train ride, on the right bus, going in the wrong direction. We eventually got there. Very sweaty and a little smelly. Again, very Israeli.

We did use one or two taxis when we had to, but there were no inspiring stories, The last taxi I took, the driver – an Arab – told me how has three wives and laughed at me that I only had one. I’m still not sure if he was being honest, just messing with me, or was undercover Mossad agent.

The most famous person I saw on this trip was Natan Sharansky. I walked by him taking a stroll with his wife Avital on Yom Tov. I wished them a Chag Sameiach. They looked at me, shrugged, and walked on.

Again, classic Israeli experience.

So yes, when my little daughter said that “ice cream” was her favorite part of the trip that was a good summary. It was as quiet and normal as can be. And the more I thought about it, the more I realized that normal was the best possible Israel experience I could have given my children.

You see, this Thursday is Yom Ha’atzmaut. We will be saying Hallel in our shul as we always do. There will be celebrations next door at Shomrei which we will participate in. And on Yom Ha’atzmaut we get excited about the gift of Israel, how in just over 75 years, a strip of desert-land has bloomed, how a ragtag group of intellectuals and survivors created one of the most sophisticated armies, how kibbutznkim created a tech hub, and how Torah has exploded in our holy land. It’s hard to understand how people do not celebrate the gift of modern Israel.

But in doing so, in focusing on all these near-miraculous developments, we run the risk of ignoring the ice cream. By placing so much emphasis on Israel, the spectacular, we run the risk of losing sight of Israel, the normal.

Do we say a bracha for Hallel on Yom Ha’atzmaut? Do we not say a bracha for Hallel on Yom Ha’atzmaut? Great question. But that overshadows a bracha you will all be saying in an hour or so, a bracha many say daily. In the second paragraph of Birkas Hamazon, Baruch Ata Hashem al ha’aretz v’al hamazon. Thank you, Hashem, for the food and for the land.

That bracha was not composed 75 years ago, it was said by our ancestors in Babylon and Rome as Israel was a burning heap of rubble. The bracha was said by our ancestors in Europe as the Crusaders and Muslims soaked Israel’s soil in blood. The bracha was said when the land was described by Mark Twain as “a desolation… that not even imagination can grace with the pomp of life and action.”

Yes, we need to thank Hashem for the gift and the grandeur of modern Israel. But we also need to thank Hashem “al ha’aretz,” for the land, for having been given a place to call home, whether we were allowed to live in that home or not. G-d gave us a gift that our ancestors knew to appreciate even as it was barren and even as they lived thousands of miles away. And not just any land. Its stones, its dirt-baked streets, are all saturated with holiness. G-d gave us a shared space where He promised to one day meet up with us again.

When we only focus on the overt and extraordinary holiness – the people and places we’re exposed to on missions, then we lose sight of the fact that this land is holy and is ours and is special. Just because. Baruch ata Hashem al ha’aretz. Thank you for the gift of the land of Israel, Israel, the normal.

One of the most important institutions of Israel, the spectacular, is a Yeshiva called Har Etzion or “The Gush.” The story of the yeshiva goes back to 1943 when Kfar Etzion, an area 2 kilometers from Jerusalem was established. In 1948, one day before the declaration of Independence, after a grueling battle with the Jordanians, the people of Kfar Etzion surrendered. Despite their surrender, the Jordanians, with the help of local Arabs massacred over 150 Jews, including women and children. They burned the Kibbutz to the ground. The bodies of those massacred were left to rot until a yar later when Israelis were given permission to bury them. Yom Hazikaron, Israel’s memorial day, was established on the day before Israel’s Independence Day because of this horrific incident.

In 1967, the land returned to Jewish rule. A group of Jews immediately settled the land and a very short while later a Yeshiva opened, Yeshivat Har Etzion. This yeshiva attracts some of the brightest students in the world, and the vast majority of the students serve in the IDF. The yeshiva is a symbol for all that is spectacular about Israel.

With that in mind, let me share with you an observation made by its founding Rosh Yeshiva, Rav Yehuda Amital. Rav Amital points out that one of the most famous descriptions of the Messianic Era is that of Zechariah, the prophet. He does not describe Israel’s military power, or their spiritual greatness. Rather, “Od yeshvu z’keinim uz’keinos birchovos Yerushalayim.” Then, in that future time, old men and women will sit in the streets of Jerusalem. “וּרְחֹב֤וֹת הָעִיר֙ יִמָּ֣לְא֔וּ יְלָדִ֖ים וִֽילָד֑וֹת מְשַׂחֲקִ֖ים בִּרְחֹֽבֹתֶֽיהָ” And the streets will be filled with boys and girls playing in their streets. Playing, I imagine, and also eating ice cream.

Rav Amital, living on land sanctified by the blood of innocents, land that was redeemed by the strength of heroes, teaching in a yeshiva that was pumping out the leaders of Israel, he understood that the real gift of Israel is eternal, and its greatness is found in its simplest form.

Thank you, Hashem, for the gift of Israel, the spectacular. Thank you, Hashem, for the gift of Israel, the normal.