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A Different type of community

In Havat Yishuv Hadaat, next to Shiloh, Chaim Ariel, age seven, and friends, all count their ages from the time that they were ‘born again.’ Here children espouse ecology, including a toilet that produces compost for fertilizer. Much of this is the influence of Rabbi Michi Yosefi, who left his ultra-Orthodox home in Bnei Brak, went wild in India, and saw the light at Joseph’s tomb
Yigal Serena

It seems that there are no hills around Shiloh, Eli and Shvut Rachel that do not have an outpost, farm or tower. Shvut Rachel, with its red roofed Swiss style cottages, has two gates. The second gate leads down a narrow twisty road to four neighborhoods that are really three outposts, a farm and a mysterious, abandoned base. The Biblical scenery is beautiful, strange and wounded, and is full of surprises and troubles.

"Here I feel a spirituality that I have never felt in any other place,” says an enthusiastic Oren Rubin from Havat Yishuv Hadaat. It is an abandoned piece of real estate and government land for anyone who has ever dreamed of having a green yard, a direct connection to the land and closeness to the Sanctuary. One need only set up a caravan of faith, plant a tree and make up an unusual name such as Adei-Ad, Yishuv Hadaat, or Esh-Kodesh.

At the junction of some narrow beat up paths, we saw a red house with a wooden observation post to overlook the beauty or the danger. "That is Rav Michi's place", they told us, " and if you continue from Michi's junction, you'll arrive at Esh-Kodesh."

We continued through Michi's junction and arrived at a populated hill. A thin man named Yonah told us that the inhabitants of Esh-Kodesh, named after Esh-Kodesh Gilmor, a security guard murdered in Jerusalem, are all connected to one idea. But he refused to reveal what that one idea was. "It is a hard place" he said and brought as proof what remained of a group of ducks that were eaten by predators.

In the synagogue of Esh-Kodesh I found a leaflet with the following request- 'If you will be going past the young trees that were planted, please take along some shears, since the gardener quit. Please weed the wild grass, check that the water is reaching the holes and you can also sing to the trees'. Ten families live there, and the only requirements for joining the community are doing guard duty and keeping some semblance of tradition.

Dishwashing as a Tikkun

When we got to Yishuv Hadaat, it appeared that the spiritual head, Rav Michi Yosefi, was still stuck in the garage. A pretty woman came out of the red building and asked us if we would like to join them for lunch.

This was the first time in all our travels through the West Bank that we were immediately invited as wanted guests. In the red building, which turned out to be a two-room Bedouin structure that was used in the past by wandering shepherds, three men sat around the table. They said a few blessings on the food and hummed some songs.

Here in the kitchen the number one tikkun (repair) of their former lives is realized: the men wash the dishes. The community is designed to repair the flaws of their former lives. The word 'tikkun' (repair) is constantly being used. At one o'clock, the house begins to fill up. We ate some pasta, tehina, tuna and corn and then went for our first tour of Haya, an acronym for Havat Yishuv Hadaat.

Between piles of stones and fences, Ariel points out the earthen entrance to a cave. This is the synagogue of Yishuv Hadaat. It is hidden from the eye. In contrast, our guide then points out the public toilet of Yishuv Hadaat, which rests on the slope of a hill. It is a prominent wooden structure with a huge sign reading "bathroom". Every visitor is taken to see the bathroom, because ecology is the pride of the place. Evidently, holiness is hidden in a cave, while impurity is waved out in the open in order to be recycled into food for the trees and to return purified into the earth.

We passed the kitchen, the synagogue, the bathroom, the covered yard that is used for holidays and gatherings, and then we went to the men's house, which had a wooden patio and an awning of branches. Further on there is a small grove, which will become a forest. As opposed to the other outposts, which are situated on wind swept hills, this community is on the side of a small hill and is surrounded by a wadi and a valley. It is a beginning experiment of a religious-agricultural-ecological community.

Eldad, the photographer, remembered Ariel from the days of the disengagement of the settlement Shirat Yam in Gush Katif. Now Ariel is in Yishuv Hadaat. He is wearing a white turban on his head. He was born on Kibbutz Parod and was uprooted from there with his secular parents to Karmiel. A child who was uprooted from his kibbutz. It appeared to me that everyone in this community was trying to repair some displacement in their lives.

I asked Ariel his age. "Seven" he replied and the number whirled around like a trapped bird and settled on the ceiling. It is the number of years since he was born again. Oren and the other eight men also count their ages this way. It is as if Havat Yishuv Hadaat is a children's farm. These born agains' find their tikkun (repair) in the middle of an area of bloody conflict.

The men do not carry weapons. Oren patiently explains to us that there is an opinion that "the Arabs are the guardians of Israel. They defended the land the entire time that we were not here. They kept their traditions, which connected them to the land. The Arabs are also anti-Christian. Christianity has a tendency to uproot. Every place where they arrived, such as America, they displaced the native inhabitants, such as the Indians. In every place they have brought industry and McDonalds, a disconnect from proper nutrition, reaping and sowing."

"As opposed to the Christians", Oren says, "The Arabs protect the land. We, since our return to our land, have favored Western culture too much. We forgot how to work the land. We have disconnected from ourselves in order to live in glass buildings. This is what we have to repair."

Strong yearning for the land

Last Purim, Ariel came to the farm for the first time. The holidays are a time of gathering at the farm. Around 150 people from around the country come; some of them are smitten with the place. He left and came back and has been living here ever since. He works the land and washes dishes. Mostly he is repairing the injustice of his youth, when he was uprooted from his Galilean kibbutz. Since then he has longed for the land, the cows and the dogs.

In the guest pavilion, only two visitors sit under the shady covering. They are Oren's parents who came to the farm a few months ago, and like Ariel have stayed. His stepfather is a teacher.

"There is an otherworldly feeling here" Oren's mother says. Oren's father died when he was seven, and he has been searching his whole life for an answer. He worked for five years as a computer technician at the Knesset. He describes his days at the Knesset as "alienation, nerves, frustration, and negative energy". From there he flew to South America and then jumped to Havat Yishuv Hadaat. "Michi was looking for people to work at the farm. When I got here, I felt that my soul was breathing."

While he speaks, a tall man with long flowing hair and beard enters. One eye looks amused, the other eye is white and blind from a sliver of a bottle that injured him in his youth in Bnei Brak. Michi, or Yechiel Yosefi, shakes our hand and takes a seat. "I have to confess something" Oren says to all present "Three people are partners in the creation of man: his father, mother, and the Holy One. Now all three are sitting together: My mother, the father who raised me since I was an orphan, and Michi, who is the spirit that moves me." He becomes quiet and Michi smiles.

"At age 14 I left Bnei Brak," Michi tells me. He left his house- an ultra-orthodox family whose father was a well-known speaker. He has 12 brothers and sisters. When he speaks, the name of the Biblical Joseph arises. He sees himself as a sort of Joseph. A child born to elderly parents, a dreamer, and a beloved child whose brothers were jealous of him, almost killed in a pit and survived. Sent into slavery and ending up royalty. He went through many reincarnations until he arrived in this place. "From an early age, I had a desire for the whole world to live in harmony" he tells us under the shade of the awning.

He ran away to the old city of Jerusalem during a rebellious stage in his youth, and stayed with friends. At the age that the Biblical Joseph was sold by his brothers to the Ishmaelites, Rav Michi found himself at Joseph’s tomb in Nablus with Rav Ginzburg. “It was a place of open mindedness”, says Michi.

Here the conversation shrieks to a halt. In our eyes, Joseph’s tomb was brought to disgrace by the Rabbi who advocates hastening the redemption and the acts of his wild followers. Now a soft-spoken man is sitting in front of us and saying, “Every trend passed through the tomb, every thought was legitimate. There were discussions on books and on the world…it was a place that was open to the skies. In every place I choose the points that speak to me. At the tomb I received the ability to be open to everything”.

From the outskirts of Nablus and the tomb to a stint as an instructor in the army, Michi traveled to India. On his way to India, his father gave him 100 dollars for spending money on the forbidden trip. In India he took off his kippah. It was his secular metamorphosis and he shows us a picture of himself as a tall, attractive, young man with long hair looking out from a balcony in Neve Tzedek.

Now Michi is a mixture of Rav Kook, a Breslav follower, and Rav Ginsburg. He is his Orthodox father’s son and a product of India and the Eastern religions with ecological recycling thrown in. An updated Shanti Judaism. A Breslav-Buddhism attached to the land. “We do not have membership cards, but the majority of our teaching comes from Rav Nachman”, he laughs.

He spent 16 months wandering through the East then came back to Tel Aviv where he worked as a tour guide. He then began the process of searching and “taking responsibility for my life” through meditation, separation, proper nutrition and a return to the Jewish texts of his father’s house, but with the new tools he acquired in his travels. Ten years ago, he married Tamar, the daughter of Rav Yehuda Chazani z”l, who was one of the leaders of Gush Emunim and was killed when he fell off a cliff in the Judean Desert.

They wandered between Jerusalem, Chatzor and Nokdim until a friend told him “Do something. In India there are tons of searching Jews.” He took his family to India and established a Jewish house, a refuge for travelers in Goa, Dharamasala and Rishikesh. He traveled every few months between Israel and India. Three years ago, he heard about the small farm from a man named Nati Rom. A farm where Rom was taking in religious youth who were dropping out of school. Michi came here, found his place and set up stake.

“This is a place that we can develop without disturbing the Arab villages,” he said to me. He also sees the Arabs as guardians of the land and as neighbors with whom it is imperative to try to establish good relations.

In the farm, there is a small vegetable patch, a beginning orchard, pomegranate and almond trees and a desire to restore a natural grove. They live off Michis’s lectures, events at the farm, and courses on topics such as: seclusion, organic farming, body and soul, guided imagery, couples and family life, moments of wonder, secrets of the melody and Biblical cooking.

At times people hug the thin trees or scatter to seclude themselves in the caves equipped with a chair, a bed, a table, paper, writing utensils and a pitcher of water. Next to the men’s house I saw an entrance carved into the earth and I realized that Oren and the others were digging another cave. Everywhere there are signs of digging and large piles of rocks, as if they are trying to dig into the heart of mother earth. And from there, from the depths, “To shout from the heart, even if it does not come out of the mouth, splitting the heavens and penetrating the firmament”, as it is written in their New Year’s pamphlet.