I spent the year after college in Israel on a community service fellowship called Project Otzma. We worked in various places around the country, immersed ourselves in Israeli life, and took occasional trips to see sights and to hike. On one trip we were in the far south, hiking and staying in the Negev desert, just outside of Eilat. So, our whole group—I think there were about 60 of us—is hiking with a guide and a couple of young army medics, through a wadi, a narrow, wind-y canyon between sandstone cliffs that reach up on each side of us. There are occasional turn-offs, but for the most part, we’re just following this path through the desert between the walls. There’s only one way to go, and that is, eventually, toward the road and toward the Red Sea. And, there’s another group who are hiking the same path that day: a group of Israeli middle school students, and they are loud and (frankly) pretty annoying. So, as a group we agree to hike as fast as we can, to put some distance between us and them. Now, I am slow. My legs are short, and I’m not particularly athletic, but I love to hike, so I’m doing as much as I can to keep up with the group. I’m near the back of our group, with a couple of friends, and one of the medics—and we’re all hydrating as much as we can, and (you’re all going to remember that I shared this in my very first sermon) I really have to pee. So, I tell my friend Naomi, and I tell the medic, that I’m staying behind for a moment, because the only thing I can do to get some privacy in that wadi is to wait for our group to go around a curve. There are no trees to duck behind, and there’s no way to cut off from that path. I know the group’s going fast. So, as soon as I’m done, I start walking as fast as I can to catch up. I don’t find them around the first bend or the second bend, but the wadi’s full of curves, so it makes sense that I don’t see them, there are these walls! There’s nowhere else to go anyway, so I just keep hiking. I’m not catching up with them and not catching up with them, so, me with my short legs, I hike faster and faster to try to find my group. I get to a point where there’s a drop of about 8 or 10 feet, where you can kind of rock-climb, shimmy your way down, so I figure out what to hold on to and I let myself down the drop. For a moment, I’m really proud of myself for having figured out how to do that all on my own. And then it occurs to me that there is no way a group of 60 people could have all gotten down that drop without my having caught up with them. 2 I have been following the only path through that wadi, and my group is not on it. I remember thinking to myself very clearly: “What should I do now? Maybe I should panic.” The words you use to describe a situation, even if the words are just in your head, are a powerful thing. The moment I thought the word “panic,” my breath got short. I started hyperventilating. My eyes filled up with tears. I stopped being able to think clearly. I stared up at that cliff I had come down, and I realized I could not possibly get back up. And then, thank God, something else in my brain clicked on. Some other part of me said, again very clearly, “Or maybe I shouldn’t panic. Maybe I should stay calm and figure out what to do.” And, it worked. The words worked. I studied the situation and realized that there were all those middle school students coming up behind us, and I could always join their group if need be. And that, anyway, this path had to come out on a road eventually. At just that moment, after I had calmed myself down, a woman came along, hiking on her own. I explained my situation, and we agreed to hike out of the wadi together. We had just started out, when we heard my group’s guide calling my name from far away. We called back and he came jogging up to the top of that little cliff I had come down. It turned out that he had taken our group into some hidden cave that was camouflaged by an optical illusion in the rock face. After they’d been there for a while, resting, my friend Naomi had suddenly wondered where I was. The guide had jogged in both directions up and down the path to try and find me. He said that I had hiked so fast and come so far that, if we hadn’t shouted back exactly when we did, he wouldn’t have come any farther. He couldn’t imagine that I could have made it that far alone. He told me not to move and jogged back to retrieve the rest of the group. A while later, my whole group appeared and helped each other, one by one, down that cliff to join me on the path at the bottom. Lately, in our country and across the globe, it can feel as though our groups have gone off the path we thought we were on together. • Children separated from parents. • LGBTQ rights slashed. • Reformulations of the core democratic definitions of the State of Israel. 3 • Challenges to previously established women’s rights. • Mass shootings. • Refutations of national intelligence. • Longstanding relationships and animosities with foreign powers upended. • Growing outspokenness among racists, anti-Semites, and other xenophobes. To name a few. Whatever our political inclinations, and however much we might have thought that our path was obvious, others whom we thought and hoped were journeying with us have turned another way that we could not have imagined. It may be tempting to say to ourselves, “Maybe we should panic.” And, I’ll tell you, that thought does cross my mind, and those words have power over me, just like they did that day in the wadi. But, then it’s time to say those other words to ourselves: “Or, maybe we should stay calm, and figure out what to do.” It is time to study the situation, find partners for the next stage of the hike, and figure out how to move forward. One way or another, we are on a trail that comes out somewhere, and we had better walk it calmly and deliberately, with whatever allies we find, and think through our options. Tomorrow night, in the Jewish calendar, begins the holiday of Tisha ba-Av, which is the anniversary of some of the biggest tragedies in Jewish history. Among other things, Jewish tradition holds that the first Beit Ha-Mikdash, the first great Temple in Jerusalem, that was built by King Solomon, which was the center of Israelite worship, was destroyed on that day by the Babylonians. The second great Temple, which was built to replace the first one, was destroyed on that same day 500 years later by the Romans. In each case, the entire way of life of the Jewish people up until that point was upended. The ancient rabbis ascribed these destructions, and others, that took place this day to sinat chinam, the baseless hatred among people who should have been in it together. When the rabbis had to decide how to mark this day each year, they declared it a day of mourning. The tradition is to sit on the floor, fast, and read the biblical book of Lamentations, Eicha, yoshvah vadad ha-ir rabati am… 4 Alas! Lonely sits the city Once great with people! She that was great among nations Is become like a widow; The princess among states Is become a thrall. The rabbis said: mourn; every year, on this day in history: go ahead and mourn. And then, get up and eat and get on with things that affirm justice and life. Those rabbis looked at the shambles of the culture they thought they knew, and they created something new. They re-created their society in the face of their current reality, creating a Judaism rooted in learning and mitzvot: the actions of everyday life that we use to work to build a just world. Tomorrow morning, in our annual Torah cycle, we’ll read the beginning of the book of Deuteronomy, the beginning of Moses’s final series of speeches to the Israelites before they go on into the Promised Land without him. In these speeches, he retells the story of the Israelites’ journey to them, creating new language and framing for where they have been and where they are going. He tells them about moments along their journey when they panicked, and reminds them, “God carried you as a parent carries a child, all the way that you traveled until you came to this place… and God goes before you on your journeys—in order to guide you on the route you are to follow” (Deut. 1:31-33). That is the language and framing with which the Israelites make it to the Promised Land, even without their leader. And, it’s how we, together, will get out of our wadi. We stop our panic, when it hits, we see who else is on the path with us. Together we study our situation, we listen for the calls of those who want to find us, and we carry each other when we need to, as a parent carries a child, and we do the things together that will build justice and shalom. I am so glad that we will have the opportunity to walk on this journey together.