Dozens of Japanese visitors, alongside Israelis from all walks of life, celebrated Sukkot with singing, dancing and learning in the sukkah of Rabbi Elhanan and Sara Nir in Jerusalem.
The participants from Japan were members of the Makuya movement founded in 1948 by Prof. Abraham Ikurō Teshima who believed that the Japanese must adhere to the spirit of the Bible and tie their destiny to that of the people of the Bible who returned to their country after two thousand years of exile. His followers saw him as a great teacher and he carried thousands with him with the goal of connecting the Japanese people to the people of Israel.
After the Six Day War, Teshima visited the Western Wall, met with President of Israel Zalman Shazar, as well as other important Israeli figures such as Martin Buber, Hugo Bergman, and Rabbi Gedaliah Koenig, one of the leaders of the Breslov Hassidic sect.
His students also met with Rabbi Zvi Yehuda Kook and at that time began to attend Sukkot and Simchat Torah celebrations with the students of the Merkaz Harav yeshiva.
After his visit to Israel, Teshima started the tradition of pilgrimages for the members of his movement. He constantly talked about how the world's salvation revolves around Jerusalem and its building by the Hebrew people. He held a huge pro-Israel demonstration in Tokyo in 1973, and died exactly fifty years ago.
To this day, his many students continue to learn to speak Hebrew, the language of the Bible, and to maintain the deep connection with the State of Israel and with Israeli intellectuals, rabbis, academics and politicians. Student members of Makuya are sent to Israel to study the Bible, to study at universities in Israel, to get to know the country, and to volunteer in Israel in times of crisis.
Rabbi Elhanan Nir and his wife Sarah's connection with the movement is a three-generation connection that began between Teshima and Sarah's grandmother and grandfather, Pnina and Rabbi Prof. Pinchas Pelai, when they met at the theological seminar in New York at their mutual teacher, Prof. A. Y. Heshel.
The relationship began decades ago, when the Pelai couple taught the members of the movement about the Bible and Judaism, continued with Sarah's parents, Rabbi Benny and the writer Emunah Alon, and in recent years has passed on to Rabbi Elhanan and Sarah.
"Precisely in days of internal discord, with the power of the guests who come from afar, to create a closeness of hearts between us, and this precisely during the holiday of Sukkot, the holiday in which all the nations come to Jerusalem and fulfill the vision of the prophets before our eyes. Because sometimes only when the gentiles say, 'God has dealt wonderously with this people' (Psalm 126) do we notice that indeed, we have been blessed with what 'God has dealt wondrously with us,'" Rabbi Nir concluded.