KUMMUNIQUE

Shalom! We are proud to present another issue of Kummunique.
This issue is filled with Aliyah and Eretz Yisrael inspiration - so enjoy!

In this issue you will find:

1. "They Tried To Destroy Us, We Won, Let's Eat" by Malkah Fleisher
2. "Have I Done the Right Thing?" by Go´el Jasper
3. "Understanding the Exodus Personally: The Kibbutz Haggadah" By Carol Novis
4. "Insight Into the Heart Of Israel" by Jeremy Gimpel and Ari Abramowitz

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1. "They Tried To Destroy Us, We Won, Let's Eat" by Malkah Fleisher

Passover is often degraded into a Jewish gastronomic experience. "Oh no, no rugelach!" "Oy, more matzah?" "Be careful to check and make sure there's no kitniyot in that pasta sauce!"

But Passover isn't about food. Did you hear that? PASSOVER ISN'T ABOUT FOOD.

As I declare war on things like bread crust and cereal flakes, I feel more strongly than ever that Passover isn't a "food" holiday. Passover is an intense, life-consuming meditation, a bold assertion of our odd identity in this world.

We eat matzah, we avoid leavened products like the plague (pardon the pun), we spend hours around the table partaking in symbolic foods, and recalling one wild night we experienced 2,000 years ago. For what?

Sometimes we forget how personal our Jewishness is. Sometimes the Torah seems "legendary", our laws antiquated, our practices ritualistic (G-d forbid!). Passover comes to remind you that it's all so modern, it's all so personal, that it's as if it just happened yesterday - that it's happening right now. Your G-d has come to redeem you - right now. The world is being turned upside down in submission to your formidable righteousness, your intimate association with the Creator of the World - right now. You are being wisked out of your miserable rut and into the clean desert winds of promise - right now.

You tied the lamb to your bed post. You threw the dough together with shaking hands. You sat up all night, considering how to explain everything to the kids. You let tears fall as you heard the screams rise up out of Egypt. You pleaded with stubborn Jews who were too stuck, too lost to leave a land of squash, leeks, melon, onions, and garlic. You felt your shoulders slump as a massive army came to return you to bondage. And you saw G-d bend nature around His love for you.

For one night a year, we return to Egypt. Every year, we're freed, with an outstretched hand, with signs and wonders. We don't "commemorate" the exodus from Egypt. We don't "practice" Judaism. We live it - past, present, future, all fresh, all real, all relevant.

Eat the matzah. Drink the wine. You'll need your strength in the wilderness.


Here's a Passover recipe from a proud Kumah family, the Brenners of Beit Yatir:

Passover Apple Cake

2 cups potato flour
1 tsp baking powder
1 1/2 cups sugar
2 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp salt
1/2 cup oil
3 eggs
3/4 cup brewed, cold coffee (decaff)
1 1/2 tsp vanilla
2 1/2 cups apples or pears, peeled and sliced
1 cup chopped nuts (optional)

Dissolve baking soda in the coffee. Mix dry ingredients in a large mixing bowl, stir in wet ingredients and blend. Add fruit and nuts. Pour into a greased pan. Bake at 180 degrees for 50-60 minutes or until it tests done. Cool cake for 10 minutes, then invert pan over plate. Sprinkle with powderd sugar (optional) and serve warm or at room temperature.

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2. "Have I Done the Right Thing?" by Go´el Jasper
From Israel National News


Every week, with my co-host Dr. Simcha Shapiro, I talk the Aliyah talk on Arutz Sheva's "The Aliyah Revolution" show. We help people understand that Israel is the place for all Jews; that this is the place to raise your kids; that, while the US was great to us, Israel is where the future of the Jewish people is unfolding.

But the other day, I thought, "What about the people who are already here, the ones who have already made the move?"

How do you inspire someone who is already inspired? How do you motivate someone to make a decision they've already made?

I started to think things through and I realized that there is one thing that brings all recent olim together. You might say that it's the mere fact that we're all olim. And that's true, but there are plenty of olim who have now been here for decades.

You might say that many of us were products of Nefesh B'Nefesh. And that's true, as well, and we owe them so much. But we've all gone off in different directions since we got off the flight, right?

Let me offer what I think the one thing is that brings us all together.

Your kids are picking up the language and the culture, but boy do they miss their grandparents. Your community is great, but it's just not the same as fill-in-the-blank (Baltimore, for us). And what I wouldn't do for an American hot dog, with American mustard on an American hot dog bun - preferably while watching an American baseball game.

The one question that brings us together?

Did I do the right thing by picking myself and - in many cases - my family up and moving to this place?

Here I am, a bit over one year since we made Aliyah, and I think about all that has happened to me and to my family. Just a quick review:

Things started happening fast. I received a job offer on my Nefesh B'Nefesh flight. A week after we arrived, my grandmother, zichrona livracha, passed away. I started working for Ruder Finn, the PR firm that represents Nefesh B'Nefesh, and had the opportunity to be "on the other side" when last summer's flights arrived. I became host of The Aliyah Revolution, the very radio show that had played such a major role in helping my family to make Aliyah.

The government decided to leave Gaza, so we all watched thousands of our brothers and sisters leave their homes. And we bought our first Israeli home in the town of Kochav Yaakov. It's a house less than half the size of our house in Baltimore, but my wife says that she wouldn't trade this one for that one in a million years.

My wife gave birth to Yitzchak Yehuda, our little First Generation Yerushalmi, in a delivery room at Hadassah Hospital that had a view of the Temple Mount. My six-year old, Tzviki, landed in a class with zero English-speakers - including the teachers - and refused to speak any Hebrew for the first eight months we lived here. But he also became an English-language bookworm, and has plowed through more than 100 books. And he also speaks Hebrew now.

Late last year, my grandfather, zichrono livracha, also passed away. I arrived in Israel with two living grandparents. Now, just over a year later, I have none.

A couple months ago, Hamas came to power.

My father paid his first visit to Israel - at the age of 61 - to visit us. He and my step-mom arrived concerned about even having a good time in this "third-world country filled with rude people." He left after the two-week visit concerned about how long he could be away before returning for his next visit.

Just a couple of weeks ago, on Shabbat, my daughter Tehilla was hit in the forehead by a rock thrown by a little boy in our town. His father, without an ounce of remorse in his voice, simply reported to me what had happened. But he also went with us to the doctor's house and stayed there until he knew everything was okay.

And just last week, elections. Based on the result, who knows what will be in the coming year.

So, there you have it. A year in review. Many, many important events left out. But as I look back on this first year one thing is clear:

What an intense life we are leading here.

And therein lies a hint about the answer to the question of whether recent olim have made the right decision. How much meaning do you want in your life? How much depth? How much do you want to be sitting on your couch watching Jewish history pass by, versus actively participating in it?

But again, that's just a hint. The real answer will come from each of us. There's no one answer that will fit all of us.

And here's how to arrive at the answer for yourself:

What is the fundamental reason you made Aliyah? It wasn't so that you could hear your kids growing up with Israeli accents when they speak Hebrew; although that's great, isn't it? It wasn't because of the seventeen different happy birthday songs they sing in Israeli kindergartens; although that's amazing, too. And it certainly wasn't simply because of the ability to ski in the Golan in the morning and hang out on the beach of the Dead Sea in the afternoon; although, that's more than possible here.

It's something deeper. For some, it might be the ability to live as a member of the majority in the only place where that's possible for a Jew. For others, it's simply a mitzvah to live here, and so they have decided to do that mitzvah.

For me? I made Aliyah because I believe that the more Jews there are living in Israel, the closer the Mashiach is to arriving. And I really, really want that to happen, so I'm here doing my little part. But that's just my reason.

What's your fundamental reason for making Aliyah? You've got to figure it out and keep it in mind. Tape it to your refrigerator if you have to. But keep it in mind, because this is an intense place. We've all experienced it. We've all felt the exhaustion of no Sundays. The pain of being away from family. The challenges of income not necessarily matching expenses.

Yes, we're here. Yes, we made Aliyah. But what brings us together is the need - not the desire, but the need - to live here until 120 years, no matter what happens along the way. Because we each have big fish to fry. We each have a larger, fundamental reason for being here.

As long as we always keep in mind what that fundamental reason is, we will stay no matter what happens along the way; and we will live long, meaningful lives in the land designated for the Jewish people, the land promised to our forefathers.

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3. "Understanding the Exodus Personally: The Kibbutz Haggadah" By Carol Novis
From the Forward

On Passover, Jews are told to read the Haggadah (literally "the telling") as if one personally had been a slave in Egypt and then redeemed. By individualizing the text, each person confronts the narrative in new ways, in terms of his or her own life and times.

The result has been a multiplicity of Haggadot through the ages, each with its own way of viewing freedom, history and tradition. So different are they that today you can find Haggadot for feminists, for children, for families, and even for vegetarians and Buddhists.

No group, though, has taken the reinterpretation of the traditional Haggadah more seriously than the kibbutz movement, which over the years has produced an estimated 1,000 different versions. Taken together, these Haggadot offer a fascinating perspective on the still evolving social movement.

Of all Jewish texts, the Haggadah had special significance for the early kibbutz pioneers because it dealt with concepts important to their ideology: national freedom and socialist ideals.

"The Haggadah particularly resonated with the early kibbutznikim because they felt that they were like the people who had gone out of Egypt," historian Muki Tzur said. "They saw the Haggadah as a historical text." Tzur, a renowned ideologue of the kibbutz movement, was an editor of the seminal book "The Seventh Day: Soldiers Talk about the Six-Day War." He lives on Kibbutz Ein Gev, located on the shores of the Sea of Galilee.

Tzur has edited a lavishly illustrated book with designer Yuval Danieli, titled "Yotzim B'Hodesh Ha'aviv" ("Going Out in the Month of Spring"), which was published in 2004 by Yad Yitzhak Ben Zvi, the Ben-Gurion Institute, Yad Tabenkin and Yad Ya'ari. It includes extracts, designs and explanations from hundreds of kibbutz Haggadot written between the late 1920s and the '60s. The book was a joint project of four research institutes: Yad Yitzhak Ben Zvi, the Ben-Gurion Heritage Institute, Yad Tabenkin and Yad Ya'ari.

The staggering number of kibbutz Haggadot can be attributed to the fact that few were actually printed; most were simply stenciled in small numbers to be used in a particular year by a particular kibbutz. It was only later that official kibbutz federations published standard versions.

Even the Orthodox kibbutzim made the Haggadah their own, though they did so more through addition than through alteration.

Tzur points out that the first Passovers in Israel were difficult and strange for the early kibbutzniks, and the traditional text didn't speak to their new circumstances.

"The sight of the Passover tables just reminded them how far they were from their parents and their homes. Of course they knew the traditional text, but they didn't use it, because it made them too homesick. It was a very sad evening. They would just sing, and slowly they began to add parts into the Haggadah."

By contrast, in the cities of pre-state Israel, Jews tended to read the traditional parts of the Haggadah quickly and then congregate in the streets to sing and dance — "an unintentional return," Tzur noted, "to the times of the Temple, when Passover was like a big community gathering. In Europe, there was always danger to Jews in the streets. When you opened the door to Elijah, there was fear that there could be a pogrom. It was a night of danger. Here, the Jews felt they could celebrate openly."

Kibbutz Seders have been traditionally communal rather than intimate. (The reason for this is that early kibbutznikim had no families here and so the community substituted for family.)

"It's a big evening, with hundreds of people," Tzur said.

Of course, Seders this big do pose certain challenges. At home, if the kids are bored you can skip a part of the Haggadah. With 400 people, skipping isn't an option.

As the kibbutz Seder matured it developed into more of cultural happening, with classical music, literary readings, music and a choir. The Haggadah became a symbol of the revolutionary vision of the people of the kibbutz and a record of their own experiences.

References to the Holocaust began appearing in Haggadot early on, often in connection with calls for revenge. ("Pour out thy wrath upon the nations.")

Much of the Haggadah came to be seen through the prism of the kibbutz experience.

The Four Questions were recast in a new idiom. One kibbutz Haggadah asked, "When will all the Diaspora Jews come back to Israel?" (The answer was ambivalent: "That question will always be asked.")

Another asked, "Why are there rich and poor, hungry and full, instead of giving a helping hand to others?"

At Kibbutz Ein Harod in the 1930s and '40s, the Four Questions were: "Why do people all over the world hate Jews? When will the Jews return to their land? When will our land become a fertile garden? When will there be peace and brotherhood in the world?"

The section on the four sons, traditionally "the wise son," "the wicked son," "the simple son" and "the one who doesn't know to ask," were also altered frequently. Sometimes they became a satire of people on the kibbutz. The Wise Son, for example, became the kibbutz treasurer; the Wicked Son, the member who arranged the work assignments.

At other times they referred to ideological issues. Such is the case in the 1951 Beit Ha'emek Haggadah, in which the wise son asked, "What are all the political parties, movements and factions in our young country that interfere in matters of state at such a fateful time?"

The song "Had Gadya" ("One Kid"), which seems, on the face of it, to be a simple nursery rhyme about a dog that ate a cat that ate a kid, and so on — ending in the Holy One killing the Angel of Death — was also of particular importance to kibbutzniks, who invented many versions of their own. Not only did they translate it from the original Aramaic to modern Hebrew, but they also changed the focus of the song from the macabre to the ideal. "Had Gadya" became a song in which people cooperated with each other, instead of killing each other, in a socialist model.

"Everybody beating everyone else seemed antisocial to the members of the early kibbutzim," Tzur said, "so they used the same characters, but the cat and dog, for example, all built one kibbutz."

Today, Tzur said, the situation is more complex. Although communal Seders are still held, many kibbutz members choose to hold smaller, family-centered ones instead.

"It's a sociological change. The early kibbutz members were orphans — spiritually, if not in reality. Now, they have rebuilt their families, and these families have grown large."

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4. "Insight Into the Heart Of Israel" by Jeremy Gimpel and Ari Abramowitz
The Land Of Israel.com

A tiny Jewish army equipped with little more than spitballs and slingshots defeated a massive Arab coalition united in their unwavering passion to destroy our beloved Jewish state.

In short, that about sums up the War of Independence. The nations feared and respected the Jewish People, and we walked upright and proud.

58 years later: "We are tired of fighting. We are tired of being courageous. We are tired of winning. We are tired of defeating our enemies." Ehud Olmert. And a Prime Minister was elected on that platform! (G-d forbid).

How could we have sunk to such depths? Where is our resolve?

During our service in various infantry units of the IDF, we encountered a comprehensive cross section of Israeli society and there was one terrifying theme: No one knew who the first King of Israel was! King David would have been flattered at his popularity, but even more disappointed that his beloved flock didn't know of his predecessor, King Saul.

Our fellow soldiers, upon discovering that we volunteered for our service in the Israeli Army, began to question our sanity and beg us for our American passports, expressing their deepest desire to shed their IDF uniforms and leave Israel for good.

Could Ehud Olmert be right? Have we given up on the dream?

As always, we turn to the bible and Jewish teachings for inspiration and understanding. We are approaching the Holiday of Passover. As Sabbath commemorates the creation of Heaven and Earth, Passover marks the creation of the Jewish people as a nation.

When the Jewish people emerged from hundreds of years of slavery in Egypt, they trekked through the desert as G-d tended to their every need. As a fire lead them by night and a cloud during the day, their food was miraculously delivered in the form of Manna falling daily from heaven.

Imagine a young child born in the desert who has never seen a tree bare fruit, or his father work the land. When his food fell from heaven he saw no miracle; just nature in action. For this desert Jew, Manna falling from the sky was just as natural as an apple falling from a tree.

Unfortunately, this is the condition of so many of our brothers and sisters living here in Israel. For them, Israel is the only prism through which they can fathom reality. They were born into this dream, surrounded by Jews their entire lives, speaking only Hebrew and exactly for that reason they don�t see the blatant miracle of the State of Israel. How can one not be honored to serve in the first Jewish army since the times of King David?

There are many causes that contributed to the spiritual bankruptcy, lack of historical understanding, and biblical ignorance of the Israeli masses and the first step to solving this crisis is to acknowledge and understand it.

This Passover, as we celebrate the biblical Genesis of the Jewish nation, we must focus on the future of our people. This Passover, we should not sit next to friends at the Seder table, but next to children. We should go out of our way and invite those who are less connected to our heritage to teach them and inspire them. We must make things real, not abstract.

The Torah is the spiritual blueprint of the universe and when studied correctly we are given the key that opens the door to the secrets of our existence. After surviving the reign of a modern Pharaoh that organized and executed the most horrific persecution in the history of mankind, we are in the spiritual Sinai desert that our Torah spoke about thousands of years ago.

Let this Passover be a starting point. Let us look at our lives with courage and intellectual honesty, however painful that may be. If we find ourselves living in a self imposed exile, raising our children in a nation not our own, is the payoff worth the price? Have we relegated ourselves to a life of mediocrity and compromise backed by justifications and rationalizations?

We are not prisoners to the past and we are not prisoners of the present. Each moment is a new creation, and our greatest gift is that we have the free will to make it our own.

It is our decision. Are we the generation of slaves who perish in the Desert fearing change and the unknown, or are we a free people meriting to enter the Land flowing with milk and honey? Let us prove Ehud Olmert wrong and show him that we are not tired of fighting because unlike him, we understand who we are and what we are fighting for.