My teacher Larry Hoffman says that tourists visit places, take photos and bring home souvenirs. Pilgrims, by contrast, go on sacred journeys to discover themselves and their past. They bring home not souvenirs but artifacts, ritual objects and identity creating memories, leaving something of themselves behind. I like to think that whenever Jews go to Israel, they go as pilgrims. So it was for my family in March, when every day was an adventure in the overpowering and the amazing. While enjoying special behind-the-scenes tourist visits, we were pilgrims standing in awe.

We toured the newly refurbished model of Jerusalem of 66 C.E. recently relocated from the Holy Land Hotel to the Israel Museum. This city-block sized model stands outside the entrance to the exhibit of the Dead Sea Scrolls, a symbolic reminder of ancient Israel from the period when the scrolls were written.

In the Shrine of the Book, we went on to see fragments from the Dead Sea Scrolls, which are very hard to read, given their age and frail condition. We also saw awe-inspiring pages from the Aleppo Codex, the oldest complete manuscript of the Hebrew Bible, about one-third of which has been missing since 1947, when faulty preservation measures destroyed it. The Aleppo Codex is considered the most important source document of our Bible, including text, vocalization and cantellation. The texts we saw were as clear as anything printed today--totally legible, as if about to be opened for a Shabbat morning Haftarah reading, from a manuscript that is over 1,000 years old.

Much of the Israel Museum has been packed away to prepare for a major renovation, but we were able to go behind the scenes in order to see the Tel Dan Stele, which is hidden away in a storeroom. It was sitting there in a cardboard box that our guide had trouble finding until the gentleman who runs the freight elevator told her where it was. This rock, excavated at Tel Dan within the last decade, contains an inscription with the oldest existing non-biblical reference to the House of David, the royal dynasty of Ancient Israel. The stele is believed to be close to 2,900 years old. We saw it in the back room. I cannot even begin to describe the feeling of seeing this rock hewn from our past. I was a speechless pilgrim. The song "David Melech Yisraeil..." will never be the same again, after having seen this ancient stele.

So what does it all mean? First and foremost, the model, the scroll and the rock give me a sense of the antiquity of the Jewish message that I struggle with every day. My roots are deep. Our roots are deep. When we wonder why Jewish voices come calling to us in the night, it is because our roots are so strong as to keep Judaism vital. Our story, you see, is carved in ancient rock that is unearthed before our very eyes and given a new voice.

Seeing these antiquities in the State of Israel makes another statement, Lo banu etmol, "We didn't arrive yesterday." Whenever anyone questions our claim to this small piece of land, these antiquities and the thousands of others like them all over the country--in museums, educational centers and national parks--make one realize that the imprint of the Jewish spirit for the last 3,000 years or more is engraved across the length and breadth of the land.

Finally, the antiquities that inspire me also challenge me. They speak to the vitality of our own Jewish lives. What is written on the scrolls we are writing? What is the Jewish story that we are telling with our lives? What will be the message we are sending future generations? Tomorrow's legacy is the Jewish world we create today. What is being hewn on the rock we are carving? To go to Israel is to confront the past, face the present and feel the challenge to create a vibrant, meaningful Jewish future.

I am back from the sabbatical you have so generously allowed me, ready to build that future together with you.