The first Chadeish Yameinu / Santa Cruz Jewish Community Spiritual Journey to Israel was an amazing success. Our goals for the trip were myriad: seeing the Land, meeting people, lending a helping hand, exploring history and archaeology, learning about our own connection, having a spiritual experience, learning about some of the politics, having fun, seeing the tourist places, eating well, and of course, shopping – all while trying to not “overdo” it and taking time to celebrate Purim (which in Jerusalem is celebrated for two days) and observe two Shabbats.

One of the most beautiful things we did was just sit and watch the play of light on Jerusalem from our hotel. We explored level upon level of Jerusalem’s history, from the Biblical and Temple periods, to its lively market neighborhoods as everyone prepared for Shabbat. We prayed at the Wall and went to “egalitarian Orthodox,” Conservative, Mizrachi and Sephardi synagogues. We visited Shlomo Carlebach’s moshav (community), dressed up silly for Purim, visited a workshop that employs the elderly in crafts, and served a meal at a soup kitchen. We visited the very moving grounds of Yad Vashem, Israel’s Holocaust memorial, and read the graffiti preserved at the site of Yitzchak Rabin’s assassination in Tel Aviv.

We floated in the Dead Sea, shouted echoes off Masada, and visited the botanical gardens, date groves and oasis of Ein Gedi. We saw wildflowers in the valleys and hills – cyclamen and anemones; caught the new shoots of the fig trees and the blossoms on the almond trees. We dined at the Kinneret (Sea of Galilee), on the Dan River, and in a cave. We went birdwatching and waterfall viewing on the Golan, and wandered the stone alleyways of the holy city of Safed and the beachfront promenade of the Mediterranean. We saw the infamous security barrier, and visited the graves of Oskar Schindler, Golda Meir, Yitzchak Rabin, Rabbi Akiva, the Ramchal, Hannah Szenesh, and the Yom Kippur War fallen.

Some of us found our Hebrew names, our talitot, our G-d connection, our Judaism, our life’s path, our Torah crowns, our politics or a good bargain.

But perhaps the most amazing of all were our encounters with the people along the way. We learned from Kabbalistic artists in Safed who opened up our minds, and studied Torah with the Goldfarbs, formerly of the Aquarian Minyan in Berkeley. We met with soldiers on the Lebanon border, who showed us how small the country really is and who put a human face on the military machine. We saw relatives and friends we hadn’t seen in decades, and met new friends who touched us deeply. We sang with a young couple who heard us celebrating Shabbat and stopped by to join with us. We toured the gardens and excavations of Ein Gedi with Daniela and Yehudah, long time residents who were proud to show us around one of the most amazing and successful kibbutzim in the Land.

We learned from Jamal, our Druze host, about his amazing people, whose semi-secret religion reveres Moses’ father-in-law Jethro, teaches hospitality, and calls on its adherents to be absolutely loyal to their host country. We met with Tzvi Griner, also known as Father Grzygrz Pawlowcki, a distant cousin of mine who, as a young boy, survived a massacre in Poland during the Holocaust and who is now a Catholic priest in Jaffa. We sat in pain and helplessness with Noam and Aviva, the parents of Gilad Shalit, the young soldier held captive and isolated by Hamas in Gaza since last summer without any visits, even from the Red Cross. We visited Adina, an Ethiopian Jewish activist and heard her wrenching and heroic story of surviving a harrowing journey across deserts and frontiers to come the land of her family’s dreams. And we met her bedridden old mother, whose sweet smile moved us all to tears. We meditated with Reuven Halevi, a phenomenal Jerusalem mystic with whom we stepped back in time. And we stood on the Mount of Olives with Ibrahim, an Arab peace activist with friends in Santa Cruz, and our beloved guide Phil, a reserve soldier, reciting poetry and songs of peace, with olive branches in our hands.

And we experienced something very wondrous. Over and over we saw that even a small group such as ours, from the far Diaspora town of Santa Cruz, can have a real impact all the way across the globe in the land of our ancestors. Numerous times we heard that people were responding to us in openhearted ways not seen with other groups. And our guide, a long time resident of an Orthodox kibbutz, shared with us that we opened his eyes to another way of being Jewish in the world.

This is Renewal, Santa Cruz style.