Israel: On Not Stopping Now

Rabbi David Wolpe’s magnificent sermon about the July 30-August 3 Sinai Temple trip to Israel — “Our Mission to Israel:  Who We Saw and What We Learned” — is now up at the Sinai Temple website.

If you listen to the opening anecdote, you will listen to the end.

At the end of the sermon, the tape stops abruptly, just as the standing ovation by 1,200 congregants began.  Rabbi Wolpe cut off the ovation, saying he took the ovation as a commitment by each person who stood to contribute to the Sinai Temple IDF Fund — “otherwise the ovation means nothing.”

So far, more than $1.3 million has been collected since July 21, from hundreds of people (members and non-members), with contributions as low as $18 and as high as $150,000.

If you listen to even only part of the sermon, you will likely want to have the following information:  Sinai Temple IDF Fund, 10400 Wilshire Blvd., Los Angeles, CA 90024.

(This week’s Los Angeles Jewish Journal has several articles about the trips to Israel by LA groups, including the ones by StandWithUs and the Simon Wiesenthal Center.   Amy Klein’s cover story is here. LA City Councilman Jack Weiss joined the Sinai group for part of its trip, and his article is here.  Karmel Melamed describes the extraordinary contributions of the LA Persian community here. Rabbi Steven Leder writes an open letter to President Bush:  “Mr. President, Thank You for Standing by Israel.”)

UPDATE:  Rabbi Victor Urecki, of Charleston B’nai Jacob Synagogue in West Virginia, has an eloquent article in the Charleston Gazette on why this is not "just about two soldiers."  (hat tip:  Anne Lieberman).