Israel Mission Provides Spiritual Component to Course

Combining touring with learning, the first ever Rohr Jewish Learning Institute mission to Israel brought more than 300 Jewish adults from 35 communities around the world for a weeklong educational exploration of Israel. Judging from the responses of those who went, the tour, with its emphasis on Torah study, was unlike most others.

"We're walking in the footsteps of our fathers," said Tania Moghrabi-Cook, a veteran Israel traveler from Zurich, Switzerland, as she visited the holy city of Safed. "I think everyone should visit with JLI. You learn so much and get a lot of insight, both religious and historical."

Moghrabi-Cook, whose great-grandfather resided in the northern Israeli city home to the synagogues and resting places of Jewish mystics over the centuries, decided to join the mission with her mother and daughter after taking three JLI courses.

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A Chabad-Lubavitch organization that coordinates in-depth Jewish learning programs across the globe, JLI offered the Israel tour as a finale to its fall 2007 course, "The Land and the Spirit." Organizers wanted to provide a spiritual experience that would cement the course's lessons and connect travelers to their roots in the Holy Land, all while remaining with the same students and local rabbi that taught their course.

Howard Haber, a participant from suburban Philadelphia, was looking for something different than his other trips to Israel.

"When I was here last time, I didn't understand [Chasidic philosophy]," said Haber, who has participated in JLI courses for almost two years. "I came to get closer to G‑d and to see some more of the spiritual places, to see Israel with a Chasidic focus."

For one 61-year-old tourist from Virginia, the mission could prove life-altering.

"It's so inspiring that it's making me think that when my husband retires, we'd come back to live here," said Evelyn Menasha. "[Israel] is like no other place in the world."

Further Study

Participants of the first-ever Rohr Jewish Learning Institute mission to Israel pray the afternoon service at the Tiberias resting place of 12th century sage Rabbi Moses Maimonides, known as the Rambam.

The learning opportunities inspired 41-year-old Sally Magdovitz from Memphis, Tenn., to join the mission. She jumped at the chance to experience Israel with Rabbi Levi Klein, co-director of Chabad-Lubavitch of Tennessee, whom she said was a phenomenal educator.

"There's a lot I need to learn," she said. "He explains things so that they make sense to me. The course really complements the trip."

Each participant received a 100-page booklet filled with historical information, selections from Jewish texts and prayers related to each of the trip's stops. Besides Safed, the itinerary included days in Jerusalem, Tiberias and Hebron.

"They get to experience the knowledge they have learned," said Rabbi Avrohom Sternberg, co-director of Chabad-Lubavitch of Eastern Connecticut, who brought a group from the town of New London. "The material just comes alive here."

Rabbi Yoni Katz, JLI's mission director, saw the trip as a springboard for further in-depth study of Judaism, its land and its people.

"We hope that they're going to continue their learning, not only about Israel," said Katz. "Community members made resolutions about how to bring back the holiness of Israel by performing mitzvahs back home."