Rabbi Andy Bachman, the ever thoughtful blogger and rabbi of Congregation Beth Elohim is back from his sojourn in Israel. Here are some of his thoughts now that he’s home. It is titled “Whatever:”

I was struck right away by the abundance of things here in America.

In Jerusalem, before returning the car on Thursday, I filled the car with gas and was astounded how much money I had to pay. $3.85 per gallon or whatever we’re paying here these days is nothing. I suppose it was fitting that as soon as we exited the terminal at JFK at 6.45 am this morning, the wave of nostalgic smells we were greeted by was a mix of jet fuel and taxi cab exhaust, serving as a formidable filter for the mid-August summer breeze coming off Jamaica Bay.

With Moqtada al Sadr offering to put down arms, we must be near a financial deal to share oil revenues with various Iraqi leaders from across the spectrum. I wonder who will win the bidding war to sponsor the night of the Republican Convention when Vice President Cheney speaks–Halliburton or Exxon?

Like I said, abundance. Fuel, hubris. Take your pick.

I tried really hard in the cab ride home to grab a hold of that American narrative that reaches beyond what we crave as individuals and instead strives toward the greater good–now more than ever in our fractured world. Though Isabel Kershner writes about an Israeli anxiety with the current state of the Hebrew language, I’d have to say that most Israelis I spoke to were having a good old time mixing the ancient tongue with contemporary iterations and adding, day after day, to the incredible richness of the experience of using the Hebrew language. Our last night in Tel Aviv, there was even a sign advertising a band called Tractor Revenge. It’s a line that even the aforementioned prophet Isaiah from the famous Dead Sea Scrolls couldn’t have come up with at his sarcastic best.

Back in Brooklyn this morning, I walked the dog, picked up coffee, dropped off my laptop for repair, ran various errands, and happily ran into several congregants–it feels good to be home. Inside Community Bookstore is another book questioning the legitimacy of Zionism–Arno Mayer from Princeton University has just published Plowshares into Swords: From Zionism to Israel. Two years ago, the Nation called Mayer “Israel’s Cassandra. I dunno

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