Noah’s Ark As Sanctuary: Longing For Home

Sign: Kissufim Neighborhood in Omer, courtesy of author

I have a lot of problems with Noah’s Ark as you can read, if you are so inclined, from the two previous blogs I wrote, one connecting the ark to the COVID lockdown and the other written a year ago debating whether to write a blog after October 7^th. However, this week I would like to look at Noah’s ark from the perspective of a sanctuary, a temporary place, until life gets back to normal. Unlike the destruction of the world by God in Noah’s time, the destruction of the worlds of those who lived in the kibbutzim in Otef Azza, was done by nefarious human beings. Our traumatized displaced people from the South West communities of Israel were forced to wander from place to place until finding sanctuaries. One of these places of refuge happens to be in Omer where I live, where the entire surviving remnant of Kibbutz Kissufim has relocated. Many of the kibbutzim have settled in various communities. Our town signed a residential agreement with Kibbutz Kissufim as part of a temporary housing solution for the kibbutz’s residents after the Hamas October 7^th attack which resulted in the murder of 18 or more members and the destruction of many buildings. 78 housing units have been built for the families of the kibbutz in Omer.

WHY KIBBUTZ KISSUFIM?

You might ask, what prompted me to write this week’s blog and why bring up Kissufim? On Simchat Torah, I noticed a woman sitting by herself, and when I asked her if she lived in Omer, or was she someone’s guest, she said she lives in the Kissufim community. I gently asked her if she had lost someone and she told me that her brother had been murdered on October 7th. We chatted a bit, exchanged names. I noticed that she stayed for the whole service, including Yizkor, but left before I had a chance to ask her more questions. When I told my son about this, he told me that someone who used to be a congregant of his in Jerusalem, had lost a sister in a different kibbutz, whose story is publicly available in Hebrew and in English. She, too, is a survivor who lived in Kissufim, and is now living in Omer.  Until that moment, the community was an abstraction for me. Of course, I was aware of its new location. Why? Because, twice a week, since November 2019 (that’s five years ago) I have been going to physical therapy to a clinic which is across the street from where the mobile homes, or caravillas, as they are popularly called, are located. When I started going to my physio it was an empty lot. Then signs were put up and the area was gated and big placards surrounded the site advertising that lots were going for sale. Slowly roads were added and infrastructure. Suddenly, for political reasons, the bidding for lots stopped. The original beautiful signs started to deteriorate.

Remants of the signs for the new neighborhood that was never built.

When the war broke out, suggestions were made about housing the entire kibbutz in this huge empty lot which had infrastructure and was ready for building. Some people grumbled that this would add stress to our already overloaded community services. But most of us saw this as a great mitzvah, an opportunity to help. Once the project was voted on (this was before our elections for the new mayor) and the government greenlighted it, I watched the bulldozers, once more in action. Then one by one I saw the prefabricated buildings coming up. You could see the air-conditioning on the windows, solar energy water heater panels (dud shemesh) on the roofs, paths linking each house to another.

SCREENSHOT FROM OMER WEBSITE    https://www.facebook.com/OmerMuni/videos/35-

The ingathering was delayed; meanwhile donated furniture and appliances were being warehoused and finally people started moving in at the end of August. You could see garden furniture outside some of the units. Our community supplied them with everything possible to imagine—from furniture to dishes, cutlery. You name it. It still looked pretty bleak.

Picture in early days, courtesy of author

And then VOILA! Three weeks ago, the community put in grass and what looked awful to my eyes before, suddenly looked livable. A few days ago, I went over before my physio and took some pictures:

I parked next to the kindergarten on the corner and as I was taking a picture a man came out with his daughter and asked what I was doing. I told him I was writing a blog connecting their new temporary home with Noah’s ark which was this week’s portion. He told me, what a nice idea?

Kindergarten on the corner across the street from author’s physio.

As I took this last picture, another person came out and told me that he was the archivist of the community. He was from Holland and we chatted in English. I asked if I could take a picture of his home because of the special flag outside.

I decided to read a little bit about Kissufim, both before and after October 7^th. Most of the information is available online. First of all, they are only 45 minutes away from us by car. Which if you think about it, is fairly frightening as to how close we are to what happened “there”!!

KISSUFIM: LONGING FOR HOME

Kissufim today is a privatized kibbutz which is located in the Northwestern area next to the Gaza Strip. It was established in 1951 from members of youth movements who came from the US and South America. Since the settlement was meant to assure that the border was secure the government financed concrete rooms for each home. Its economy was based on a dairy farm, citrus and avocado orchards. They also had a factory that made eyeglass plastic frames. The name Kissufim in Hebrew means longing or yearning, which today seems totally appropriate for a group of people who are yearning to go home. In our prayers we put the torah scrolls back in the ark and say hadesh yamenu ke-kedem! If only, we could go back to the Eden before the deluge. Our community had a special evening of remembrance on October 7^th and they are slowly finding their way. We have a wonderful social service department which is involved in outreach.

Recently a movie entitled Kissufim, which was filmed before the war has been making the rounds. It’s about a group of Israeli soldiers volunteering on a kibbutz near Gaza in 1977. The film shows us what the kibbutz looked like before the destruction. In light of the fact that a week or two ago, the demolition of 24 buildings in Kibbutz Kissufim began, it is probably worthwhile watching the movie to see the paradise which Hamas destroyed.

A RAINBOW AT THE END OF THE TUNNEL

The sojourn in the sanctuary of Omer, the modern day Noah’s ark, will be much longer than 40 days and 40 nights. It will probably be at least two years until the community will be able to rebuild and go back to their kibbutz. But at least they are now all together. However, nothing will wipe out the pain of the community, and it is clear that they (and all the other kibbutzim) have a long way to go.

During the flood

All existence on earth was blotted out—humans, cattle, creeping things, and birds of the sky; they were blotted out from the earth. Only Noah was left, and those with him in the ark. And when the waters had swelled on the earth one hundred and fifty days… the waters then receded steadily from the earth. At the end of one hundred and fifty days the waters diminished (Genesis 7: 23-8: 3).

Actually, if you do the math, the totality of their time on the ark was about 377 days, which is approximately the same time that our hostages have spent in captivity underground with no end in sight, in conditions much worse than the ark, without a Noah to look out for their welfare. In Chapter Nine, God warns Noah not to shed human blood: “Whoever sheds human blood, By human [hands] shall that one’s blood be shed; For in the image of God Was humankind made”. He then establishes a covenant with Noah and his descendants promising that:

Never again shall all flesh be cut off by the waters of a flood, and never again shall there be a flood to destroy the earth. God further said, “This is the sign that I set for the covenant between Me and you, and every living creature with you, for all ages to come. I have set My bow in the clouds, and it shall serve as a sign of the covenant between Me and the earth. When I bring clouds over the earth, and the bow appears in the clouds, I will remember My covenant between Me and you and every living creature among all flesh, so that the waters shall never again become a flood to destroy all flesh. When the bow is in the clouds, I will see it and remember the everlasting covenant between God and all living creatures, all flesh that is on earth. That,” God said to Noah, “shall be the sign of the covenant that I have established between Me and all flesh that is on earth.”

Rabbi Tali Adler wrote this week in her commentary “Surviving the Flood” on Parshat Noah that “We ask the wrong questions about the story of the Flood.”

What merit can the human race possibly have that outweighs the horror of its crimes? What human accomplishment, joy, or meaning can matter enough to make it defensible for the world to continue spinning while children are incinerated? The aftermath of the Flood answers these questions without dissembling. There is no merit great enough. Humanity endures not because of its merit, but because of God’s promise. The rainbow, the sign of God’s covenant never to destroy the world again, is a symbol of the starkest sort of hope in its promise that even when humanity is at its worst…there will be a future.

The promise is the end to a nightmare, but it is also a form of abandonment: there is no possibility of a reset. God will not wipe out evildoers in favor of a new world created for one innocent man and his descendants. Instead, the world keeps spinning. Victims and perpetrators, in the aftermath, live side by side, and their descendants must learn to share this world, soaked with tears and blood.

Today we are all desperately waiting for that rainbow at the end of the tunnel; but the tunnel looks like it is getting longer every day–certainly for those living in the tunnels and those families waiting outside to get their dear ones back. Now, in the present it is too early to visualize sharing the world with the perpetrators. Perhaps in the future, out of necessity, that will be the case.

Shabbat shalom