A second Israeli astronaut is taking off for outer space.
Tomorrow, Eytan Stibbe, will be embarking on a mission, dubbed Rakia, which means sky in Hebrew, to travel to the International Space Station.
Among the items he will bring along, are some fragments of a diary that belonged to his friend and colleague, Ilan Ramon of blessed memory, the first Israeli astronaut who perished 19 years ago.
Fifteen minutes before it was scheduled to land, the Columbia Space Shuttle with Ramon aboard, burst apart, killing all the crew and leaving smoldering wreckage in its wake.
A huge recovery project was launched to find as much of the wreckage as possible.
A Native American tracker, who was involved in the search for the debris, came upon a small pile of papers in a field in Palestine, Texas.
This pile of paper turned out to be the writings of the Israeli astronaut.
Miraculously, a part of Ilan Ramon’s diary survived the crash.
Rona Ramon, Ilan’s widow, was given the bundle of papers, and she brought the remains of the diary back to Israel in the hope it could be deciphered.
It was brought to the Division of Identification and Forensic Science of the Israeli Police and given to Chief Superintendent, Sharon Brown, my first cousin, who is a documents expert.
Using the sophisticated tools of her trade, Sharon was able to recover the writing on some of the pages. She was amazed to see that Ilan had taken the time to write out the entire Friday night Kiddush, including the vowels, so he would accurately pronounce each word. It seemed important to him to make this declaration properly.
My cousin is quoted as saying
“I was a puddle of tears when I saw that. He took to heart how he represented all of us.”
He did this by declaring to the world that Gd created this Universe and took the Jewish nation out of Egypt, as stated in the words of the Kiddush.
After her ground breaking work, Sharon was left with one page on which she could only decipher the words in Biblical Hebrew for the Jewish People and the word for Sea. She couldn’t imagine what Ramon was writing.
All of a sudden she had a brain storm.
She looked to see what the Parsha was the week of the mission.
It turned out the Torah portion of that week spoke about the Jewish People leaving Egypt and crossing through the Sea.
It seems Ramon had written words of Torah on the weekly portion.
He recognized that he had a unique opportunity to broadcast to the world the values of being a Jew.
He was conveying that when a Jew is in uncharted territory the wisdom of our heritage will continue to guide us.
Ramon also took with him a miniature Torah scroll which had been saved from the fires of Auschwitz, as the Torah teaches Jewish values which are the foundation of the world.
Living these values are the role of the Jew in the Universe.
We are readying for our own Exodus now as we begin our preparations for the upcoming holiday of Passover.
But this Friday night, and every Friday night, we have the opportunity to recite Kiddush, the sanctification of the Shabbat day over a glass of wine.
In the words of the Kiddush we always recall that Gd took us out of Egypt.
In fact there are many times we mention the Exodus from Egypt in our liturgy and prayers.
It is the core of ourJewish essence and existence.
It was in Egypt our national identity was formed.
We survived because we did not assimilate and disappear.
We remained Jews.
As we think about the Seder which is just a week away (gulp), we need to ready ourselves for the experience.
We remember the actual event as it happened, and on a symbolic level we tap into our own Egypt as well.
Each and every one of us is experiencing an Egypt we need to be redeemed from.
A trauma. A challenge.
How do we prevail?
By acting out the first time we left Egypt.
By reliving the feeling of expanse we experienced after our release from servitude.
By tapping into the values and wisdom that guides our daily lives.
This may translate into something such as smiling at those we are blessed to share the Seder with, no matter how challenging they may be.
Be a Jew who left Egypt.
When Ilan Ramon prepared himself for his voyage, he knew he was acting as a representative of Israel and of the Jewish people. So besides the scientific experiments and data he packed the miniature Torah scroll and the words of Kiddush and some thoughts about the weekly Portion.
Ilan Ramon knew that the message of being a Jew is eternal and the ultimate voyage, is the one that took our people out of Egypt.
That message was written in bold strokes and can never be erased, no matter what fires it traverses.
We have the same opportunity to project those same messages to ourselves and our families in the days ahead.
Let’s take those challenges that enslave us, use the Torah wisdom to guide us and bring it back down to earth.
Shabbat Shalom and so much love!
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