Rabbi Steve Cohen’s Rosh Hashanah 2014 sermon:

“Israelis are nothing if not direct and utterly real, but sadly most organized tours tend to turn Israel into a Jewish Disneyland.  It’s easier, much easier, to drive folks from archeological site to museum, then to some awesome natural beauty and finally to go shopping for souvenirs, than to set up meetings with real people, who have personalities and opinions, and who may or may not show up, and you never know what they will say. And many tours skip right over the horrible messiness of the Arab-Israeli conflict, which can almost be avoided as long as you don’t talk to any people. But I wanted to embrace the messiness.

“In the end, our trip was one surprise after another. Almost nothing happened the way I had planned.”

For full sermon, View the PDF