What I Didn't Know To Expect

I knew my first labor experience would be painful, but I didn't know it would be so painful that I would feel as if I had transcended my own body and entered a different dimension.  When my oldest daughter was finally born, I remember thinking, "Why didn't anyone tell me it would feel like this?"

As the founding coordinator of the Baltimore Chug Aliyah, I have watched many people make aliyah over the past four years.  I thought I knew, more or less, what to expect from start to finish. Now that the news of our impending aliyah is out, I find myself experiencing emotions that I didn't know to anticipate.

It started when we began talking about paring down our not-insubstantial collection of books.  With a rabbi, an educator and a few voracious readers in the house, we have a LOT of books.  So we told each other we would start by separating out those books that "didn't hurt."  If you love books, you know exactly what I mean. We started the process, but as each book is transferred from our hands to the hands of another reader, I get a funny feeling, like I'm not quite ready to let it go, even if I haven't cracked the book open in a decade or more.

Then we had to take a hard look at our furniture, some of which was part of my childhood home and some of which I bought when I was a teenager with a JCPenney employee discount.  As I examined each piece in the decision-making process, it seemingly took on a mystique of its own, one I hadn't been aware of all those years it sat in the basement, unused.

Thirty five years ago, my father, A"H, bought me a beautiful, feminine writing desk.  I loved the desk, but as I got older, it played a smaller and smaller role in my home.  Alas, it was one of the pieces I was called upon to sacrifice in the quest to fit five decades worth of life into a small Israeli apartment.  A few prospective buyers came to see it.  One immediately rejected it because of a shallow scratch on the writing surface.  One offered me a pitifully low bid which I quickly declined.  Money being money, I did so more from sentiment than anything else.  Then a mother and her 7 year-old daughter came to see it, gushed over its beauty and specialness and I knew they were the right buyers. So even though, knowing the desk will no longer be mine, I have a twinge of something I cannot name, I am happy that another young girl will appreciate it, as I have over the years.

Last week, I went to close a bank account that I opened 25 years ago, just as my career began. The account had been more-or-less dormant for well over a decade, but there was a little cash there to add to our Aliyah Savings Fund.  Was I really feeling sentimental about a checking account?

I was.

Ahead of me in these next months lie dozens, if not hundreds, of these sorts of experiences.  I am extricating myself from five decades of life in America.  Unraveling decades-long business connections.  Sorting out the detritus of a lifetime.  Freeing myself from the tentacles of materialism and preparing myself to be open to my future.

Even though I have been dreaming of boarding that aliyah flight and living my life in Gd's Holy Land for years and years and years, ahead of me are any number of twinges and gut punches as I disentangle myself from a lifetime lived elsewhere.

I didn't know to expect that.

And yet, I know that even this is a bracha.  How many millions of Jews over the span of Jewish history have had the luxury of such a gradual parting from their sojourn outside the Land of Israel?

Hashem has truly blessed me.

Hashem Said Yes

You turned my mourning to dancing. You removed my sackcloth and clothed me in joy. (Tehillim 30:12)

This is the post I've been waiting eight years to write. What seemed utterly impossible just a short time ago suddenly, and I mean suddenly, became absolutely possible. In the end, the whole story is one giant Kiddush Hashem (sanctification of G'd's Name).

G'd, through His great goodness, finally said, "Yes. Yes, Rivkah, you can now make plans to come and live in my Land, live among My people. Come soon and grow yet closer to Me."

I can hardly believe it.

Every single boulder that was in our way on the road between Baltimore and Ma'ale Adumim is gone. It's as if G'd said, "Oh, is that in your way? No problem. Here, let Me get rid of that pesky boulder for you." And He did. With such elegance, with such ease, that it could only be G'd's handiwork.

There have been miracles in this process of getting to yes. Outright miracles. Jaw-dropping miracles. Out of respect for the privacy of others, I can't share everything that happened in a public blog, but I can recount this.

On the day I left Ariella in her new life in Israel, I stood on our mirpeset, facing Jerusalem, and prayed an inchoate, "Please Hashem. Please. Please." I wept quietly on the sherut from Ma'ale Adumim, all the way through picking up nine more passengers in various neighborhoods in Jerusalem and I didn't stop until Modi'in, 15 minutes before reaching the airport. Although I sat all the way in the dark back corner and tried to be discreet, the sherut driver twice tried to comfort me in Hebrew, "Yihyeh b'seder, Giveret. It will be okay."

Despite the fact that this was the most difficult parting to date, I eventually dried my tears and made my way back to Baltimore. Once back at the house, I started to unpack. I was alone in the house when something I can't quite define sent me into my daughter's room. The room that she left behind when she made aliyah. The room that held an essence of her, a memory of her, but will no longer ever be hers.

I sat on the bed and I had a meltdown. I don't know how else to define it. The grief that I held quietly on the sherut surfaced in that empty house and I yowled and keened, a wailing lament, as if for the dead.

In my head, I reminded myself that my situation was far from grievous. No one I love had died. No one I love was even sick. I was not Gilad Shalit's mother. My children were healthy and well and I knew where they were.

But I simply could not stop crying.

Years ago, my husband made me promise that when I couldn't take it anymore, I had to let him know.  He recognized, before I did, that we were now at that point.

And suddenly, in the exact place where there had been three absolutely impenetrable obstacles, there were five really potent reasons why we should make aliyah.  Why we must go soon.

My husband agreed. The words came out of his mouth, but I knew it was Hashem talking. And just like that, the agony over being displaced was over.

To me, it was no less a miracle than the splitting of the Red Sea. Whether I finally cried enough, or accumulated enough merit or, more likely, the combined strength of the prayers of others reached its fulfillment, something shifted in the universe and Hashem said yes.

But then it was Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur, and, in a rabbinic household, there was no time to talk about or act on what we had just agreed to.

We told our families that, with G'd's help, we will be coming Home in Tammuz 5770. Some of these conversations were very painful and full of tears of another kind. But, in the end, we were blessed, even by family members who wish we weren't going.

With the chagim coming soon, it was a priority to tell our family members. Beyond that, we only had enough time to tell a few close friends. So many people clearly demonstrated that they appreciated how precious this news was. Some sang in response. Some shouted praises to Hashem. Some cried with joy for us. That was monumentally affecting, that our news brought others to tears.

A particularly memorable reaction came from someone I have known for 20 years, an old friend who plans to remain in America. "Of course," he said, "I will miss being in your physical presence. But it has been so hard for me to watch you in pain, to watch you feeling profoundly displaced all these years. I am so happy for you."

To have friends who love us and who truly, selflessly, wish us joy in this decision is a blessing beyond measure.

Hodu lashem, ki tov. Ki l'olam chasdo. Give thanks to Hashem, because He is Good. His kindness lasts forever.

Moving Jewish History Forward

Nine months into his first presidential term, the preternaturally powerful President of the United States just won the Nobel Peace Prize for, "creating a new climate in international politics." Said another way, he was awarded the prize for what he said in Cairo, rather than for anything he's actually accomplished. Some political commentators believe that he won merely for not being George W. Bush.

I am not a political animal. I tend to see things in terms of what's going on in the spiritual realm. And here we have a man who rockets to one of the most powerful, if not the most powerful political positions in the world on the basis of virtually no track record and verbal promises of change. This man is part Christian (Edom) and part Muslim (Yishmael). He literally embodies both of the historical enemies of the Jewish people.

So, Barak Obama comes out of nowhere. Shoots to the top of the world stage, reflecting the legacies of the two peoples who have caused the most anguish for Am Yisrael throughout history. And now, nine months on the job, the international community recognizes him as having done more to bring peace to the world than any other human being on the face of the earth.

You're kidding, right? On the face of it, it's just too bizarre to believe.

That's why I believe that this can only be the hand of Gd, moving Jewish history forward. And that gives me great, great comfort.

Existential Whiplash

Time Magazine published an article two months ago celebrating the 40th anniversary of Apollo 11. The article's writer, Jeffrey Kluger, posed this question to some of the men who walked on the moon.

"What about the existential whiplash that comes from being on the moon one week and in your living room the next - and having to find your own way to process the vast gulf between these two worlds?"

And that, I thought, is a remarkably accurate sense of what it's like to make the transition from Israel back to America. I have made this transition more than 20 times and existential whiplash (not to be confused with Snidely Whiplash) is exactly what I feel each time.

Yesterday, I went to the Second International Jewish Bloggers Convention in Jerusalem where I realized, with a start, how many of my friends here are also bloggers. I knew, of course, but it wasn't until I saw them all in one room that it crystallized for me. I have yet another thing in common with so many friends on this side of the world.

From 2-10 PM, I sat in multiple sessions where people talked for hours about Israel. In my mother tongue. Oy, joy! Eight hours of talk about promoting Israel, in this case through the use of blogs and other social media with 300 people who not only don't roll their eyes when I say the word "Israel", but who, in many cases, actually know way more about the topic than I do. And even though quality varied across sessions, the most astonishing thing was simply that I was attending a conference with 300 other (mostly) Israeli bloggers in Jerusalem. Yesterday, I occupied a space in an Israeli sanctum sanctorium.

Today, Ariella and I took yet more bus rides, shopped and waited our turn at the post office, the bank and the health fund office, taking care of her aliyah business. I'm not actually an Israeli citizen, but I play one on TV.

In less than 24 hours, I enter the existential whiplash zone of returning to America. My life in Israel is an altered state of consciousness.

Scratch that.

It's my life in America that's the altered state of consciousness.

Here in Israel, I am most fully alive.

Departures and Arrivals

NOTE: This departure narrative was written by my amazing husband, Elan. Some months ago, we decided to split the job of launching our daughter, Ariella, into her new life in Israel. Elan agreed to take on the task of bidding her farewell and I got to receive her here in the Holy Land. For those who don't know our family, Elan, who was born in Israel, is Ariella's step-father (but only in the most technical sense). Shani is her sister. The rest is, I think, self-explanatory.

DEPARTURE

Hi everyone,

Just an update from our home in Baltimore.

Yesterday I drove Rivkah to Newark airport so she could arrive a day before Ariella's aliyah flight. After a 5 hour delay, Rivkah finally took off and arrived safely today in Israel. Rivkah and her brother Herschel will be joined by several friends at the arrival ceremony at Ben Gurion in just a couple of hours.

Shani and I and her Uncle Brian joined Ariella on the drive to JFK today, as Ariella joined over 200 others on their aliyah flight this afternoon, the last Nefesh b'Nefesh flight of the summer of 2009. We were joined at the airport by Ariella's cousins Sara Nechama, Nochum and their 5-month old baby, Baruch Binyamin.

There is a farewell ceremony, with several speakers, followed by cake and soda, and then came the time no one was looking forward to, saying goodbye to Ariella.

Man, was that tough. Was that ever hard.

It was exactly a year ago when, the night before Ariella was leaving for her year of study in Israel, I told her what will be playing in my head when we bid farewell....it was the Muppets movie, I think they were in NY, and at the end, when time for departure comes, the characters sing, "It's time for saying goodbye." And then, a year ago, minutes before the last hugs prior to
her passing through security, it was, indeed, time for saying goodbye.

But this was very different. Her closet is empty of clothes, her room is mostly bare and devoid of her special touches, and with duffles and backpacks stuffed with what makes her Ariella, she was ready to check in at the El Al counter, seconds away from receiving a boarding pass to the rest
of her life 6000 miles away.

Hugging her and crying, I blessed her and wished her every success and happiness, hesitating to let her go, squeezing her one more time before she belonged to everyone else waiting their turn.
I told her that even though we don't share the same genetic material, in less than twelve hours, only she and I will share something special that she shares with no one else in the family- citizenship in Israel.

A few more waves, and blown kisses, and mouthed "I love you"s, and it was....time....for saying........goodbye.

We met when she was 6. I left Israel when I was 6. Now, she is going to my home, to make a home for herself.

L'hitraot, Ariella, may Hashem bless every step you take in your new home.

And may our steps not be far behind.

Love to you, dear friends,
Shalom,
Elan


ARRIVAL

I wasn't sure what to expect from my heart this morning as I waited for the arrival of the plane that brought my daughter Home.

When we first entered the welcoming ceremony, images from the departure ceremony at JFK the day before were rotating on the huge screens in the airport. I got to see pictures of my family, including one shot of the three people I love the most in the whole universe, standing together, larger than life.

As the plane touched down, we were able to watch it live on these same screens. When I saw my daughter, my first-born child, step out of the plane, landing in Israel for the first time as an Israeli citizen, I screamed with joy. Then, with the support of some loving friends who are all Israeli citizens themselves, sharing this miraculous morning with me, I rushed outside to greet her in person.

I didn't have to wait long. Ariella was practically the very first person to get off Tram #1 and walk through the crowds of greeters. Considering how long I waited to greet her at birth (31.5 hours of labor), this was fine compensation indeed.

Trying to catch her eye, I started jumping up and down with excitement and anticipation (not a common emotional response in my middle-aged life). I had kissed her goodbye in Baltimore just two days before, but I could not wait to hug her now.

Today, 25% of my enduring, unrelenting, unshakable aliyah dream came true. And I am a very proud, grateful and jubilant Mom.

Thank You God for bringing my daughter Home.

Ain od milvado. There is truly none besides Him.

So It Begins

Right now, my oldest daughter, the one who is making aliyah in 3 days, is in her bedroom, taking down the massive photo collection that has graced her walls for the last few years. In a sense, this collection defines her and her rapidly growing social circle (at least as much as her Facebook profile.)

I can't bear to watch her, so I'm in the dining room trying to sort out what I'm feeling.

I'm leaving America the day before she does so that I can be in Israel to meet her flight. Just as I was there to hold her in her first moments of life, I will be there to hug her when she steps off that flight and steps into her first moments of life as a citizen of the Land of Israel.

Usually, this close to a trip to Israel, I am giddy and high-spirited. This time, I'm thinking of the day, coming very, very soon, when I am going to have to say goodbye to my first-born child and to the Land at the same time.

Can you say Kleenex Jumbo Pack?

The Blessings Of Aliyah

Traditionally, the set of blessings we say in the morning are understood as thanking God for meeting our basic, daily needs.

When I was pregnant with my second child, I noticed that all the blessings reminded me of some aspect of pregnancy and childbirth. The child that was born from that inspired pregnancy is nearly 15 today, but I remember that, at her naming ceremony, I gave a dvar Torah in which I related each of the Birchot Hashachar, each of the morning blessings, to the experience of pregnancy and childbirth.

Recently, with aliyah and geula on the brain as much as pregnancy and childbirth was 15 years ago, I see new things in those same morning blessings.

Blessed are you, Hashem our God, King of the universe Who gave the heart understanding to distinguish between the day of geula and the night of galut.

Blessed are you, Hashem our God, King of the universe, for not having made me a gentile who doesn't get to have a totally unique relationship with the Land of Israel.

Blessed are you, Hashem our God, King of the universe, Who releases the bound from the hold their lives in the diaspora have on them.

Blessed are you, Hashem our God, King of the universe, Who straightens the bent who have been carrying the weight of exile on their shoulders all these centuries.

Blessed are you, Hashem our God, King of the universe, Who has provided me my every need and demonstrated to me that I simply don't need as many material possessions as I thought I did.

Blessed are you, Hashem our God, King of the universe, Who firms man's footsteps and who makes every fourth footstep in the Land another mitzvah.

Blessed are you, Hashem our God, King of the universe, Who girds Israel with strength to thrive in the face of ubiquitous threats from our enemies.

Blessed are you, Hashem our God, King of the universe, Who crowns Israel with splendor very soon, please God, when the Moshiach arrives and clarifies the true spiritual role of the Jewish people.

Blessed are you, Hashem our God, King of the universe, Who gives strength to the weary who must work a while longer before accumulating sufficient merit to ascend to the Land.

Blessed are you, Hashem our God, King of the universe, Who bestows beneficent kindnesses upon His people Israel and brings us Home.

Special Things I Notice in Israel

NOTE: CLICK ON ANY PHOTO TO GET A LARGER VERSION.

I've been privileged to be visiting Israel

for close to a month now. Each day, I see and experience small things that remind me how much I love this county. Three observations came in rapid succession today, reminding me of the specialness of being a Jew in Israel.

As we were driving back to Jerusalem from Kfar Saba, it was just about dusk and the time for davening mincha, the afternoon prayer service, was rapidly coming to a close. Traffic was quite heavy, leaving people without sufficient time to get to their destinations before the mincha service could no longer be said. All along the side of the road, at least a dozen cars were pulled over and Jews were standing by the side of Route 1 to Jerusalem praying the afternoon service.I think this must make God feel very proud, like a parent whose children behave appropriately without being reminded.

Upon arriving in Ma'ale Adumim
we went to pick up a few things in the grocery store. On our way in, I spotted an older woman, not outwardly religious, wearing shorts and a sleeveless top. She reached her hand up to the mezuzah

and kissed her fingers so naturally, anyone watching would know she has made this gesture thousands of times before.

We picked up some fruit, milk and gum and, on our way out, a man crossed into the store as we were leaving. He caught my eye and said, "Chodesh tov," wishing us a good month in the earliest hours of Rosh Chodesh Elul.

These are small, everyday things here. These things I cherish because they are so consistent with my Jewish soul.

Most of the pictures I took on this trip have been of views that delight me because they are only to be seen here in God's Land:

A sign that warns us not to enter this street on Shabbat and Jewish holidays


Haredi children climbing and playing like children anywhere else in the universe


Modern Hebrew words that make me smile because they are so darn clever. (Afarshazif is a combination of the Hebrew words for peach and plum... nectarines!)


Really personal street signs


An old friend making challah on Friday morning


Special sensitivity to religious needs


Being part of a people who remembers our past


And being part of a people who holds fast to dreams of our future

Aliyah Season

It's July and aliyah season is upon us. All around me, people are clearing out the detritus of their American lives, sending lifts, talking about their upcoming flights and where they'll be living, ulpan and schools for their kids. At the same time, hundreds of teens from my community are leaving soon for their year in Israel or for their Shana Bet. Some days, it seems that everyone I know is going to be living in Israel next year.

But not me.

In July of 2002, my husband and I went on a pilot trip together. A year later, as a gesture of shalom bayit (because I wanted to move to Israel and my husband didn't), we bought an apartment. On that trip, we hardly knew anyone in the country. Now, seven years later, as we're about the leave for my 21st trip, it seems we have more friends in Israel than here in America.

Of course, my perspective is a bit skewed. But I definitely inhabit two worlds and belong fully in neither.

One is the world of olim, both chadashim and vatikim. The ones who, season after season, leave Baltimore and start lives in Israel. Friends who, year after year, write beautiful prose about their lives in the Holy Land on their aliyah anniversaries. These are the friends who see what I see. Who don't think I'm crazy for seeing big change coming. Who believe what I believe about where God wants us to live. And some of these are even more strident than I am about getting their friends and family out of America. The ones who see evil intentions in the White House. The ones who quake with fear for the safety of their loved ones in America.

The other is the world of friends and family whose roots are deeply embedded in American soil. The ones who are redoing their kitchens. The ones who might visit Israel this year, but look forward to seeing Hawaii next year and Australia the year after. The ones who tell me I talk about Israel too much. The ones who find things I say offensive and, doggone it, unAmerican.

I love both sets of friends. There are things to value and appreciate about each person in my world. But there is no escaping the reality that it is as if they inhabit different planets. And I can't fully inhabit either.

I recently watched the 2003 film Out of the Ashes, a movie about the life of Dr. Gisella Perl, a Hungarian survivor who wrote the book I Was a Doctor in Auschwitz. The most extraordinary scene plays out as the Nazis have already entered Hungary. There is a heated family discussion. Dr. Perl wants her family to leave for Palestine while the family still has enough money, connections and time to get out of Sighet, Hungary. Her father absolutely refuses to believe that the people of Hungary, that his fellow citizens of Sighet, will allow the Nazis to harm the Jews. As a stern patriarch, he insists that the family stay together in Sighet.

Of all her family, because she was a doctor, only Gisella Perl survived Auschwitz.

Although a film is not real life, the discussion was truthful. It happened in hundreds of thousands of home all across Europe as the Nazi threat spread. To stay or to go?

God-forbid anything like that should ever fall upon the remaining Jews in America! But there are changes in the air and they require vigilance. Minimally. Today, numbers of American olim are measured in the thousands. But how swiftly that could change if, unlike Gisella Perl's historically blind father, tens of thousands would only wake from the poppy field in their pursuit of the Emerald City.

Political Correctness

A few years ago, I bought a book in Jerusalem's Old City. When I got it home, I realized that the book was part of a 2-volume set. I had, unwittingly, bought the first volume and all the chapters I most wanted to read were in the second volume. So I returned to the store, only to find that the second volume was out-of-print.

These past few years, I have tried every means at my disposal to locate a copy of the second volume of this work. I coveted it on the shelves of friends, one of whom told me he bought both volumes at a used book sale for laughably few shekels. I researched every used book site on the Internet. On a subsequent trip to Israel, we even drove to a used bookseller in Beit El who listed the set on his website, but, alas, the book was ultimately unavailable.

Two weeks ago, I got an email that an ex-library copy had been found and was available for $35. Without making a conscious decision, I flew over to the Amazon.com site and, miraculously, the book was now available there. Amazon had a tiny number of copies in stock and they were selling for less money than the used copy. I ordered one right away.

The book is Or Hara'ayon by Rabbi Meir Kahane. In English translation, it is titled The Jewish Idea.

This book sings my song. The Torah in this book speaks right to my soul.

And it cheeses off my friends and neighbors.

Recently, we had a Shabbat meal with religious neighbors. The conversation turned, as it often does, to Israel. Because I had recently begun reading The Jewish Idea, Volume 2, I shared some of the thoughts of Rabbi Kahane as I understood them. Today, I have the benefit of having the text before me, so I can quote him more precisely:

"Eretz Yisrael was given to the Jewish People not as a privilege that they could forgo by saying, 'we do not wish it,' but as a duty that cannot be dispensed with." (p. 553)

"What a Chilul Hashem is this refusal to leave the servitude of exile and enter the Holy Land!" (p. 555)

"For this sin [refusal to ascend to Eretz Yisrael] which recurs in every generation, Israel are still suffering, G-d's wrath is poured out on us, and His hand remains raised high." (p. 557)

"Mitzvat Yishuv Ha'aretz, the mitzvah incumbent upon every Jew to live in Eretz Yisrael and not in the exile," is a, "Divine foundation of supreme importance." (p. 557)

"So terribly has the cursed exile warped our nation, that they not only see no personal duty to leave the exile but they do not at all consider it a punishment! What a perversion that is!" (p. 572)

These are some of the ideas I communicated in our Shabbat table conversation about Israel and aliyah. I also said, "I don't know why, but I know very clearly that Hashem calls me, shouts in my ear, making it absolutely imperative that I come Home as soon as possible. And I am doing everything I can to get my family there."

And my friend said, "That's clear. But that doesn't mean that He doesn't send different messages to other people."

I well understand that the politically correct thing to say would have been, "Of course. You choose your path and I choose mine." In reality, it seems that only one of us can be correct here. Either Hashem truly wants all of us to leave the exile, to stop volitionally living under non-Jewish rule and to move to the Land he set aside for us, or He's fine with each of us deciding as we see fit.

How can it be both?