Rabbi Bleich leads Babson students on tour of Israel
By Jason Bedrick/ Special To The Townsman
Thursday, January 27, 2005

On Dec. 29, a group of Babson College students and Wellesley's own Chabad rabbi, Moshe Bleich, joined dozens of Jewish students from around the country on a 10-day excursion through the Israel, the Holy Land of Milk and Honey.

Upon arriving at Ben-Gurion International Airport in Tel Aviv, we immediately boarded buses and headed to Caesarea, a port city built by King Herod the Great in honor of Caesar Augustus. It was amazing to see how archeologists and historians had reconstructed the city as it had looked throughout the ages, from Roman-controlled Judea through the Byzantine era, the Crusades, and into the modern era.

From there, our group spent the next week and a half hiking the highest mountains in the Golan Heights, floating in the Dead Sea (the lowest place on Earth), riding camels at a Bedouin camp in the Negev desert, planting trees in the rain, walking through the ancient roads of Jerusalem and the modern streets of Tel Aviv, and more.

In the mystical city of Tzfat we visited the synagogue of the famous Ashkenazi Rabbi Isaac Luria, known as "the Ari" ("the Lion"), a place where miracles are said to have happened. For example, during one of the attacks against Israel, there was a gunfight outside of the synagogue; just as one observant Jew bowed down at the name of the L-rd, a bullet came through the synagogue door and hit right where his head would have been but a moment before.

One day we hiked to Masada, a mountain fortress which became the last Jewish stronghold to fall in the war against the Romans. Like Caesarea, Masada was built by King Herod the Great. While there, we learned about the difficult choice the Jewish soldiers and their families made to die rather than to be enslaved by the Romans.

We spent another day in Jerusalem, the eternal capital of Israel, in the archeological dig underneath the Western Wall, which served as a supporting wall of the Second Temple, the holiest place for the Jews. In fact, Jews still pray facing the Temple Mount almost 2,000 years after the Romans destroyed it. A few days later, we celebrated the Jewish Sabbath with 50,000 other Jews at this holy site.

In Tel Aviv we visited Independence Hall, the site where Israel's first prime minister, David Ben-Gurion, declared Israel's independence from the British in 1948. Independence Hall is, in fact, a bunker because the Jews knew that the neighboring Arab countries would attack immediately after learning about Israel's independence.

One thing that struck me at Independence Hall was that so many of the biblical prophesies had come true in Israel. For example, the prophet Jeremiah explained that G-d told him, "Behold, I will bring [the Jews] from the North Country and gather them from the uttermost parts of the Earth." (Jeremiah 31:8). When Israel declared independence, Jews from every corner of the world came to Israel to make a home where their ancestors lived, most of all those who had survived the Holocaust in Europe and the pogroms in Russia.

The prophet Isaiah had proclaimed, "The wilderness and the parched land shall be glad; and the desert shall rejoice and blossom as the rose." (Isaiah 35:1) Israel was the only country in the world to enter the 21st century with more trees than it had when it entered the 20th century. Through modern irrigation techniques and the "plant a tree" programs, like the Jewish National Fund, Israel is making the desert bloom.

The free trip was provided by "birthright israel," an organization dedicated to bringing Jewish students to Israel, in conjunction with the Mayanot Institute of Jewish Studies, a Chabad-run yeshiva in Jerusalem. Chabad is a movement of observant Jews inspired by the teachings of the Lubavitcher Rebbe, Menachem Mendel Schneerson. Their mission is to bring non- and semi-observant Jews closer to Judaism through performing mitzvot, which means "commandments" or "good deeds." Chabad shluchim ("emissaries") like Rabbi Bleich leave their communities to live in non-observant communities all over the world to fulfill their mission. In fact, there are Chabad houses in more countries than there are United States embassies.

At the "birthright israel" Mega-Event in Jerusalem, thousands of Jewish students from America, Canada, Argentina, Great Britain, Uruguay, South Africa, France, Brazil, and dozens of other countries get together. It was amazing to see that after thousands of years, Jews everywhere still have a special place in their hearts for the birthplace of their faith, the Promised Land.