A lot can change in 39 years — and usually does. In this case, not only in Israel, which Rabbi Yisrael Ort last visited in 1985 for his Bar Mitzvah, but Ort himself. The Chabad emissary for Auraria Campus jokes, “I was a Hebrew school dropout.”
He recently returned from Israel, where he joined the annual Chabad on Campus international conference. From July 9-14, 200 emissaries working on college campuses across the world met in Israel for a two-fold purpose — to lend strength to Israel, and lend strength to each other.
Since Oct. 7, emissaries “endured so much craziness, so much hatred on their campuses,” says Ort. At Auraria, campus administrators closed the Golda Meir House, which is used for Jewish student life, deeming it unsafe in light of virulent anti-Israel protests there. The museum has since reopened.
The trip was an antidote to the divisiveness that has plagued university campuses since Oct. 7. In Israel, Ort says, “I felt like we were one people.”
That sense of deep connections comes through as Ort recounts the people he met and the places he visited, reverence in his voice.
There was the double amputee at Sheba Medical Center, and one patient who came into the hospital with 150 pieces of shrapnel — both soldiers. “They were positive, not sorrowful,” Ort says. “It was the most incredible thing to see.”
There was standing outside of Sderot on a hill with a vantage point that looked out at Gaza, over the border fence. There was the site of a police station that had been leveled by an IDF tank after it was determined it had been infiltrated by terrorists and there were no Israeli police left alive.
These were some of the scars — physical and emotional — the group witnessed.
But the group of emissaries didn’t only witness, they also tried to impart inspiration and positivity. At the site of the Nova music festival, they heard from a person who happened to live nearby and helped people escape after he caught wind that something major was going on. Then, they sang niggunim at the site, and also wrapped men in tefilin.
At a barbecue for soldiers, a concert featuring surprise guest Ishay Ribo, the popular Israeli singer-songwriter, turned into a communal dance party when Ribo jumped off stage and started singing and dancing together with the soldiers and emissaries.
Families of soldiers, including some who had died in combat, were also there.
One emissary picked up a boy and put him on his shoulders and danced with him. The boy’s mother started crying. When the emissary asked her why, she responded that “he had not smiled or danced or celebrated since his father was killed in October,” says Ort. “This was the first time.”
Friday night services at the Kotel expanded into one-and-a-half hours of dancing and singing. Ironically, he says, it felt like Simchat Torah.
He marveled at the diverse crowd, including soldiers. “It was inspiring,” he says, “an absolutely amazing feeling. I felt like we were truly one people, K’ish echad b’lev echad,” he says, quoting the description of the Jewish people when they received the Torah at Sinai. “I felt that.”
Thirty-nine years later, not only is Ort older, but his Judaism has deepened in faith, practice and knowledge. When he was in Israel for his Bar Mitzvah, he visited locations that he didn’t understand; for example, the synagogue of Rabbi Joseph Caro, who authored the seminal text of Jewish law, the Shulchan Aruch. “It was such a different experience,” he says, “knowing what I know now.”
While his 1985 trip, under the auspices of the American Jewish Congress, traversed the country, with a packed daily schedule, there were some site he didn’t see then that he visited this time: the Cave of Patriarchs in Hebron and the Tomb of Rachel (Kever Rachel) outside of Bethlehem.
Both of those visits, along with Hebron’s neighboring Jewish settlement of Kiryat Arba, highlighted another difference between 1985 and 2024: security. He remembers an Israel in 1985 with wider borders and he found the checkpoints around the two burial sites surprising.
“The checkpoints are by Jews for Jews,” he says, “because they’re in danger.”
He sees it as “apartheid against Jews.”
By contrast, he was impressed by a visit to Ono College in Central Israel, the tour’s first stop. “There are both Muslims and Jews at that college,” he says. “No quote unquote apartheid.”
Visiting campuses in Israel became a highlight for Ort.
Often, he says, the emissaries in Israel are unable to join the annual conference. He recounts one emissary in particular, who himself had served in the IDF and now visits bases to bring food to soldiers and comfort them.
Even though he returned tired, “I felt incredibly energized, inspired to reach out to all of the Jewish students on campus,” he says, “the people who agree with me, but also the people who don’t agree with me.”
His guiding light, he says, is a precept in Tanya, written by the first Lubavitcher rebbe: “All of Israel are literally brothers and sisters in terms of the root of their souls in the one G-d.”
“My goal is to reveal that so that everyone can see it,” says Ort. “No matter what walk of life, political party, [to make that] visible to every single Jewish student on campus. To feel like brothers and sisters.
“I’m a firm believer that that love will ultimately have the desired effect.”
© IJN 2024