Next week, on May 3 and 4, Jerusalem's Beit HaRav institute will carry out a reenactment of the famous “Tour of Communities” ('Massa HaMoshavot') that took place in 1913.
The original Tour of Communities was carried out by ten rabbis and led by Rabbi Avraham Yitzchak HaCohen Kook and Rabbi Yosef Chaim Sonnenfeld. It was intended to form a connection between the religious communities in the Land of Israel and the secular Zionist agriculturalists who had come to reclaim the land.
"The tour will last two days – a very short time compared to the two months that the original tour took,” Beit HaRav's Rabbi Avraham Teitz told Arutz Sheva's news magazine. “We will reach special places – Zichron Yaakov, Merchaviah, Kfar Tavor and others. Along the way we will tell the tale of that journey and revive the discussions that were held then, while examining their relevance for the times we live in.”
Questions still relevant
Teitz said that participants will get to meet people who heard about the original tour from eyewitnesses. The rabbis' tour was a formative event in the annals of Jewish resettlement of the Land of Israel and it left a vivid impression on the residents of the communities that were visited. The members of the communities were mostly socialists who did not pray or believe in the Torah, and they viewed the rabbis with suspicion. Rabbi Kook did much to defuse that suspicion, reassuring the pioneers that he had come to be influenced by their dedication to the Land of Israel, not to try and make them religious, dancing with them and listening to their problems. Still, said Teitz, Rabbi Kook also wished to influence the settlers.
The questions that preoccupied the rabbis – “how to bring the pioneers closer to tradition?” and “what religious content to infuse into the educational system?” – are still very relevant today, Rabbi Teitz explained.