For much of my adult Jewish life I have had to defend how I express and live Judaism. As a Reconstructionist rabbi, I often confront those who question the need for another house within Judaism. The premise behind their question is that the more divided we are the weaker we become. This same attitude has surfaced with my work with the Green Zionists Alliance. The GZA recently qualified to run a slate of delegate candidates for the selection of delegates from the United States to the 34th World Zionist Congress to be held this June in Jerusalem.

Martin Buber said, "It is true that every thoughtful Zionist realizes that our character is distorted in many ways, that we are out of joint, and expect the new life in our own land, the bond to the soil and to work, to set us straight and make us whole once more. But what a great many overlook is that the powers released by this renewed bond to the soil do not suffice to accomplish a true and complete transformation." What Buber is talking about here is the attitude that we bring to the holy soil of the Promised Land.