By Rabbi Jonathan Biatch

I often think back to my first visit to Israel, in 1970.  We lived on a Jewish agricultural settlement, and we toured the entire land.  As a Jewish teenager in Israel for ten weeks, simply being there for my initial visit mesmerized me.

The people; the food; the banana harvesting; even the Hebrew classes and the anti-cholera injection we had to undergo because of a disease outbreak:  All these things – believe it or not – made me proud to be a Jew in the Jewish homeland.

Then, and since that time, all my visits to Israel have included a visit to the Kotel HaMa’aravi, the Western Wall, the remnant of the Herodian retaining wall that enclosed – and still supports the ruins of – the original Temple Mount.  This symbol of the ancient Temple served as a reminder to me of the strength and unity of our people.

Yet when I attended my rabbinic organization’s annual conference in Jerusalem last month, and I went to the Wall again, I recognized that a transformation of that holy place had occurred.  My liberal Rabbinic eyes now saw different realities.  And it is these realities – and changes – that I wish to address. _

We truly are ONE community of Jews, who share a fate, a land, and a heritage, and what happens in one community – be it a religious one or a progressive one, or an Israeli one or a Diaspora one – unquestionably affects the other.

In 1997, my rabbinical organization, the Central Conference of American Rabbis, created one of the Reform Movement’s foundational documents with regard to Israel.  Entitled “Reform Judaism & Zionism: A Centenary Platform”, it came forth on the one hundredth anniversary of the first Zionist Convention of 1897.  It spoke poignantly about our vision of the land of Israel.  Here is one part of the Reform vision of Israel:

“Medinat Yisrael exists not only for the benefit of its citizens but also to defend the physical security and spiritual integrity of the Jewish people. Realizing that Am Yisrael consists of a coalition of different, sometimes conflicting, religious interpretations, the Jewish people will be best served when Medinat Yisrael is constituted as a pluralistic, democratic society. Therefore we seek a Jewish state in which no religious interpretation of Judaism takes legal precedence over another.”

It is with these words in mind that I consider what it meant to visit the Western Wall last month.

In the past, the Wall’s simplicity, beauty, and magnetism would transfix me.

As a constant pilgrim for over forty years, I am still astonished at the Wall’s ability to change color: from purple to cream to gold to brown to purple again, as the sun made its daily round.

As a student of the land, I marveled at trying to understand Herod’s bringing multi-thousand ton stones to this spot, and fixing them to be immovable throughout the last two millennia.

As a Jew from the Diaspora, I relished the opportunity to observe how the Israeli Jewish religious community treated this sacred place.

As a rabbinical student in 1987, I stood in the center of the Wall’s plaza and rejoiced with eighty thousand other people as the government leaders of Israel, including the President and Prime Minister, read aloud from the Torah.  It was the every-seven-year observance of “Hakhel”, a modern rendering of the ancient gathering of the people to hear the king read the whole Torah from start to finish.

But something there, in the Kotel plaza, has changed.  Something is different.  And this difference has affected me deeply, and my feelings have changed as well.

The Wall seems to have shrunk both in size and significance to me.  And what are the reasons for these decreases?

§         An encroachment of special “for men only” areas.

§         The construction of a new ramp leading up to the Temple Mount that appropriated almost half of the worship space away from the women’s side of the Wall.

§         The expanding First Temple archaeological excavations at the rear of the plaza.

§         And the towering yeshiva facilities and the offices of the Rabbi of the Wall around the plaza’s perimeter.

But there it was: a Western Wall that had diminished in approachability, because for me I saw:

§         The contention about public worship for women;

§         The restrictions of movement, size, and access;

§         And the monopoly of authority of the ultra-Orthodox:

All these factors reduced in my mind the significance of this sacred site to me as a Jew.  I am saddened by my personal sense of loss, but for the moment, as we find the accessible area of the Wall plaza shrinking in size, there is little that we can do.

But there were, by contrast, brighter lights that shone for us.

For despite the unresolved nature of the peace process, the state of Israel is beginning to look inward and prescribe remedies for its societal infirmities.  From debating the nature of the electoral and judicial system and human rights, to addressing Israel’s impact on global climate change, Israelis are increasingly concerned about how their society must change in order to fulfill its aspirations to make sacred the lives of all her citizens.

It may be true that, for me, the Western Wall no longer ignites my imagination or passions regarding the state of Israel.  But the values of Judaism, as we put them to practice in Israel, may indeed hold the promise for the future.  As the Reform Zionist platform said, “While we view Eretz Yisrael [the land of Israel] as sacred, the sanctity of Jewish life takes precedence over the sanctity of Jewish land.”

May the Jewish lives that we lead, and the values that we promote, bring us all to a time and place of peace, for us and for all the world.

Rabbi Jonathan Biatch leads the Temple Beth El congregation in Madison, Wisconsin