Holy Jews

My husband is truly the most flexible person I know. He rarely asks for anything specific for himself.  I, on the other hand, am known to have very specific preferences, to which he almost always acquiesces.

It makes for a great marriage.

So when my husband mentioned that he wanted to go see the Shwekey concert at the outdoor amphitheater in Caesarea, and it was on his Hebrew birthday and he mentioned it several times, it was impossible to say no.

The truth is, I didn't love the music.  I'm more the acoustic music with strong, sweet vocals type, and this was a huge production with a choir, complex lighting, several stages, video and more.  I don't know Shwekey's music. None of it was familiar and I had a very hard time understanding the actual words he was singing.  And, although Shwekey appears to have his share of female fans, there was an overwhelming, inescapable masculine energy in the place.  Even the videos, which were screened during virtually every song, did not include a single image of a Jewish woman.

At the same time, years ago, my husband taught me to always try to find something to appreciate in everything.  So I actively looked for what, besides the music and light show, I could appreciate about the evening.

I used to think it was a little corny when I would hear others referring to our people as holy Jews.  Yet, all around me, were thousands of, I have to agree, holy Jews, sitting outside on stone steps, breathing in the air that the Talmud says makes us all wise.

The evening weather was beautiful - breezy and comfortable.  There were waves crashing in the surf behind the stage which we could see but, regrettably, could not hear.  Nevertheless, I enjoyed the salty smell of the sea.



Nearby, there were a couple of young mothers cradling their sleeping children and there was a religious teenage boy sitting right in front of me who impressed me somehow. Silently, I prayed that my daughter should eventually choose someone like him to marry. Just a few minutes later, the boy's father came to sit with him and the father turned out to be someone we know from Baltimore.

 I was thinking, here are thousands of Jews singing about Hashem, singing about peace, arms waving in the air, crowds swaying (and occasionally swooning) with the music. It was all kosher and wholesome and, in its way, really lovely.  My holy Jewish brothers and sisters love life. In contrast, the hate-filled enemy, Mahmoud Abbas, President of the PA, was recently quoted as saying, "I will never agree that there will be a single Israeli among us on Palestinian soil."  Last night, I felt the contrast sharply.

Since it was my husband's Hebrew birthday, I extracted a couple of important brachot from him.  And in the end, the music itself notwithstanding, I was glad I went.

There is something so complete about the joy I feel in Israel.

Pinch Me

So, last night we were eating dinner with an acquaintance from Baltimore who has been in Jerusalem for a month, learning Torah at one of the many fine women's learning institutions here.  The restaurant was a modest but charming dairy restaurant on Emek Refaim in the German Colony.  As our meandering dinner conversation was winding down, the radio, which had been playing unobtrusively in the background started getting louder.  And louder.  To the point where we wondered if the music was coming from the radio at all.

We paid our check and stepped back onto the street, fairly certain now that something was going on out there.

Indeed.  We watched a truck, brightly covered with neon lights shaped like Torah crowns, followed by some dancing chassidim carrying sifrei Torah under a chuppah, they themselves followed by 100 or more happy Jews of many stripes and flavors, including, joy of joys, Jewish women.

It was dusk, and the pictures don't really capture fullness of the moment - the speakers blaring out a joyful Avinu Shebashamayim and the sense of simcha in the crowd.  But it was a quintessentially Israeli moment.  The type of moment friends have been telling me about (and blogging about) for years.  The type of experience that always made me a little sad to miss out on.  I floated down the street with the crowd, jumping up and down, my heart full of the kind of happiness that makes a person's eyes well up.

Pinch me.  I can't believe I'm really here to stay.

Getting the Aliyah Call

I just finished reading another new book about the aliyah process.  It's called You Come for One Reason But Stay for Another: Making the Odyssey to Israel by Rabbi Mordechai Weiss.  Rabbi Weiss moved to Mitzpeh Yericho, which is quite close to where we are in Ma'ale Adumim, and Ma'ale Adumim gets mentioned quite a few times in the story.

But it is a quote from the very end that most resonated for me.  "To tell you the truth, I moved to Mitzpeh Yericho because I received an invitation to do so.  Not everyone receives this invitation, but I was fortunate enough to receive one.  And I was fortunate enough to accept.  The invitation came from God."

That's how I feel about being here.  As I have said on many previous occasions, on September 11, 2001, Hashem called me to come live in Israel.  It was a personal call.

My husband didn't get the call, but I didn't stop talking about it for years, so he came to believe that it was increasingly urgent for us to respond to the call.

He didn't get the aliyah call right away, but today, he got a text message from IKEA, letting us know that our bookshelves will be delivered on Sunday and wishing us a Shabbat Shalom.   This same IKEA has a mezuzah attached to the kitchen display room.  And a kosher cafeteria where religious Jews sit at tables near Arabs, who are all there to buy the same kinds of mass-produced consumer goods.

We are 17 days into this new chapter of our lives.  In 17 days, I have experienced approximately 2.5 minutes of bureaucratic frustration and endless joy at being here.  A major reason I am so happy here is the novel sense that I am understood.  I am living among people who have gotten the aliyah call themselves, so they all know what it means.

A few days ago, we broke the Tisha B'Av fast with, among others, a friendly couple, already here 6 months.  The husband was an incredibly affable guy, a born Israeli who moved to America as a young man and came back for the sake of his American-born, Zionist wife.  I sat next to him when the discussion turned political.  "Oh my!" I realized to myself as the conversation played out, "This man is a true-blue leftist who still believes in land for peace."  What a novel experience!  I never get to meet leftists.

To my worldview, he's both naive and completely wrong about the nature of our enemies. Nonetheless, I enjoyed meeting both him and his wife, who also got her aliyah call and brought her husband Home.

On another note, I'm looking forward to our lift arriving and the pleasures of more of our own things around, even as I dread the unpacking a little. If only I could remember who offered to help us sort and shelve our books...

Yesterday, our old house got new owners, thus well and truly ending our physical connection to Baltimore.  With Gd's help, we've answered the aliyah call and we are here to stay.

I am feeling very blessed.

I Live Here Now

I have been an Israeli citizen for a full week, but I still can't wrap my brain around the idea that I live here now.  Ten times a day, I think, "I live here now," but it isn't quite real.  I know we took apart our lives in Baltimore, deliberately, piece-by-piece, but I can't quite wrap my brain around the idea that I live here now.  Forever.

It's like the feeling you have right after the wedding.  You know you're married now, but it doesn't yet seem real.  Or the similar feeling after you've had your first child and refer to the baby as "my daughter" or "my son".  It takes awhile for the reality of that change in status to sink in.

It hasn't sunk in yet.

We spent much of the past week in various government offices, trying to get all our official business done in as short a time as possible.  This often means visiting three or four offices a day, schlepping mounds of official paperwork and, often, returning to the office a second or third time because a) we weren't in "the system" yet or b) we didn't have the right stamp on the right form or c) the person we were speaking with couldn't help us so we had to come back when someone else was available.

It's all a matter of attitude.

I can see where some people in our situation would get stressed and short-tempered.  Some of the rules seem arbitrary.  But, we are so happy to be here that nothing seems to get us down.

Photo credit: Ruti Mizrachi

We know how lucky we are - to be here at all, but also:

to have things like utilities, a bank account, basic appliances and beds already in place
to have a car at our disposal
to have a reasonable command of Hebrew (ahem... that would be my husband, not me)
to have found so many people willing to help
to know our way around a bit
to have friends we can call on for advice
to not have to schlep small children wherever we go

One of the ubiquitous government clerks we met with commented that we are the calmest olim he has ever seen.  Which I took as a particularly high compliment because, when we first met him, he was pretty gruff.  But I was determined to sweet-talk him, not for any ulterior motive, just because I didn't want to walk away with any bad feelings.

Here's a line that's worked for me all week - "So, just how many languages do you speak?"  It's a matter of endless fascination to me since I am such a uni-lingual creature.  But it also makes for warm feelings and great conversation. 

We are also enjoying our share of "Only in Israel" stories:

At the entrance to the mall erev Shabbat, the security guard handed me a small packet with two tea lights and a sheet of paper with the week's candle lighting time handwritten.  She asked me how many daughters we have and gave me a pack of tea candles for each of them as well.

The other day, I was rushing around trying to find a particular office to rent something we needed for Shabbat.  I finally found the office two minutes before it closed, leaving me no time to return to the car and get ID and money to complete the transaction.  I opened the door and walked in anyway, and my eyes immediately fell upon one of the handful of people I know in the city. She lent me the money and I left with what I needed.

In the local grocery, I brought three sleeves of plastic cups to the register.  They were on sale for a very attractive price.  At the register, I noticed that they were made in Turkey, so I put them back and got a more expensive Israeli brand.  In recounting the story to a friend, she told us that the store announced that they were selling off whatever stock they already had from factories in Turkey and would not be doing business with the now-hostile country anymore.  How the political becomes personal in this small but complicated country.

One of the most defining moments of the week happened in a friend's kitchen late Sunday night.  These dear friends made a welcome barbecue for 35 or 40 of our mutual friends, mostly former Baltimore neighbors who live here now.  After almost everyone had gone home, there were four couples left standing around in the kitchen.  We have all known one another for a decade or two.  We were just yammering about life and it suddenly occurred to me that I am now one of them.

My mind flashed to dozens of similar gatherings over the past number of years, each tinged with indescribable sadness, because everyone else got to stay here. And, in a finite and painfully small number of days, I had to leave.

Not anymore.

I live here now.

Deconstructing a Life. Reconstructing a Life.

Since last September when we came to the decision to make aliyah, I have been busy deconstructing our lives.  It's not an easy thing, to deconstruct many decades of life in one country.  Tens of thousands of decisions, emails, phone calls, errands, lists and goodbyes must be attended to. As our aliyah date approached, the pace of deconstruction quickened, until, in the last few weeks, it seems that I did nothing else but end, terminate, close down, cancel and kiss goodbye.

Photo credit: David Buchalter

Until today.  Today, we arrived in Israel.  Today, I started building something new.

It is 4:30 in the morning in Israel and I, who have not had a decent night's sleep in a month or more, cannot sleep.  I keep replaying the feelings of the day.

Photo credit: Shayna Friedenberg

Photo credit: Shayna Friedenberg

Photo credit: Laura Ben-David

Stepping off the plane as an Israeli citizen. 

Being reunited with our oldest daughter.

Photo credit: Ariella LC

Oh my gosh!  Being moved beyond words by the sheer number of people who got up at 5 4 in the morning to greet us. The dozens of loving hugs from family and friends and the deeply expressive eye contact from the men I could not hug at the Welcome Ceremony.

Photo credit: Ariella LC

Photo credit: Bryna Lee Jacobson

The feeling of being reincorporated into the existing organism of our lives in Israel which, until today, we could live just a few weeks at a time.  

My profoundly grateful tears upon singing Hatikva which is now my national anthem.  

The ride from the airport to our ancient and brand new home.  

A welcome home brunch with friends from the neighborhood, coordinated by my brother.  

Photo credit: Ariella LC

The 100+ Facebook messages blessing us in our new life.  

The partial unpacking of our 8 huge duffels and 7 carry-ons and finding just the right places for the things we brought.  

The evening spent with both our girls in the same small apartment.  

The feeling of being HOME.

 

Thanks to those whose photos of our landing I snatched, for the most part, off of Facebook.

Surreality

We find ourselves in a most peculiar state of existence, just five days away from our aliyah flight.  Our household goods have been sent off in a ZIM container, on their way to a port city in Israel.  We are living with a borrowed table, borrowed chairs and cots.  I can’t cook anything because our pots are in transit.  We’ve sold off nearly everything down to the bare walls.  We’re spending several nights in hotels or with friends, trying to avoid the weirdness of being in our home that doesn’t really feel like home anymore.

In the past few months, and most especially the past few weeks, I have made so many decisions about whether to sell, keep, toss or give something away that I am paralyzed by the thought of having to make one more decision.

Now, we're saying goodbye to friends and family.  Even though the decision to make aliyah was much anticipated and totally volitional, the tears are just as salty as if the parting was imposed upon us by disaster or death, Gd-forbid.

Some goodbyes are more difficult than I would have expected.  Some less so.  We have literally been showered with blessings for all good things in life by dozens and dozens and dozens of people from all corners of our lives.  Emails, cards, phone calls, hugs.  It’s a bit overwhelming.  Often, I can’t finish reading the sentiment in a card or listening to a friend speak of love without welling up.  Blubbering even.

And I’ve seen more grown men crying this past week than I’ve ever seen before, including at funerals.

Sometimes, I find the most surprising things hard.  Sunday night, I sold my car.  When I was driving it for the last time, I got all choked up, remembering that I have had my own car since I was 16 and acknowledging that I probably won’t ever have my own car again.  It’s not the car; it’s the freedom and the independence. 

In some senses, making aliyah means regressing to the dependencies of childhood.  A close friend describes living in Israel as being forever considered, “the stupid immigrant mother” who feels like a completely competent adult only when she visits the US.  That, almost certainly, will be me.

The transition is in process but is not yet completed.  These last days, I am still more in this American life than in my future life in Israel.  At the same time, I’m not really fully present here anymore either.  

Occasionally, I flash forward to the scheduled moment for saying goodbye to those who have come to see us off, but I can’t really go there yet.  I imagine the flight itself, stepping off the plane, the Welcome Ceremony, the rush of emotions upon actually arriving in Israel, but it’s too amorphous and overwhelming to capture and hold.

Mostly, I feel astonishingly blessed that my nine year-old dream, my single-minded passion, my desperate need to live in Israel is mere days away from being realized.

It is truly surreal.

Guest Post - Resolving The Struggle to Decide on Aliyah

Earlier today, I got an extraordinary email from a woman I have known for many years. She and her husband have been struggling for quite some time with the decision about whether or not to make aliyah.

When she sent me this email, she had no way of knowing that I wrote about a similar experience  nearly a year ago. I asked her for permission to share what she wrote because I know it has the potential to inspire others.

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This morning, before davening, I was really having doubts that I had the strength to ever make aliyah. I'm tired, I'm drained, how could I pull it off? I'm not even sure I should do it. I don't have that kind of clarity. You know when you told me that you had your 'Aliyah epiphany' on 9/11, I thought how nice it was for you to have moment of clarity. I'm just so tired. Finally, I pushed all my thoughts aside, or so I thought, and began to daven. The following is a progression of narrative that transpired between the words in my siddur and the thoughts in my head.


Blessed is Hashem who gives me the wisdom to distinguish... if making Aliyah is the right thing for my family. That's cute, 'aliya thoughts' in my davening. Rivkah must have these all the time.


Blessed is Hashem who did not make me a slave. Who will release me from my materialistic slavery so I can make the right decision, free of my yetzer harah, and thank you Hashem for allowing me to live in a free society where I can chose to, or not to, live Israel.


Blessed is Hashem who made me according to His will (a woman) who could enjoy living in Israel in ways only a woman could. (Wow, why all these Israel thoughts? Why am I suddenly imagining going to the mikveh in Israel, and making challa in Israel and lighting candles in Israel, and having and raising children in Israel - I don't even have a ticket yet!?


Blessed is Hashem who opens the eyes of the blind. Oh my G-d, it is so clear now, how did I not see it! Of course I should make Aliyah, what is the question!!!!? Israel, where every mitzvah will be so elevated and and the connection to Hashem will be so strong that every action, no matter how seemingly insignificant, will take on a whole new level of sensitivity and meaning......oh, what am I thinking? I will be so vulnerable, no familiarity, no language, no friends. It's altruistic but it's not practical...wait, let's see what the next bracha is, maybe there is a message...


Blessed is Hashem who clothes the naked. The naked!!!! What could be more vulnerable than naked!!!!! I've been saying this bracha for most of my life and all I ever thought it meant was, "thank you Hashem for my clothes in the closet and great selections in the mall". Hashem will be my cover and protect me from all I fear. How did I not see this meaning before? It's like I've been locked in a dark closet and I'm finally seeing the light for the first time...

Blessed is Hashem for releasing the bound I'm free! Now I see, now it's clear. What was keeping me so clueless, why all the confusion until now? I know, it's the galus, we are so entrenched, so tangled up in American society that we just can't think straight. Oh no, I don't believe it...look at the next bracha -

Blessed is Hashem who straightens the bent. So it's done, it's decided, no more confusion, no more doubts. Now I just need to commit to doing what has to be done. I'm going to finish davening and call my husband to tell him my mind is made up, get the tickets.


Blessed is Hashem who spreads the earth upon the waters. They used to take a boat to travel to Israel, how lucky I am to go by plane. Look! I'm talking about the plane ride! I'm going! I already see myself on the plane. Oh boy, I will have a lot to pack, there is so much I am going to have to learn to live without.

Blessed is Hashem who will provide me with all my needs. Ok, this is beyond creepy, every negative thought I have is squelched by the subsequent brachos. All the spirituality aside, how will I do this? It is going to be sooooooo hard to...


Blessed is Hashem who establishes the footstep of man. (This is the part where I fall to the floor crying.) Everything will be fine. Hashem will help us establish ourselves, in school, in the community, in our new home (I stand back up).


Blessed is Hashem who girds Israel with strength. He will make me strong enough do whatever has to be done. We will go, we will settle and

Blessed is Hashem Who will crown us with splendor. That's it! That's the reason I am going (of course, I crying hysterically at this point.) The splendor! That is the word that explains the reason I want to go. The grandeur, the magnificence of Israel and being a Jew in the Holy Land. Now I know why Rebbi Akiva bought his wife a crown with Yerushalaim engraved on it. Israel is our crown, our splendor. I was so down, so exhausted from carrying the burden of this decision. Now I feel light and weightless...

Blessed is Hashem who gives strength to the weary.

I think I had my "Aliyah Moment" :)

My Fellow Apple People

Yesterday, I finished the new book by Risa Miller.  In it, one of her characters describes herself as an apple trying to talk to an orange.  I loved that line!  That's me in America.  I'm an apple, trying to talk to a country that is largely made up of oranges.  I cannot WAIT until I can live among my fellow apple people.

I feel the pressure against Israel mounting day by day. The stakes grow ever higher as more and more irrational things are happening on the world stage.  YouTube banning "We Con The World" for copyright infringement?  C'mon.  Not even close to rational.  So, to do my part, I'm blogging the link to the video as hosted by the WeJew video sharing site.

Years ago, during the Second Intifada, Rabbi Shlomo Riskin spoke to a packed house about the importance of traveling to Israel exactly when everyone else was cancelling their travel plans, thus crippling the tourism industry. This isn't a direct quote, but what he said was so potent, it still gives me the chills.

If Israel is your Disneyland, then come when the sun is shining.  But if Israel is your Motherland, then come now, because your mother needs you.

Israel is being assaulted from all sides.  Not just her classic political enemies.  Even YouTube,  iPhone and Yahoo are now taking a swipe at "Mom".

I traveled to Israel and bought real estate during the Second Intifada and now I'm less than a month away from bringing my whole life to her.

Hang on, Mom.  I'm on my way Home.  I  so want to be with you.

There's a Third

When I wrote about the yin and yang of making aliyah, I left something out.  There is really a third indivisible side to the decision, and the experience, of extracting oneself from life in the diaspora.

One needs to consider the logistics of the decision - where to live, how to earn money, where to educate one's children, etc.  That's where a lot of people get stalled.

If one is a Torah Jew, one also needs to consider all the things that Hashem has said about the spiritual superiority of living in Israel.  I recently joined a listserv whose whole purpose is to send out daily messages about loving and living in Israel.  There is no shortage of inspirational material about the pull of Eretz Yisrael on the Jewish soul.  One family I know recently spent hours looking at YouTube videos of religious life in Israel with their kids to get everyone on board their nascent aliyah decision.

But there's a third consideration, one that gets louder with each passing day.

Last Friday, my husband participated in a rally for Israel that took place on a street corner in downtown Baltimore. At the rally, a woman turned and asked him a bone-chilling question. "For how much longer do you think Jews will be free to stand and hold an Israeli flag in the streets of America?"

When Yaakov overheard Lavan's sons speaking disparagingly about him, he hightailed it out of Padan Aram back to Israel immediately, because he understood that Gd's presence had left and he was no longer protected.

The Jews of America appear to not be so insightful.  The shocking words of Helen Thomas ought to be enough to wake up American Jews.



It's not time for Jews to get the hell out of "Palestine", Gd-forbid.  It's time to get the hell out of America before it's too late.

And that's the third consideration.

The Right To Cry When Saying Goodbye

Such waves of emotions (in alphabetical order - fear of staying in America much longer, emuna, excitement, grief, panic, pride in my people and in my ancient/new country, especially this week and stress) are roiling within these days that it's no wonder I'm not sleeping too well.  Thanks to my deeply insightful, spiritual role-model friend Leah, I see that I am being given yissurim (suffering, trials) in advance of our aliyah in order to earn my future life in Israel.

It is not easy to disengage from a whole life lived elsewhere. Will it be worth it? No question. But that doesn't make it easy.

A friend in Israel who must have made aliyah when she was very young, recently said to me, "I never realized, it just never hit me, how much unraveling a person has to do when they make Aliya. In my immature and idealistic view, you just make the decision and come."

Ha!  Would that that were so.  My to-do list seems to get longer each day.  The days pass so swiftly that I am caught short-winded.  The pinpricks of emotion are getting more frequent.

I know, from the years I have already lived, that the moment of parting might be painful, like the ripping off of a band aid, but soon after, I will feel better.  In 32 days, I will feel better.

But now, it really is hard.  And I don't want any of my long-settled friends in Israel to try to convince me it's not.  There are a lot of goodbyes to say - to people, places and things that have been part of my life for so long, I can't remember ever not having them.  And goodbyes to newer relationships that I lack the time to nurture, places I'll likely never visit now and things I won't have in my home anymore.  I'm more than willing to say goodbye to all that.

But I reserve the right to cry when saying goodbye.

Guest Post - A Very Different "Aliyah" Story

On my last trip to Israel just before Shavuot, I met a family of Christians who told me they left their lives, their loved ones and all their possessions in New Zealand to stand in solidarity with the Jewish people in Israel.  Naturally, I had the same two reactions that a lot of you will have when you read their story: A) Did they come to Israel to convert Jews? or B) Could they actually be Jewish and not know it?

I don't yet know the answer to either question, but I was so taken with the depth of the mother's telling of her story that I asked her to write it down so I could share it with all of you.  This story so inspired me because it's about a family who risked everything in their material lives in order to follow Gd's call to Israel.  And, since they are not Jews, they are not even entitled to the citizenship benefits and support to which I and my family are entitled the minute we walk off our aliyah flight.  This family is living in Israel on pure emuna.

Here is their story, in the words of the mother, Linda.

My name is Linda, my husband Christopher and our three children, Marcus eighteen, Zoë fourteen and Zara thirteen.  “Why are we in Israel?” that is what we have been asked so many times. People in shops, on buses, our new neighbours and others along the way. Our reply is simple. “We felt that G-d, called us to come. To encourage you and let you know you have friends who support you.  Friends that are not taken in by the media. Friends that say Israel has a right to exist. The look on people’s faces is all the reward we need. Late at night we chatted with a young soldier travelling home on the bus for Pesah. His face lit up as we talked, he said “Wow, you have just made my Pesah.”  Little did he know he made ours.

If this is just a three month dream it is the best dream I have ever had. If it becomes long term reality, well that would take a miracle. Only G-d knows the answer to that. We sold our beautiful home, cars and everything else we had. We were left with nothing other than a few keep sakes which we left with my sister and twenty seven kilograms of luggage each to bring.  We are a close family, leaving my aging parents and sister’s family was not easy. Also leaving good friends, neighbours and much loved pets behind.  All of this was very momentous, departing New Zealand for a land we had never visited.

Now you may ask me, “Why, are you Jewish?”  No. Well not that we know of, but I have suffered with an affliction that is typically Jewish. I guess you could call it a restless spirit. Not knowing where you belong. It calls to you day and night, year in and year out and in my case for decades. You cannot shake it off because it is part of you. Where you go it goes. To function normally, you build a wall around it but even then you hear its call. From my earliest days I was taught to pray, love, honour, and revere the G-d of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. My parents taught me all the wonderful stories from the Tanakah, every one of them felt like they belonged to me. Because of this I recognised it as the Holy Spirit’s call to go and also to do something, but where and what for? Now if I was Jewish, well that would be easy. Why Israel, it would be obvious, but being Gentile, not so. It could be anywhere.  In shear frustration I said to Christopher one day, “I cannot bear this, let’s go to Israel and seek G-d, may be there we will hear more clearly.” Then I understood, Israel was where we were meant to go! Maybe I was hearing the prophetic shofar, a sound to return and I had not recognised it. Not wanting to make a mistake and uproot our family, just because Mum was restless. The only thing that we could do was pray. Christopher and I prayed something like this, “Lord you have spoken in many ways to many people, you know our apprehension, but you also see our willingness to go. Please speak to us from your word. We decided to read whatever our eyes fell on.  As they say, my heart skipped a beat. It was Psalm 84 “Blessed are those whose strength is in you who have set their hearts on a pilgrimage. As they pass through the Valley of Baca, they make it a place of springs the autumn rains also cover it with pools. They go from strength to strength till each appears before God in Zion.” G-d had been very good and answered our request. Other circumstances also guided us along the way.

From the first thought of Israel to our departure it took five years. We had family responsibilities, educational needs for our children, health issues and more.

Eventually the time arrived we were leaving, but in the rush and push, of everything we hadn’t found a place to stay. We quickly booked accommodation for a week. As we were booking I felt that we would only need it for four days, as we would have our apartment by then. Guess what, we had our keys to our new home on the fourth day. All I could say was, “thankyou, thankyou and thankyou again.” 

G-d loves to do the impossible to show that he is Almighty. Faith faces fear. Just think of the Red sea for one and more recently Israel again becoming a nation. There is a prophetic shofar in the heavens calling his people, the Jews home.   May I remind you of some of G-d’s promises?

'For I will take you out of the nations; I will gather you from all the countries and bring you back into your own land.

Ezekiel 36:24

I will say to the north, 'Give them up!' and to the south, 'Do not hold them back.' Bring my sons from afar and my daughters from the ends of the earth

Isaiah 43:6

This is what the Sovereign LORD says:  "See, I will beckon to the Gentiles, I will lift up my banner to the peoples; they will bring your sons in their arms and carry your daughters on their shoulders”.

Isaiah 49:22

Who has ever heard of such a thing? Who has ever seen such things? Can a country be born in a day or a nation be brought forth in a moment? Yet no sooner is Zion in labour than she gives birth to her children.   

Isaiah 66:8                                       

Hear the word of the LORD, O nations; proclaim it in distant coastlands: 'He who scattered Israel will gather them and will watch over his flock like a shepherd.'

Jeremiah 31:10

As for my restlessness.  We had been in Israel about a month and travelling along the high way looking over the valley toward Jerusalem with its white walls closely knitted together, breathing deeply I suddenly realised the restlessness was gone. I was shocked, I did not know when it left, it just slipped quietly out the door, in its place a sense of quiet contentment.        

 

You may not know it, but there are a vast number of us Gentiles who cheer you on. As it says in Isaiah 49:22 “See I will beckon to the Gentiles...” This is a time of fulfilment of prophecy.  We need Israel to take her rightful place among the nations. You are G-d’s time clock for the coming events.

We cover you in prayer, love and support.

 

Thank you for reading our story.

The Yin and Yang of Making Aliyah

There are two sides to making aliyah and they flip back and forth in my mind constantly.  And, based on a conversation that's going on right now on the Baltimore Chug Aliyah listserv that I moderate, I'm not the only mind occupied with these two sides. 

On the one hand, there's the anticipated glory of Israel.  Living a fuller Jewish life.  Responding to Hashem's call.  Being part of the largest miracle in Jewish history.  Being part of the story.  Crying during HaTikva.  Growing spiritually and connecting to one's soul in a deeper, more meaningful, more lasting way than would ever be possible outside the Land.  Learning more Torah.  Living with emunah, mamash.  All that.

Then there's the anticipated pain of living in Israel.  The language barrier.  Middle-Eastern bureaucracy.  A whole new breed of worries about making a living.  Figuring out how to get proper health care.  Having your kids adjust to school.  Smaller living spaces.   Trying to buy enough of the right consumer goods (Q-Tips, deodorant, sunscreen and the New Balance sneakers I've been wearing for years) to last until a friend or family member can replenish our stock.  Fear of poverty.  Lack of money.  Flimsy plastic cups and poor-quality paper goods.  Getting ripped off by a fill-in-the-blank system you don't understand.  No more WalMart. The raw fear of the unknown.

Did I mention fear of economic insecurity?

This is the yin and yang of making aliyah... and it never stops.

No wonder I'm not sleeping well.

Much Fuss About the Bus

Just got back from a quick trip to Israel, during which I mastered the basics of the Egged Bus system.  In the past, I relied much too heavily on my husband for all our transportation needs.  He either drove us everywhere we needed to go or navigated the bus system for me and I just followed him on and off the buses.  But this time, he was 6000 miles away, so I had to face up to my anxiety, give myself a pep talk, and figure it out.  For me and for my teenage daughter.

On the one hand, it's quite ridiculous to be proud of what I accomplished.  I'm a grown woman, and every English-speaking 18 year-old seminary and yeshiva student manages to get her or himself all over the country using the very same bus system.  So do the Thai workers.  And the refugees from Darfur.

On the other hand, it's quite exhilarating to stare down one's anxiety and just do what needs to be done.  And it's a heck of a lot cheaper than relying on cabs to go everywhere.  And it was kind of a rush to use my primitive Hebrew to ask someone if this bus goes to such-and-such a place.

In a very real sense, using the local bus system made me feel more deeply knit into the fabric of Israeli society.  As I mentioned to my daughter while we were waiting for a long-delayed bus, in Baltimore, there is a socio-economic stigma associated with those who ride public buses.  But in Israel, there is no such stigma.  Who doesn't ride even the occasional public bus in Israel?

I learned a handful of bus numbers and where they go.  I transferred from one bus to another with ease.  And when one bus took an hour to make a trip that should have taken 30 minutes, I simply hopped into a cab from the Central Bus Station and made it to my appointment just a few minutes late, a little embarrassed, but with a very local excuse about Jerusalem's morning traffic.

Yeah, I'm a regular Egged-head now.

Feelin' Woozy

Now that we've identified our prospective aliyah date with a high degree of certainty (while, of course, maintaining supreme awareness that only The Big Guy knows if we'll actually succeed in getting on that plane), things are starting to speed up. 

I walk through my house with an awareness that, as things disappear from every corner, it feels less and less like my home.  I am nursing a small but growing anxious feeling about getting everything done that is necessary to extricate us from five decades of life in America - unsubscribing, canceling, returning, liquidating, ending.  I feel pressed to apply for a new credit card with no foreign transaction fees because soon, we won't have an income (or a US address).  I should make sure my university transcripts have my current name on them in case I have to submit them in Israel for verification.  I need to move money from certain accounts into others.  And a hundred other niggling tasks like that.  Anxious that I won't get it all done and anxious that I'll completely forget to do something major.

Every time I open a drawer or a cabinet, I see more stuff I have to sell off.  Not to mention trying to figure out how to sell things we still need for another 65 days or so.

I've been in transition-mode for so long, and my mind is racing so fast over 10,000 details, that I'm  feelin woozy.

Yom Yom Far From Home

There are many days on the calendar when I wish I was in Israel.  Okay, pretty much every day...  But this past week were two special days that really don't translate well to American soil.  Sunday night was Yom HaZikaron - Israel's Memorial Day for the 22,682 soldiers who died defending our tiny country and the terror victims who died because there are still people in the world who need to kill Jews to feel successful in life.  In Israel, the day is marked by a 2-minute siren, during which Jews in shopping malls, on the road and everywhere else in the country stop and stand silently at attention, thinking about the soldiers and terror victims to whom they are personally connected.

It's a small country.

Immediately after Yom HaZikaron comes Yom HaAtzmaut - Israel Independence Day - celebrating the birth of the modern State of Israel 62 years ago.

In Baltimore, there are community and school-based programs. Yeshivat Rambam the most Zionist school in Baltimore, and the school where we've been sending our kids for years, has an annual Yom HaZikaron/Yom HaAtzmaut program.

This year's program was our last, and a few memories are worth preserving.  The Yom HaZikaron portion of the program at Yeshivat Rambam typically opens with high school girls telling stories of soldiers lost in Israel's many wars.  This year I heard that President Nixon's mother used to tell him bible stories when he was young.  She once told him that someday, he would be very powerful and he would be in a position to help the Jewish people.  At a crucial time in the Yom Kippur War, PM Golda Meir called President Nixon in the middle of the night, begging for US support for the war.  According to this account, Nixon recalled his mother's words and signed an Executive Order authorizing Israel to get whatever was needed to turn the war around.

Once Yom HaZikaron ended, the program transitioned to a celebratory Yom HaAtzmaut, featuring daglanut (flag dancing), adorable Israeli songs and more.

For the past 6 years,  the end of the evening has been the highlight for me.  Yeshivat Rambam honors those families who are planning to make aliyah in the upcoming months by calling them up onto the stage to light a candle.  Every year, I applauded wildly while my friends and community members were called up onto that stage on Yom HaAtzmaut, to inspire others, to show others what it looks like to publicly announce that the future of one's family is in Israel.

This year, it was our turn.

It was an impressive group of singles and families, most with 4 or 5 children, up there, all off to meet our destinies in Israel.  Yeshivat Rambam did a lot to bring the feelings of Yom HaZikaron and Yom HaAtzmaut to Baltimore.  Clearly, hours and hours of effort, coordination, creativity and spirit went into the evening. I applaud the effort.  But in the end, honoring these uniquely Israeli days 6,000 miles away cannot match the feelings these days engender in their natural habitat.  No matter how hard the programmers worked to capture them, we are simply too far removed from the real thing to experience the fullness of these days while sitting in Baltimore.  

In the end, it was yom, yom, far from home.

Sometimes Words Are Useless

For years, friends who were making aliyah and leaving me and my longing behind would look into my pathetic, droopy, sad eyes and try to say things to comfort me.

"Soon, it will be your turn."

"Hashem must have a reason for you to still be here."

"Hashem knows how much you are yearning to be in Israel and that counts for a lot."

All true statements, and I always appreciated the sentiment behind them, but they weren't exactly uplifting.  At the end of the day, my friends got to get on that aliyah flight.

And I didn't.

And, back then, I didn't have a clue when I would be able to.

Now, I look at the friends, all more spiritually worthy than I am, who have the same longing to go, the same painful stuckness, the same inability, because of other commitments, to leave America despite their desperate desires.

And I haven't a clue what to say to them.

All I can do is thank Gd that, in a few months, I"H, it'll be my turn.

Having been in that position for so long, you would think I would have a soothing way to respond to the sadness of those left behind, but I don't.  I'm just as much at a loss for words as everyone else.

But I can hug them.  And, in that way, communicate that I get it.  That's about all I can do, because sometimes, words are useless.

A Public Mitzvah in Baltimore

I always thought that Baltimore did biur chametz (the final burning of prohibited foods just before Passover) particularly well and I applaud all the volunteers that help make it happen year after year.  Last year, the public chametz burning was moved from the Glen Avenue Fire Station to a parking lot at Pimlico Racetrack.  The racetrack is 5 minutes from our house, but it took an hour to complete the mitzvah because of all the traffic - hundreds of Jewish families going out to burn their chametz.  In previous years, I always imagined that this was what life in Israel would feel like - mitzvahs done by hundreds of people at a time, right out in public. Most years, there are young men collecting charity among the crowds and plenty of neighborly wishes for a good and kosher Pesach.  It's a very Jewish moment in Baltimore.

And yet, on the slow approach to the site of the public chametz burning, we passed any number of non-Jewish businesses and houses of worship in a neighborhood that is clearly not one where Jews live today.  I have to imagine there were few among us who didn't ask themselves, "I wonder what the non-Jews around here think of what we're doing, coming into their neighborhood and making a huge amount of smoke?"

So even this very public mitzvah in Baltimore, done with as much kiddush Hashem as possible, is a potent reminder that we live in someone else's country.

L'shana Ha'ba'ah B'Yerushalayim indeed.

Before It's Too Late

I often sit with two simultaneous feelings about moving to Israel.  I spend a lot of time thinking of logistics and the details of our future daily lives.  What size shipping container do we need?  What items should I stock up on at WalMart before we go?  Will we ever get jobs in Israel?  How much will I miss kosher Chinese food?  Will I ever feel comfortable driving in Jerusalem?  Will the passport pictures I got be enough?  Will I ever learn the language sufficiently to feel truly at home in my Homeland?  Is the school we're thinking of the right choice for our daughter? Will I ever feel comfortable boarding a bus like an Israeli? Will I be a hopeless greenhorn the rest of my life?  From whom will it be hardest to part? Who among our loved ones will follow us on this path?  Will we run out of money? And on and on.

An endless loop of questions.  All in my head.

The other feeling about moving to Israel doesn't live in my head at all.

It lives in my soul. 

Most Shabbat mornings, I spend time with the Israel-infused, aliyah-oriented writings of three of my rabbinic heroes - Rabbi Nachman Kahana, Rabbi Pinchas Winston and Rabbi Moshe Lichtman.  I love to wrap their words around me, to reassure myself that this is absolutely the right move, indeed, the only correct move, for our family.

My rabbis remind me that the world is shifting beneath my feet.  That Jewish history is moving ahead, inexorably, toward Redemption.  That, while it is always a good thing for a Jew to live in Israel, the current times demand that we get there as soon as possible... for our own good and for the future well-being of our families.

The approaches of my three rabbis differ.  One is exceedingly forthright in declaring life in America today downright dangerous for Jews.  One argues that the ideal condition for a Jew is lived in Israel and questions why, so many years after 1948, all serious Jews aren't already there.  One reminds me to look at the patterns in Jewish history and draw my own conclusions.

I love all three approaches, but I resonate most with the plain-spoken, least politically-correct one.  Week after week, he all but screams, "Can't you see that you're in the path of an oncoming train wreck??  GET OUT!!!!!!!!!!"

I sit with at least two simultaneous feelings about moving to Israel.  One is genuine concern about how hard it might be. In response, I expend lots of energy planning our aliyah, so that we will, hopefully, avoid at least the major pitfalls.

And the other is a resolute certainty that this move must be made and made now.  In response, I watch the political, economic and historical trends swirling around me and assure myself that, no matter what others in my life choose for themselves (and no matter how long it takes me to speak a competent Hebrew), this is truly what Gd wants from me.

I thank Gd we are getting the chance to do this now.

Before it's too late.

The Prescient Letter

(adj.) prescient - perceiving the significance of events before they occur

In 1986, after my husband got his first position as a rabbi, he wrote to Rabbi Norbert Weinberg of Fall River, MA, an early professional mentor, to tell him the news.  Rabbi Weinberg wrote a congratulatory letter that my husband held onto all these years.  We unearthed the letter yesterday afternoon in the archeological dig that we call our basement.

The letter reads, in part:

"But if I may be pardoned for just one word of mussar - it is that you keep the Eretz Yisrael option very much alive for both yourself and your congregants.  I sometimes have the frightening feeling that we rabbis are building on quicksand, as rabbis in previous generations have done.  We should never lose sight of our ultimate goal."

Thank you, Rabbi Weinberg, for the seed you planted 24 years ago.  May it bring you satisfaction to know that it is finally coming to fruition.

Ruminations about Stuff

All afternoon, I've been in Jerusalem.  Well, in my head anyway.  I've been listening to my 33-song Jerusalem playlist on my iPod, but I'm actually in Baltimore where the uncluttering continues at a rapid pace.  While there's still plenty from which to divest, I feel like I've crossed some invisible halfway point.  Maybe that's because I finally started dealing with the basement.  Yesterday, I called my Israeli daughter on Skype, took the laptop into the basement and waved the detritus of her childhood in front of the webcam, one stuffed bear at a time.  Oh!  the memories she shared while deciding whether each was a keeper or an item for the giveaway pile.

It's getting easier.  Sometimes I wonder if I'm going to end up taking anything at all on that 20' lift we ordered.

I've been ruminating about stuff for quite a long time, since I've been engaged in this uncluttering effort for many months.  It's extraordinary the amount of stuff we accumulated over the years.  I blame the basement.  Too easy to just put it downstairs and not have to make a decision.

I find myself relieved when something is too broken, moldy, dirty or otherwise unsuitable to even consider saving. Get it out!

At the same time, I can't say that I'm entirely clear how we're going to live in such a small space.  There's plenty of room for clothes and dishes, tables and sofas, linens and shampoo bottles.  But what about the stuff that isn't necessary for daily life but that we carry with us from one home to the next - family photos, old journals, our parents' wedding album, a painting from our childhood home that doesn't really belong in our home anymore?  And what do we save from our children's childhoods?  How many old school papers and art projects are enough to communicate that we value the memories?  I have a few toys that were hand-me-downs from my nephews.  Our daughters played with them and, I can't help thinking, maybe someday they will be enjoyed by my hypothetical grandchildren when they visit Saba and Savta.

So, that's what it's like to be me these days, alternating between highly efficient unclutterer and a sappily sentimental someday-Savta.

The Irony of Waiting

Four years ago, I founded the Baltimore Chug Aliyah. At that time, making aliyah was a very distant dream for me, but I wanted to help those who could go sooner. I had the administrative skills to help. Professionally, I spent several decades working in university admissions, and helping people make aliyah is a lot like helping people get admitted to an institution of higher education. Additionally, running the Baltimore Chug Aliyah was a productive way for me to channel my own frustrated aliyah energy.

One of the most vital parts of the Baltimore Chug Aliyah has been its listserv. The listserv provides daily doses of aliyah information and inspiration for over 250 people. In the same day, messages about real estate transactions in Israel or options for learning Hebrew might come through the discussion list. As important as the tachlis messages are, as often as possible, I like to distribute inspirational aliyah messages that have emotional and spiritual resonance.

I sent just such a message to the list yesterday. It was written by Rabbi Lazer Brody. The opening sentences of Rabbi Brody's message were:

Beloved brothers and sisters, Rabbi Ovadia Yosef has been imploring people to make aliya (literally, "ascending"; means coming home to Israel to live) for the last several years. Rabbi Amnon Yitzchak doesn't stop talking about the urgency with which World Jewry should head home to the Land of Israel. Rabbi Shalom Arush stresses the need for aliya in almost every one of his recent lessons. What's going on?

Rabbi Brody's message includes a 5-minute clip from a conservative, non-Jewish American political commentator detailing worrisome trends in America and warning that, when things go bad, the Jews will suffer first. In this message, I heard a powerful call to make aliyah, a combination of warning pleas from rabbis in Israel and a siren call to American Jews from a non-Jewish American political commentator. It was a potent 1-2 punch.

So I had to shake my head at the irony of one list member who replied to that message with one that said, in effect, though not in quite these words, "Family members have just moved to Baltimore, so, instead of making aliyah, we've decided to wait here for the Moshiach. Please remove me from your email list."

The Decision to Follow Gd

Lately, I have been having a certain aliyah-related conversation with a lot of people. By definition, the people with whom I am talking are feeling the struggle, which puts them way ahead of the masses of American Jews who aren't even in the question.  The conversation is always about the struggle people feel over whether or not to make aliyah.

To some extent, they feel the pull of The Land.  On some level, they know that Jews belong in Israel and not in Baltimore or Brooklyn or LA.  And maybe, they even feel the historical tug of being a Jew alive in the first decades after Jewish dominion over the Land of Israel has been restored, and the responsibility that confers on us to return Home and live with Gd.

But they are scared.  So they focus on the barriers.  Mostly, it's economic.  Sometimes it's a concern for their children and how they will adjust.  Less often, there are elderly parents to care for.

And here is what I want to say to them.

Do you imagine that only independently wealthy, single, childless orphans make aliyah?  Who doesn't have any barriers to making aliyah?

Take our case.  My husband is, bli ayin hara, a very successful pulpit rabbi with a long term contract in a strong and stable congregation.  He will never be able to work as a pulpit rabbi in Israel.  Making aliyah means he has to walk away from his career, his passion and his life's work of over two decades and he has to reinvent himself.  Will he be successful?  We can't know in advance.

I have always earned my living in language-intensive careers, but I barely speak Hebrew, despite years of study. We both have aging parents.  And we are taking a teenage daughter with us.  We won't be able to afford our life insurance premiums anymore.  Talk about barriers.  Talk about risks.

I'm enumerating these very real circumstances because most people have them.  Or some permutation of them.  For some, such circumstances are mountains, over which they cannot climb.

For me, these are risks I am prepared to take because I believe that Hashem runs the world.  The same Hashem who gives me a sense of economic security in the US can provide me with a sense of economic security in Israel.

What's the alternative?  Stay put in a foreign culture, where I believe with all my heart and soul that I don't belong, and put all my chips on the possibility that my life will continue as it has been going?  Every day presents new risks.  A hundred things could dramatically change the contours of my life in a heartbeat.  A bad diagnosis, Gd-forbid.  An earthquake or other natural disaster.  A layoff.  A stock market crash.  The arrival of Moshiach.  The decision to stay only makes sense if I assume that everything will remain the same.  But who can guarantee that?  Life changes.  That's life.

And why would I think making aliyah is supposed to be easy?  For whom is it easy?  Who is not at least somewhat conflicted?  Who goes without leaving someONE, or someTHING, precious behind?  Betcha most of the people who will read these words in Israel made aliyah with some measure of conflict themselves.

I'm not saying that the concerns people have aren't legitimate.  I'm just saying that the decision to make aliyah has a non-rational, metaphysical, spiritual element that has to be accounted for.  If you leave Gd out of the cheshbon and only count the rational, economic factors, you might as well move to Kentucky, since Kentucky enjoys one of the lowest costs of living in the US.  But if Gd is a factor in the calculus, then it becomes much clearer.  At least to me.

I became religious close to 25 years ago.  It wasn't a rational decision then either.  It was a decision to follow Gd.

Aliyah - same thing.  Same exact thing.