The drama of the Negev is played out on a daily basis. Its shifting sands, multi-colored craters and occasional oases create a vivid pageant far greater than the eye can behold. The city dweller, frequently unaccustomed to these elements of the wilderness, must shake away his reveries when descending into this striking part of Israel.As Yom Kippur is observed, we also must focus on the scapegoat which, after all our sins are placed upon it, is released into the wilderness. This creature has a potent meaning for us because it means that our transgressions have now been carried away into the shifting sands. We have prayed poignantly, asking God to forgive us our trespasses, but this act of physically freeing ourselves from sins into a wilderness adds to all the words we have spoken with great fervor.Yom Kippur and the wilderness have an ongoing connection. My wife and I initially experienced the Negev in 1963 as students. The wadis and the canyons reminded us of the verse in Psalms 126:4, “God restored our captivity like the streams in the Negev.” Although we could not know what those streams were like, what was clear was the power of those whirling torrents cutting into the sand, the rock and the floor of the Negev,reshaping and reforming it.As in the Ten Days of Penitence when we feel this change in our own personal selves, we could relate more closely to the bareness, which really had life.
Why is the Negev so significant? In his book Walking Through Israel, Daniel Gavron made the following point. “[Prime minister David] Ben-Gurion recognized that the Negev was simply the largest area in which the world would allow the Jewish people to grow and develop.” This conclusion motivated Ben-Gurion and he saw to it that there was sufficient Jewish settlement in the Negev to ensure its inclusion in the UN partition plan as a part of the Jewish state. We all know that he reemphasized his belief in the potential of the Negev by moving to Kibbutz Sde Boker in the 1950s and urging others to follow.Through the centuries, there have been hardy souls settling in the Negev who had to use their own talents to make “reluctant nature tributary to their needs.” I have an even better understanding of what this “reluctant nature” means because a young cousin and his wife and 10 other couples created a community in the Negev for religious and secular families. They were inspired by Ben-Gurion and by their own need to make the Negev even more inhabitable and fruitful. Some people say that Negev is just “a dry and weary land where there is no water,” but it has always been the case that the wadis do possess life within them. They are the repositories for the soil washed down from the slopes. They can even store quantities of water for future use. This makes it possible for one to trudge through a blazing Negev wilderness and come upon a small oasis with vegetation and even fruit-bearing trees.Interestingly enough, there is a significant parallel between this season of the year and the natural propensities of the Negev. As thinking individuals, we find these Ten Days of Penitence as a time of rebirth and renewal. We are faced with searching ourselves to see where we are found wanting. If we are prepared to make the necessary adjustments, to deepen our sense of conviction, then we too will be able to withstand this probing procedure and rise up with a new sense of purpose.The rains in the desert have a similar function. The desert, like human beings, is reluctant to let itself go, fearing that it will not receive the added sustenance it needs. Therefore, when the rains do fall, the arid dryness is transformed practically overnight.
We conclude this season with the 25-hour fast of Yom Kippur. Throughout Elul and these Ten Days of Penitence, listening to the shofar and reciting slihot, we are challenged to prepare ourselves for the rains of renewal in which we have been awash in these days of awe. If we have readied ourselves, there can be a sinking- in effect. If not, it will be like the run-offs from the wadis pouring over us and quickly disappearing, since there can be no spiritual absorption.The psalmist, in fact, recognized the power of the streams in the Negev and compared that natural act with the restoration of the Jewish people from captivity. Just as the life-sustaining waters keep the Negev alive, so the Jews are sustained by the return to the land and their regeneration upon it.As we observe Yom Kippur, let us focus on the Negev as a spaceless sanctuary possessing a spirit of change, of renewal, of hope that will continue to inspire us in this new year of 5778 and for all the years to come.