From Kibbutz to New York: A Spiritual Journey
Yigal Rechtman


At thirty-one I find myself thinking about the issue of my spiritual life. I was born in Israel in 1967 and lived on a kibbutz there for twenty-one years, when I moved to New York. Kibbutz life was very nurturing. We had small classes and an abundance of love and attention. It was a happy childhood. Work was a value, while Judaism was seen as archaic, stale, and useless. The Messiah wasn't going to redeem the nation of Israel - that was our job, our mission. I even remember being a bit embarrassed about my name, which is a reference to a messianic vision of redemption.

The Bible was a text to be intellectualized. We took great pride in our Bible education, as we ought to. Though completely secular, it was thorough and sophisticated. But we did not feel the fear of Abraham as he was about to slaughter his son, nor did we discuss, directly or indirectly, the issue of God. Isaac's near-sacrifice was studied as an anthropological phenomenon. The parting of the Red Sea was a chance to study geological events in the region. My eighth grade Bible paper was about the Ten Plagues. Did you know that there is at least one scientific explanation for each of the plagues? I got a perfect mark on that paper. In fact, Bible was one of my strongest subjects in school.

Judaism as a religion was something to mock. As children we would make fun of traditional Jews, our only frame of reference for the religion. Judaism was seen as something out wack with reality, a different and opposite world to ours. God was not a partner in the endeavor. God was a non-issue. We were the children of the chalutzim, the pioneers who had created the modern state of Israel. We we the jewels in the crown of the new, young, invincible Israel. Israel was an innocent nation, and we were the unblemished fruits of that innonence.

My spiritual universe was destined to wind up full of skepticism. At age twenty-one called those feelings of skepticism by name and became, with quite a lot of pomp and circumstance, an Atheist. Boy, did that feel good.

Now at the age of thirty one, I am restless. I yearn for something. Nothing isn't enough any longer. I wonder if I have been overly proud. Was it right of me to assume the role of he who rejected all beliefs? Perhaps my spiritual life is sufferent and I now find myself wrestling with my internal roadmap because it's too easy to reject "beliefs" and have an inner life based only on the matter-of-fact.

I love my children, I love my wife, and my extended family. I appreciate my work, I enjoy people's company. Perhaps this is my spiritual life and I am only second guessing what I already have because I am a trained doubter. Perhaps this is all I need. Or perhaps I was right from the very start: perhaps there is no "God" and it is indeed just a warm confine that (most) people create.
My road map isn't clear yet. I can see some signs but I can't read where they are pointing, not yet. The question is still open. Here I belong to a synagogue community and that's important to me. The forms of Judaism readily available outside of Israel teach me something about Jewish possibilities that was hidden from me as a child. I am allowed to question and doubt and belong and act all at the same time. To alleviate my anxiety (and personal trait of wishing it all fixed in one shot; like a computer or the turn of a key), I try to re-vision myself through a humbler reflection. I think that maybe it is in part a surfeit of pride that made me miss the discussion that many people I am surrounded by have every day, a discussion with "God". And I find that the discussion about God or the lack thereof is satisfying enough. For the moment, anyway.

Yigal Rechtman is a computer consultant. Originally from Kibbutz Tzora, he now lives in New York City with his wife and children. When he is not busy with his family, his job, or wrestling with spirituality, he is doing genealogical research.