The three boys walked up the road, smiling, sometimes laughing, maybe on their way home, maybe on their way to buy groceries on the other side of the checkpoint.

They must have been 10 or 11.  A bit older than the seven year-old who would try to sell me cheap bracelets that say “Palestine” later that day.  I don’t know what they might have been thinking.

Surely they knew, understood, at least had been taught, that this side of the separation barrier wasn’t for them.  The low concrete wall running through the street keeps Hebron divided, Palestinians are only allowed to walk on one side, Israeli Jews on the other.  The soldier saw them coming.  Holding his weapon across his chest, he strode towards them.  Easily three times their size, he didn’t say a word, just blocked their path.  The boys stopped and stared up at him.  I could see the fear in one of the young boy’s eyes.  Without a word they turned around and walked back down the street, and then back towards us, this time on the correct side of the barrier.  We were standing by the guardpost; our Breaking the Silence guide had just begun his explanation of the separation policy enacted by the Israeli government and enforced by the Israeli army that exists in Hebron.  This was just one example, and it stuck.

The look of fear in the boy’s eyes stayed with me the rest of the tour.  Having heard many of the soldiers’ testimonies during my last visit, I allowed myself to wander a bit away from the group.  I took in the new graffiti, the new signs urging modesty in dress and wariness of the internet.  My thoughts kept coming back to the boy’s eyes.

I had been thinking about fear a lot on the way to Hebron that morning.  Rabbi Nachman of Bratslav is often quoted as teaching, “The whole world is a narrow bridge, and the essential thing is not to fear at all.”

The words in Hebrew are set to a melody known in most Jewish communities, one that was stuck in my head as we made the journey south away from Jerusalem.

What was I afraid of?  What are the fears that had prevented me from sharing my experiences in Israel thus far?  How had they created a silence around my first visit to Hebron, a silence that I found frustrating?

I was afraid of being vulnerable, of feeling challenged, of asking questions to which I don’t know the answer.  When it comes to discourse around Israel, there doesn’t seem to be much space in the Jewish community to think out loud, to have open dialogue, to change one’s mind, to attempt to look at an experience from someone else’s perspective, to say “I’m not sure” or “I don’t know.”

As a rabbinical student, my current life experience is by definition one of journeying, of growing, of trying on new ideas, of deciding what I believe, of changing my mind.  I can barely recognize my theology and practice from my first year at Hebrew College.  My relationship with text, liturgy, and Gd has changed and developed and continues to do so.  I am truly blessed to have space to nurture a continuously developing theology with which to approach the world and the holy work of being a religious leader.

Yet, I am afraid to share my thoughts and experiences, afraid that they will alienate me from the greater Jewish community, afraid that if I change my mind I will be accused of being wishy-washy or easily influenced, afraid that I will not be able to adequately convey the nuances of my own understanding and desire, afraid that even if I do manage to communicate them, those nuances will go unseen.

None of that matters though now.  My experiences in Hebron, and Israel in general, are demanding a voice.  With that, of course, comes a new set of fears.  Mostly I am afraid that in attempting to lift up the voices and experiences of Palestinians, my own assumptions and biases will prevent me from articulating those experiences.

How can I share those voices along with my own understandings, thoughts, and feelings in a way that doesn’t undermine any of those things or the values I try to live by?  What narratives have I learned growing up in the United States about differences in race, religion, and politics will surface?  What will I have to examine with a critical eye and perhaps relearn?  How will I change?

In an article published this past week in The American Prospect, Gershom Gorenberg writes, “… when you challenge a group’s narrative, some members will take that as a denial of their identity. They’ll get angry. They will repeat their story more loudly. They may accuse you of telling falsehoods.  This is not a reason for a journalist, historian or activist to [be] silent. It does make sense of the fury with which people sometimes defend the old story. It explains why changing the story takes time. I needed to tell the facts as best I know them.”

I have long believed that being an activist requires a great faith in humanity, faith that people are willing to either leave their fear at the door or acknowledge its existence in the room and enter into dialogue with an open heart, honest curiosity, and humility around what they don’t know.  And so the next step on my journey is two-fold.   I have to both say explicity to the communities in which I work, “I have faith in you,” and I must acknowledge my own role as an activist.  I have to push myself to understand that as a rabbinical student, and one day a rabbi, I am an activist, perhaps even by definition.

What is a rabbi if not someone who challenges people to ask questions about who they are and how they interact with the world?  And who are activists if not people who seek change in the status quo?  Rabbis may not always be pushing for political or global change, but activism exists on personal and local levels as well.  If I, as a rabbi, fail to push people to grow and change in relation to themselves and others, then I have failed as a religious leader.  If I fail to push people to develop a rich and complex relationship with Israel, I have failed as a rabbi.  In any case, I can no longer stay silent.

The world is not a narrow bridge, it is a wide tent, a large clearing in the woods, a place where diversity and compassion can and should flourish.

There is space in the Jewish community for a diversity of opinions around Israel, just as there is space for a wide-range of other types of diversity as well – gender identity, multiculturalism, religious practice.  We just need to work together to create it.  Indeed, it is our responsibility to widen the spaces that already exist and create the spaces that do not.  Perhaps the first step is to acknowledge our fear, then to work through it, to confront it, and to strive towards living out Rabbi Nachman’s words “the essential thing is not to fear at all.”

Photo courtesy of Becky Silverstein (Attribution via Wikipedia Commons, http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File%3AHebron_separation_barrier.jpg )