Chalutziut

A friend of mine once complained to me that she feels like she was born in the wrong era. She wished that she was born 100 years ago so she could have been with all the chalutznikim (pioneers) building up the land in the early years of Zionism. It seems like its her dream to drain the swamps and catch malaria. All she wants is to quote the bible around the finjan while wearing short shorts and a kova tembel.

To her, the time of the chalutzim was the honeymoon period for Zionism. Back before we had a corrupt government, before we'd displaced the Palestinians and before we conquered the West Bank. It was a time for idealism, socialism and youth empowerment.

For a while I agreed with her. Not completely, but I did wish that I could have been part of the building up of the land, also to be naive of the consequences of the renewed Jewish presence here.

But this shabbat changed my mind. This shabbat I met the new pioneers.

I spent the weekend in a yishuv near Maale Adumim called Alon. In Alon there is a midrasha called Ein Prat. Now this isn't a standard midrasha. There are boys and girls who learn there. They learn from 9am till 1am at night. They learn the standard Jewish texts like gemara, tanach etc. They also learn philosophy from the greeks to the nihilists and existentialists.

Most interesting was that the midrasha was half religious and half secular. But its not a kiruv place, you don't find baalei teshuva there. Instead its just an open place where every person's opinion is valued and where the fresh views and thoughts of the secular students are just as important as rashi or tosfot.

Now how is this pioneering?

Well I've been living in Jerusalem for a while now but I've also lived here before. As beautiful as Jerusalem is, it's a place teeming with hatred. Everybody here knows that they are correct and that their way of life is right and that everybody else is wrong. They know this utterly and completely. Its just so intense.

But in Ein Prat they are pioneering a new type of Israel. One where everybody takes ownership of their Judaism. There our ancient texts aren't just the property of the religious but the inheritance of us all.

It was the type of Israel that I want to be a part of and that I want to help build. It was the new draining of swamps. It's worth catching malaria for.