Our Journey Continues
I don’t know how to put all this in words. I will try.
On the second day we went to Jerusalem on a tour planned by Rav Hannan and Uri from our program.
Rav Hanan brought us to his little garden in Jerusalem and told his incredible story of being a settler who after many years met some Palestinian neighbors. It was the beginning of a huge transformation. He found that everything he had ever been taught about the Palestinians was not true. He described the months of confusion, of cognitive dissonance and the slow transformation to someone who wants to live together in peace. He began a program with a neighboring Palestinian called Roots which brings together settlers and Palestinians to meet- to eat together, to begin to see each other’s humanity. He is a passionate man and a courageous man and his story of having to change his mind and heart broke everyone open. He left the settlement recently to live in Jerusalem but still continues his work.
We continued to a school founded by a Muslim man who fell in love with a Jewish woman. Their families were angry and upset but the love was strong, and they married and had a child. Because there were no schools for mixed children or Palestinians and Jews together, they started one for their child. It began as a kindergarten and has now grown to a school from kindergarten all the way through. We drank tea and listened to this beautiful man speak of the love that was stronger than the walls.
We drove through a very conservative Orthodox neighborhood just to see the way that so many different people from different ways of being and religions live so close together. And then to an incredible restaurant run by a Palestinian man where we feasted - FEASTED.
We had a tour of Ein Kerem, a neighborhood where Uri, one of our Jewish participants lives. He planned the tour, wanting us to see that he lives somewhere that was once a Palestinian village. It is on the outskirts of Jerusalem and was depopulated in the Nakba. Our tour was led by a Palestinian man who spoke to us of the Nakba, or the Catastrophe as the Palestinians call what is liberation day for the Jewish Israelis.
Finally, to the wailing wall where we all mixed with the pilgrims, many in our group going to that sacred wall where so much pain and prayers and yearnings have been imbued in the stone. There was a flock of birds circling above. Something gorgeous to watch.
We drove back to the West Bank for the evening. We ate and at last sat in circle with three of our Palestinian participants. People were exhausted and as they shared their names and where they were from the tears started to flow. It is a lot - to witness the day before the horror of October 7th and then to be exposed to other perspectives in this land.
I think I just want to give you a day by day so you can imagine what people saw and heard before we even got to the retreat. The intensity of the tours, the loving hospitality of our group, the thought and care that went into sharing perspectives. It was overwhelming. And that was only day two. We fell into bed, no one knowing what was coming next but open, curious, holding it all. I felt so proud of this group (the visitors) who really were with everything. The principles of Radical Aliveness carried us. We know we don’t know. We are curious. We are willing. Our hearts want to feel, and our minds want to know.
Once again, the participants from our group immediately felt they were with fellow travelers. People who would hear, people who would listen, people who would be open to holding everything just as we have asked our group here to do. We are committed to complexity.
It was a day. It was another incredible day. And so funny now to think it was just the beginning of something so epic.
I will write more when I can. For now, again I can say - thank you, Toda, Shukran for this life, for humans who are willing. Once magic is witnessed it cannot be forgotten. Magic is possible. It is all around us. Even in the midst of horror. I don’t say that lightly - the people who are leaders in this group have all experienced horror. And yet we make magic together.
A line from my favorite song - “and if ever I can’t see the magic around me- please take my hands off my eyes”. From my loving open grateful heart. Good night from here. ann
