Who here has FOMO for Israel?
I regularly experience a deep Fear Of Missing Out as it relates to Israel.
When I get ready for Shabbos here in Baltimore, I feel like I am missing out on Friday afternoons in Jerusalem, where not only the smell of fresh challah fills the air but you could feel Shabbos itself slowly descending onto the streets.
When I am travelling in some American city not known for its Jewish population and get so excited when I see one Jew, I feel like I am missing out, not only on bumping into old friends everywhere I go in Israel, but being part of the greatest ingathering of all stripes of Jews to have ever taken place in history.
When I see police cars driving through our streets, I feel like I am missing out, not only on feeling secure with fellow Jews ensuring my safety, but of that sense of deep pride and strength that swells up inside me every time I see a young man or woman in green fatigues.
When I read news items that question the ethics of a Jewish state, I feel like I am missing out on living among people, where even the most peace-leaning citizens understand that the question of a Jewish state is not an academic question, it’s existential.
FOMO for Israel.
Before I go on, allow me to dispel any rumors. No, I am not making Aliyah anytime soon.
Also, I am not applying to become the rabbi of Suburban Orthodox…
So now that we cleared the air…
I could retire to Israel and eventually take part in the magic of Shabbosos in Jerusalem and the experience of being a part of history. I could put some of these feelings on hold. I know many of you plan on doing exactly that. But there is something that has no replacement, something that by living here, right now, I, and my children, will miss out on indefinitely –
Living as a part of the Jewish nation. Existing, not as Yisrael, the individual, but as a small part of Am Yisrael.
Let me share with you an example that will illustrate what I am talking about:
How many of you have ever heard of Shannon Lee Potter? How about Telethia Good? No, you did not. These two Baltimore girls have been missing since 1982. Allegedly, every once in a while, a police officer is expected to reopen their file and do a little digging. I’d be shocked if our ever-strapped police force has done so in the past two decades.
Contrast that with the story of Yehuda Katz. I never met him, but I, like many others, know his story well. Yehuda Katz studied in my alma mater, Kerem B’Yavneh, a yeshiva near Ashdod. He was a diligent student, beloved by those who knew him. Being a member of a tank crew, he was sent to fight in Lebanon. The day before his troop was sent into battle, he noticed that his fellow soldiers were scared. He gathered them around him, studied some sections from the Rambam’s Laws of Battle and then led them in song, singing “Gam ki eilech b’gei tzalmovet, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, lo ira ra ki ata imadi, I will not fear evil because you are with me.” The soldiers relaxed.
The next day, his tank was attacked, and he went missing.
Every day after, in our Yeshiva, a prayer was said for his safe return. Every few months, the Yeshiva would host a class in his merit. His picture was put up on a wall so all could see him every time they stepped into the Yeshiva’s library. It was not only in his yeshiva. The same picture hung in the office of Israel’s President, Isaac Herzog.
Yehuda Katz went missing in 1982. Nobody forgot him for 44 years.
Just under a month ago, Yehuda’s body was found. The Mossad and special forces from the IDF, after decades of painstaking research, during one of the most precarious times in Israeli history, tracked him down and in a secret mission, brought him home.
His funeral procession, which started at the yeshiva near Ashdod, concluded on Har Zeisim in Jerusalem. All along the road, men, women, and children, stood in respect for their brother they never gave up on.
That’s what it means to be part of Am Yisrael; you are not an individual, you are part of one big family. And that is something that really only exists in Israel.
In 2000, Robert Putnam wrote the classic book, Bowling Alone, describing the aloneness that is the new norm in America in the year 2000. In 2023, the Surgeon General declared loneliness a national epidemic.
But in Israel, no one bowls alone. Israelis don’t just live on top of one another, they live for one another. Israel is the land in which young men and women, before going into battle, leave notes behind stating how proud they are to have given their life for their nation.
In America, we dream and worry of our family’s future; Israelis dream and worry of the future of their nation.
The reason Israeli boys and girls can go into battle with such confidence, the reason parents are willing to sadly but proudly accept those sleepless nights is because they believe they are part of something bigger than themselves.
Ram Dass shares a beautiful parable about two waves making their way toward the shore. One wave is terrified. It sees the beach ahead and knows that within moments it will crash into the sand and cease to exist. The other wave is smiling, humming a tune as it travels through the ocean. “How can you be so calm?” the first wave asks.
The second wave replies, “You’re frightened because you think you are a wave, and in a few moments your short life will come to an end. I am calm because I know that I am part of the ocean. And the ocean lives on.”
Moving to Israel in retirement, never having served, never having spent sleepless nights not knowing which enemy my son or daughter might be facing, never huddling in a safe room in the basement of my apartment building with my neighbors, means that I would come to Israel as an individual, not as a part of the nation. And that’s something I fear I am missing out on.
One solution, of course, is to make Aliyah.
But for those of us who are here, at least for the time being, I have a different solution. It’s not perfect, it’s not complete, but I believe it could still be a very meaningful way to connect ourselves deeply to Am Yisrael, to transcend our Western identity of ‘me’ to a Jewish identity of ‘we.’ I’d like to make a book recommendation. You may have heard of it, it’s called, Nach. The Prophets and the Writings, Neviim and Kesuvim, some people call it the Bible. This book is the key to bringing us and holding us together.
With the establishment of the State of Israel, Ben Gurion faced many challenges. Security was, of course, the prime concern. The economy followed closely. But he also understood that the Jews streaming into this new country had little in common. How do you create a nation out of Sefardim and Ashkenazim? Chassidim and secularists? German Jews and Polish Jews? It was not an easy task. His solution? Neviim and Kesuvim, the Bible.
Historian, Anita Shapira, describes Ben Gurion’s conception of Jewish identity consisting of The People, the Land, and the Book. In 1953, Ben Gurion wrote: “Only with the renewal of the homeland and Hebrew independence have we been able to reassess the Bible in its true, full light.” He saw these holy books, which for so many years, collected dust on the shelves of our homes and shuls, as finally coming back to life.
He established, on the tenth anniversary of the State of Israel, the Chidon HaTanach, a national and eventually international Tanach competition for youth. Two of this year’s US finalists are members of our shul – Moshe Lewin and Tamar Levy. The Chidon wasn’t just a cute gimmick; he was trying to build a nation, and for all its shortcomings, he was wildly successful.
Ben-Gurion himself would gather Bible scholars and intellectuals for regular Tanach study in the prime minister’s residence, it was known as the חוג התנ״ך בבית ראש הממשלה. The subjects weren’t abstract. They discussed questions of conquest and settlement, the kingdoms of David and Shlomo, and the return to Zion under Cyrus and Darius – biblical episodes that resonated with the astonishing national events they were themselves living through. He sought out military strategies from the book of Joshua that were then implemented in the IDF.
Ben-Gurion was hardly an Orthodox Jew. Yet he understood something that many observant Jews too often forget: Tanach isn’t simply another area of Torah knowledge. It is our national memory. Avraham, Moshe, Yehoshua, Devorah, David, Eliyahu, Yeshayahu, Yirmiyahu, these aren’t disconnected personalities whose stories appear in different books. Together, they tell our story.
Yes, we are undoubtedly missing out by not living in Israel; there is no way around it. But it’s not an all-or-nothing. There is a recipe for success that helped reconstitute Am Yisrael, and we have an opportunity, even here in Baltimore, to become true members of our beloved nation.
I usually like to speak about a particular value and then suggest a number of practical applications of the value. Especially on Rosh Hashana when so many different types of people crowd into our shul, I try to be sensitive to the fact that we all have different backgrounds and capabilities. But I am not going to do that today. I am going to make one suggestion – learn Tanach. I believe that the study of Tanach is something that every single one of us has the ability to engage in. It’s your story; every single one of you. You don’t have to miss out on it.
Over the past years, many Jews have adopted a daily study regimen of one chapter of Nach a day. There is an official schedule that they follow. Following that schedule, today, the book of Jeremiah begins.
Jeremiah, Yirmiyahu, lived through a time that has haunting resonance today. It was a time of over-confidence in military might; he warned what would happen but no one listened, leading to disaster. It was a time of extreme internal division; where the greatest threat to the Jewish People most often lived next door. He lambasted the fake news that spread through the country at lightning speed. He also spoke to the many Jews who lived in the diaspora; letting them know that there was still great value in their Jewish existence. Most importantly, despite all the Jeremiad gloom and doom, he painted a picture of hope. עוֹד יִשָּׁמַע בַּמָּקוֹם הַזֶּה… קוֹל שָׂשׂוֹן וְקוֹל שִׂמְחָה קוֹל חָתָן וְקוֹל כַּלָּה. There will be a time, he promised, of great joy. If we live our lives the way we should, our story can change for the good.
I will be recording a daily five-minute-class on each chapter. There are also tens of wonderful classes on the daily chapter of Tanach that you can found online. We’ll be handing out bookmarks in a few minutes with all this information. I invite you to learn your story and become a part of our nation.
In a moment, we will hear the Shofar. Rav Yehuda Leib Alter, otherwise known as the Sefas Emes, a man who lived at the height of the Golden Age of Polish Jewry, a time in which communities outside of Israel were thriving, recognized something was amiss. Our daily prayers, our yearnings, they were all personal; they reflected the needs and wants of our family and maybe our immediate community. As heartfelt as those prayers may be, they are fractured, divided into millions of individual parts.
The Shofar, he writes, is a moment of unity. The shofar is a prayer, but it is a collective prayer, the ultimate collective prayer, when all our deepest yearnings meld into one powerful and singular cry. We all hear the same sound, an expression of our collective soul, of Am Yisrael. There is nothing more precious to our Father in heaven then the Jewish People uniting as one.
After those 100 sounds go silent, we don’t have to go back to living lives as individual Jews.
We can take that collective voice with us.
Tomorrow morning, we can open the first chapter of Yirmiyahu and begin learning our story. Not his story. Not ancient history. Our story.
We can hear the debates that once divided our people and recognize the debates dividing us today. We can listen to the warnings that our ancestors ignored and ask whether we are making the same mistakes. We can hear Yirmiyahu speak to Jews living outside of Israel and discover that he is speaking to us. And we can read his promises of return and redemption and realize, astonishingly, that we are watching some of those words come to life before our very eyes.
I still have FOMO for Israel.
I imagine I always will.
But perhaps the greatest fear should not be that we are missing out on Friday afternoon in Jerusalem, or on bumping into old friends at the Shuk, or even on the extraordinary experience of living in a Jewish state.
The greatest fear should be that the most remarkable story in human history is unfolding before our eyes – and we don’t realize that it is our story.
So this year, starting tomorrow, let’s stop living in fear of missing out.
Open a Nach. Five minutes a day. One chapter at a time.
Learn where we came from. Learn who we are. Learn what our people have dreamed about, fought about, cried about and prayed about for thousands of years.
And then perhaps, when the shofar sounds and millions of individual Jewish voices merge once again into one great cry, we will hear something more than the sound of a shofar.
We will hear the sound of Am Yisrael.
And we will know that we are part of it.