Israel's Sixtieth

May 9, 2008
Rabbi Seymour Rossel

Every day you would see this man walking from his home down to the stream. Across his shoulders he carried a pole, with a bucket hanging from each end of the pole. When he reached the stream, he filled the two buckets with water. Then he started home under his burden, with the buckets weighing down his shoulders. And when he reached his house, he poured the two buckets into a basin, so that the family would have water all day long -- water to drink, water to bake with, water to clean with.

But one of the buckets developed a crack -- not a big crack, but a small one. So now, when he reached home, there was only a bucket and a half full of water to pour into the basin. But his family was small, just he and his wife and his daughter, so there was still just enough water to get by.

One night, the cracked bucket came to him in a dream. The bucket said, "I am so sorry about the crack in my side. I am old and my wood is not as firm as it was when I was new. And I am embarrassed that every day you return home and I am only half full. I tell you, for your good and the good of your family, you should buy a new bucket and cast me aside."

The next morning the man lifted his pole and took his two buckets down to the stream just as always. He filled them up, just as always. But as he started to return home, he began to talk to the cracked bucket. "You are wrong to feel badly about yourself. Look around you and see the path we are walking on. Along one side of the path, beautiful wildflowers are blooming, but on the other side of the path, not even grass grows. I know you think your crack is a flaw. But, in truth, what you think is a flaw is a great enjoyment for me. Every day, as I walk home from the stream, you water these flowers through your crack. If you had no crack, or, if I cast you aside and bought a new bucket, my walk would be far less bright and cheerful. I keep you and treasure you because of your flaw."

All of us are a little like that cracked bucket. We tend to focus on our flaws. We tend to see ourselves as imperfect and in need of repair and restoration. But we have to stop and wonder from time to time, could it be that God sees a bigger picture? Could it be that God sees our flaws as marks of beauty and distinction? Even as we strive to be perfect, isn't it true that God created us imperfect, so that no matter how hard we strive, we will never reach perfection? And, if that is so, then isn't this really God's design?

God wants us to water the wildflowers with our presence in this world. It is our daily tasks, the day-by-day use of our imperfections, even as we struggle to be perfect, that God admires and finds beautiful.

Tonight, we celebrate the sixtieth birthday of the State of Israel. It is not a perfect State. It is easy to point to the cracks in its sides, to see the flaws. There are many problems and many issues that have remained with the State since it was first formed so many years ago. It is not only we who see them, truly, the citizens of Israel see them more clearly. For many the problems, are embarrassing and hurtful. For many, the problems are confusing and too diffuse to ever be solved. Talk of hatred and peace sometimes come in the same breath. Talk of war and peace always come in the same breath.

But why should we expect a State, made up of human beings, to be anything more perfect than a single human being? Why should the State of Israel be held to a different standard than any one of us? Last night, the State of Israel came to me in a dream and said, "I am old and flawed. I am embarrassed that after sixty years of desiring peace, I have only been able to mire you deeper and deeper, taken you into one war after another. In the end, I am only ‘half-good' for the Jews. I should be cast aside by the Jews of the world and they should pin their hopes on some new solution to the Jewish problem."

This morning, I awoke and said to the State of Israel, "You have created a garden where there was a wilderness. Whatever they think of you, you have even taught your neighbors, the people of Jordan and the West Bank how to create a garden out of their parched earth and sandy soil. You have made a homeland for the endangered species called Jews, and you have brought many into your home: Yemenites and Ethiopians, Moroccans and Russians -- all of them Jews, all of them in need of you. If you have flaws, they are part of your beauty, the part that you must continually strive to overcome. But we shall not cast you aside, for you have added immensely to the meaning of our souls, you have given us pride on our way home, and you have many more years ahead in which you can continue to make things better for us all."

It is said that God is seated on a throne behind a curtain. On that curtain is the image of everything and everyone, as things would be if they were perfect. In this way, God sees only what is possible, only what would be if all things and all people were able to perfect themselves. It is fitting that God should only see what is perfect. But it is equally fitting that God should know that none of this is real, all of this is just an image on a curtain. God knows the truth beyond the curtain of perfection, that we are all captured in the struggle to attain what is possible for us and what will be better for our world.

God knows that the State of Israel is imperfect. Thousands of years ago, when it was a kingdom, it was imperfect then. And thousands of years from now, God willing, it will still be imperfect. And it will still be worthy; and it will still be glorious; and it will still be deserving of celebration. Happy sixtieth birthday, Israel, may your hundred and twenty years grow to be a hundred and twenty generations. And let us say: Amen.