The big news in Israel this Rosh HaShanah was captured on Sunday’s Israel Television news report. A group of teenage girls huddled together at the Western Wall in Jerusalem on Saturday night, breathlessly talking to television cameras.
One girl described how she caught a glimpse of American pop singer Madonna in a limousine. “I really saw her, it was her.” The pop diva, apparently in search of a quiet time to visit the Wall, didn’t realize that late night Selichot services would draw the praying masses. Her limousine arrived and then turned around and left the wild scene.
On a five-day visit, Madonna was one of more than 2,000 Kabbalah enthusiasts who traveled to Israel during the High Holidays as part of a program sponsored by the Los Angeles-based Kabbalah Center. Visitors, Jews and non-Jews, came from an estimated 22 countries.
Their aim was “to absorb the strength of what they say are extra-powerful energies emanating from the Holy Land during the period between Rosh HaShanah and Yom Kippur,” according to a story by the Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
Miri Citron was born in Israel and grew up in the United States. After exploring Buddhism and Native American spirituality, Citron found her way to Kabbalah, according to the JTA story. “For me,” she said from Tel Aviv, “this is coming back to my roots, my Jewish roots as well.”
That, not Madonna, is the real story here. Beyond the stolen glances in the back of a limousine or Marla Maples’ trip to the Galilee to visit graves. Beyond $5 bottles of Kabbalah mineral water. Beyond the arguments over whether celebrity interest cheapens and commercializes what is a deep and authentic Jewish discipline.
Beyond all that, there is something huge happening here: Jewish souls are finding an open door on their path back to Judaism.
I realize that many Jews are leaving Judaism, consciously or not, through intermarriage or disinterest or a feeling of spiritual hunger. But many of them, I believe, are seeking a way back. And though Orthodoxy is the right way for many seekers, for many others it doesn’t jibe.
Therefore, as Rabbi Tirzah Firestone wrote in her spiritual autobiography, “With Roots in Heaven: One Woman’s Passionate Journey into the Heart of Her Faith”: “It is vital to offer Jews a sense of identity and pride, to teach them to access the depths of their religion and to model Judaism as a viable spiritual path.”
I wish Firestone could have been in Milwaukee on Sunday, Sept. 12, as our Jewish community weighed in on the perennial Jewish debate, “Outreach or inreach? Should the Jewish community focus on gathering the unengaged or should it concentrate its energy on the engaged?”
Shalom Milwaukee: A Festival of Jewish Culture answered the ubiquitous question with a resounding, “Both.” And it was brilliant.
The festival, co-sponsored by the Milwaukee Jewish Federation and the Harry & Rose Samson Family Jewish Community Center, wasn’t selling Kabbalah. Rather it offered a free, accessible, non-judgemental celebration of all things Jewish.
In the rays of the bright, hot sun, the grassy grounds of the Karl Jewish Community Campus were crawling with Jews of all shapes, races and styles. There were well-dressed Jews and sloppy Jews, “granola” Jews and banker Jews, Jews in black fedoras and Jews in tank tops, young and old, gay and straight, American-born and immigrant.
And, I suspect that strolling the marketplace or polishing a shofar or scaling the climbing wall or listening to music or eating falafel were Jews who hadn’t visited a synagogue in years. And Jews who don’t insist on raising their children as Jews. And Jews who find more comfort in Buddhism than Judaism.
And maybe there were Jews who, that sunny September day on the Karl Jewish Community Campus, began walking their path back to Judaism.
