JEWS VIEWS with Rabbi Zvi Engel

The modern Israeli who most inspires me may seem a strange choice for an Orthodox rabbi: an Israeli rock star named Aviv Gefen. As a young man, he openly mocked religious Jews and those who settle the Land in fulfillment of a Divine charge. To many people in the religious community, his soul seemed all but dead. And yet, as we remember every year on Tu BiShvat with the rebirth of trees in Eretz Yisrael, what looks lifeless can suddenly come back to life.

During the pandemic, a caustic remark by a friend celebrating the mortality rate in a religious town shocked Gefen, causing him to rethink his hostility. He did not begin laying tefillin or keeping Shabbat, but he did begin a teshuvah process, expressing love for Jews he once vilified. Gefen publicly admitted that he was guilty of baseless hatred and sought to make amends. At a Chabad in Ramat Aviv, he passionately praised Jewish peoplehood, extolling those who learn Torah and calling for a reconciliation between all sectors of Israeli society. In Beit El, a few weeks after Tisha B’Av, he publicly apologized for his once intemperate words about Religious Zionist Jews.

Gefen expressed his feelings of kinship by releasing a single called Batzoret, ”Drought”, recorded as a duet with Avraham Fried. The song emphasizes the need for solidarity in the face of challenge and worry, envisioning dry, parched land giving way to reanimated life. “How beautiful to see the grapevine flowering in the wasteland.”

Rav Soloveitchik once said that faith in the coming of mashiach depends upon our faith in Knesset Yisrael, in its ability to do teshuvah. May Aviv Gefen reinvigorate this faith in all of us!