Of all the unexpected visitors I have ever received, none even come close to the surprise I got in the summer of 94′.
I was teaching a course on Jewish values deep in the mountains of Pennsylvania, at a camp called Moshava, near Indian Orchard. We were in the middle of an intense discussion on Jewish ethics, when I noticed three fellows standing at the entrance to the lodge. Their features were far- eastern; Chinese, it seemed, and they were standing patiently at the door, taking it all in.
You must understand, we were really in the middle of nowhere. The group of teenagers sitting before me was part of a very special group of kids who had been chosen to join a Jewish experience away from all the hustle of computers and cell- phones, television and stereos. I couldn’t imagine how these three fellows had ended up here, especially as they looked like tourists.
“Where are you from?” I asked.
“We come from Tibet, though we are living in Nepal right now”.
But what really shocked me was their next question:
“Are you Rabbi Freedman?” I was amazed. They were actually looking for me, in the wilderness, having arrived all the way from Tibet!
It transpired that they were followers of the Dalai Lama, who, along with 80,000 followers, had been forced to flee Tibet in the early 1950’s, when the Chinese had taken over their country and destroyed the infrastructure of their Tibetan religion.
Recently, they had begun coming to terms with a new challenge. Having lived in exile for nearly fifty years, a new generation was now coming of age, who had grown up in India, and never even seen the ‘old country’ of Tibet. So they were trying to figure out how to keep the dream of Tibet alive, in the hearts of their children who had never seen, much less experienced, the homeland they still longed for.
So the Dalai Lama decided to consult the experts. Who better to explain how to stay connected to a land in exile, than a people that had managed to retain a dream over 2000 years, finally realizing their goal and coming home after nearly fifty