Return Again

Over the years, my friends and teachers Rabbi Paula Marcus and Gitanjali Lori Rivera have taught me this beautiful, evocative tune: "Return Again" by Neshama Carlebach.  We've sung it in worship at my church in California, and it lingers now in my prayers as I wander the hillsides and cities of Israel and the Galilee.   

Return again, return again,
return to the land of your soul.
Return again, return again,
return to the land of your soul.
Return to who you are,
return to what you are,
return to where you are born and reborn again!



Standing on the summit of Mount Tabor this morning, with my friends Ghassan and Abed Alsalaam Manasra, I thought of the song again.  I heard it.  I felt it in my heart.  In the States, I sing the song as a kind of metaphor: the land of the soul being the home of God's love, the place of safety and grace.  But this morning, I heard something else, something more grounded, more physical, more bounded and earthy.

Ghassan and Abed had taken me earlier to Indur, their family's beloved and ancestral village, about 7 miles southeast of Nazareth.  It's a strikingly beautiful hillside, rising above acres and acres of fertile, green land.  And all of it, all of Indur was leveled, confiscated and "depopulated" during the 1948 Arab-Israeli War.  85% of the Manasras fled on foot for Jordan (where they still live as refugees); the others moved up to Nazareth, adapting there to a urban life and culture.  To this point, they have no recognized "right" of return.

A Tree Keeps Watch: Indur in the Galilee

What we saw this morning were stone ruins, foundations mostly, left behind from the 40s.  Ghassan pointed to the hills in the distance, at least two or three times, and told me that all these lands, all this farmland belonged to his family's village.  We stopped briefly by some large, wild cactus; and Abed described the way the whole family comes down from Nazareth to harvest the fruit when it comes in in spring.  Watching their faces, Ghassan's and Abed's, it's clear this land is still very much the land of the soul, their soul.  It's still who they are.  They speak of it with reverence and respect, almost as one speaks of an elder in the family or scripture itself.

When we reached Mount Tabor and looked across the valley to Indur, to its fertile lands, I hesitated to ask the question on my mind.  But then I did.  I asked Ghassan if he thinks still of returning, returning to Indur and living in the holy lands of his ancestors.   

Abed and Ghassan atop Mount Tabor

Quickly, there were tears in his eyes.  "Yes," he said.  "I cannot help it.  It is so much a part of who we are."  And behind him, a hand on his shoulder, Abed nodded too.  "Yes.  We want so much to go back."  Again, I'm struck this week by how much the land means here, how critical land is to the conflict.  It's not at all a religious conflict, not this one, not in Israel and Palestine.  It's about land: whether the land can be shared, whether the land is meant to be shared, whether people with varied histories can live together in the same land.

I'm way out of my depth here.  But the whole question of 'return' seems so crucial.  It's certainly so for most Israelis and Jews I know: the promise of return is deeply empowering and profoundly encouraging.  It's very much about land and culture, a culture here, on this land.  Returning here - to live forever or to visit - Jewish friends come back to "who they are" and "what they are" and "where they are born and reborn again."

I wonder if this isn't exactly the same for Ghassan and Abed and their families.  They too hunger for the land, yearn for return, and dream of the culture, the life, the songs that spring from the land.  Ghassan and Abed 'return' to the abandoned, 'depopulated' village now - and they do every so often - because it's the land of their soul, it's who they are.

Indur's Hillside and Farmlands, from Mount Tabor

Is it possible that Arab and Jew hunger for the same land, need the same holy connection?  Is there a way to learn one another's songs, to hear one another's stories, to feel one another's connection TO THIS LAND?  Maybe what makes a land HOLY isn't it's history or the sacred symbols scratched into buidlings--but its capacity to bring diverse peoples together.  To build together.  To sow seeds together.  To harvest together.  To bleed and hurt and heal together.  

It seems to me that the question for Palestinians and Jews these days is less about boundaries, green lines, land trades, etc.  It's more about the land itself, honoring it, receiving it as GIFT (and only as GIFT).  And then it's about mining our varied traditions (ethical, religious, moral, artistic) to find tools and courage for sharing the land.  And that, in the end, will make it holy.

Return again, return again,
return to the land of your soul.
Return again, return again,
return to the land of your soul.
Return to who you are,
return to what you are,
return to where you are born and reborn again!