“Two roads diverged into a wood, and I,
I took the road less travelled by,
And that has made all the difference” - Robert Frost
Israel’s “legendary shepherd,” Avraham Hertztlich, was a Brooklyn native who, as a youngster, worked for a race car company. He drove a 12-cylinder Ferrari from New York to Miami with a fresh new driver’s license, the first part of his journey to see the world. At age 23, Hertzlich who had already travelled around America and Europe, left California to board “The Jerusalem”, one of Israel’s Zim Line passenger ships, and in 1962, disembarked at Haifa port.
Hertzlich spent a few years in Jerusalem studying at Hebrew University and, for a short while, in a yeshiva. He was enamored by the Yemenite intonation and Hebrew enunciation that he learned from a Yemenite mentor. Moving on from Jerusalem, the young man hiked up North. He met and then married his wife in a small village where he learned to herd goats and sheep. Over the years Hertzlich built a flock of hundreds of sheep.
He loved his work, a shepherd in open fields where he sang Bible verses with Rashi to his flock, in his newly acquired Yemenite accent. His purpose in life was to be “as our holy forefathers, who were all shepherds.” As a shepherd he felt connected to the holy land, and experienced spiritual highs, and tragic lows.
For many years Hertzlich suffered the pain of the tragic loss of his daughter Talia, Hy”d, (one of his eleven children), and his son-in-law, Rabbi Benyomin Kahana, Hy”d, murdered in a terrorist attack while returning home in their van to the Shomron where Hertzlich lived in the home of Talia, Benyomin, and their six children. “It was the worst moment of my entire life when my son Shmuel found me in the field with my herd, and related the horrific news. After twenty-five years, there isn’t a day that I don’t think about, and miss them.”
I never met Avraham Hertzlich who was born and raised in Brooklyn, a “landsman” as expressed in Yiddish. Our paths never crossed. Yet in 1960, my husband Sholom and I chose a similar route. We chose “the road that was less travelled,” and we remained, building our home and family in Jerusalem for 62 years. Widowed, and then isolated by Covid, I moved to Beit Shemesh, close to my children. Hertzlich chose a different path. The open fields of the lower Galilee, Kfar Zeitim for 30 years, and then to the hilltops of Kfar Tapuach, shepherding in the Shomron.
Choice turns into challenge, and rising to challenge forges the difference. Roaming hilltops in the footsteps of our forefathers, living the dream of ancestors, learning to speak the Hebrew language, bringing up children in a Jewish State with a Jewish army, participating in present day “shivat Zion”- return to Zion - has made all the difference for Jews who have chosen -- the road less travelled.
“Eretz Yisael niknet b’yesurim ulfi godel hatzaar godel hasachar,”(Brachot 5:a). The land of Israel is earned with suffering, and the greater the suffering greater is the reward. I remember that particular verse expressed by friendly rabbis, assuring us that we would be rewarded, that blessing would be achieved, provided we remained in Israel despite the difficulties. Settling the land is like birth pangs. Nine rough months and then painful deliverance, whereby one is almost sorry, and ready to swear they will never do it again. Yet once the infant is placed into mother’s arms, the ultimate pain of childbirth is erased, and love for that child, is as love of the land that grows daily.
Avraham Hertzlich, Israel’s legendary shepherd, passed away on Wednesday, the 11th of Tammuz, at age 85, leaving generations of descendants on the land that he loved.
Rising to the challenges encountered by new, and old olim, be assured, Zachinu! Zachinu b’gadol! We have merited! Merited to dwell in G-d’s country big time! We succeeded building our homes and families in the holy land, and fulfilled one of the greatest mitzvot in the Torah, “yishuv haaretz,” settling the land that is a cherished gift from the One Above.
Faigie Heiman won first prize in the Israel Education Ministry Jewish Culture short story competition several years ago. A popular author of short stories and essays, and a memoir, Girl For Sale, Faigie Heiman now lives in Beit Shemesh after many years of living in Jerusalem.