Do You Love America?

When we were in Israel this past visit, we went to visit Beit El, a religious settlement north of Jerusalem. Beit El also happens to be the home of Israel National Radio. While visiting the Israel National Radio studio, we had the chance to meet Yishai Fleisher, the one-man aliyah motivation machine and one of the major forces behind the potently inspiring Kumah website.

I watched Yishai have a conversation with a 12 year-old girl who was in our group. This particular girl has been living in Israel for about 7 years, having made aliyah with her family from America. Yishai asked her if she liked living in Israel and she responded with a comment about the things in America that she still misses.

I thought Yishai’s response to her was brilliant, and it speaks to the rest of us just as well. He told her that he also loves things about America. And that makes the mitzvah of living in Israel that much more powerful. If you hate everything about America and can’t wait to get out of the place already, that’s one level.

But if you like “fill-in-the-blank” about America (i.e. Broadway shows, Walmart/Target, your community, your job, the ability to speak the language fluently, easy access to English books, your friends and family, etc. etc.) and you move to Israel anyway, it becomes clear that your motive for doing so comes from wanting to serve Gd.

It’s the same principle I learned about keeping kosher. When offered a cheeseburger, don’t say, “No thanks. I don’t care for cheeseburgers.” Rather say, “I would love to eat a cheeseburger, but I refrain because Gd told me they are not appropriate for me.”

So don’t say, “I hate everything about America and I can’t wait to leave.” Rather say, “I love many aspects of my life in America. But Gd has a higher expectation for me and that can only be achieved in Israel.”

Books to Inspire You To Make Aliyah and Bring Geula

My new pet project: promoting English language books that teach about the relationship between aliyah and bringing geula. If lots of local Jewish bookstores established a "Moshiach section" - a selection of titles that inspire Jews to take a long view about the world we live in, perhaps it could help bring Moshiach.

Toward that end, here's an annotated bibliography that I've been working on. There are both "feel-good" books about life in Israel and serious Torah among these selections. Ask for them at a Jewish bookstore near you.

Aliyah Stories

Moving Up: An Aliyah Journal
by Laura Ben-David
Mazo Publishers
Moving Up is an easy-to-read, daily account of a family's first year in Israel, from the packing up of their American house to the birth of their first child in Israel a year later.

To Dwell In The Palace: Perspectives on Eretz Yisroel
by Tzvia Ehrlich-Klein
Feldheim Publishers
A thought-provoking collection of articles, addressed to religious Jews in the West concerning the mitzvah of aliyah. I first read To Dwell in the Palace when it was published in 1991 and I was still firmly enmeshed in my Diaspora Judaism. I've reread it many times since then, and it retains its power to move the soul. Do not miss the section called, "Things My Shaliach Never Told Me."

Aliya: Three Generations of American-Jewish Immigration to Israel
by Liel Leibovitz
St. Martin's Griffin
The 2,000 year-old yearning to live in Israel, as expressed in the social history of one Jewish family.

Home to Stay: One American Family's Chronicle of Miracles and Struggles in Contemporary Israel
by Daniel Gordis
Three Rivers Press
The paperback version of If a Place Can Make You Cry, the story of Daniel Gordis and his family's decision to make aliyah after a sabbatical year spent in Jerusalem.

101 Reasons to Visit Israel: And Perhaps Make Aliyah
by Estie Solomon
A lighthearted list of 101 pleasurable aspects of life in Israel, illustrated by full-color photos.

On Busdrivers, Dreidels and Orange Juice
On Cab Drivers, Shopkeepers and Strangers
On Bus Stops, Bakers, and Beggars
by Tzivia Ehrlich-Klein
Feldheim
Three volumes of brief and inspiring stories of everyday life in Israel.

Aliyah and Eretz Yisrael

Eretz Yisrael in the Parashah: The Centrality of the Land of Israel in the Torah
by Moshe D. Lichtman
Devora Publishing
Why do so many Jews still choose to live in the Diaspora? To answer this question, the author analyzes every reference to Eretz Yisrael in the 54 Torah portions, demonstrates the overriding importance of Eretz Yisrael and encourages Diaspora Jews to at least consider making aliyah.

Talking About Eretz Yisrael: The Profound And Essential Meaning Of Making Aliyah
by Rabbi Pinchas Winston
ShaarNun Productions
This book is a forthright argument meant to encourage Torah-observant Jews to urgently consider making aliyah today.

Eretz Yisrael: The Teachings of HaRav Avraham Yitzhak HaCohen Kook (Lights on OROT)
by Rabbi David Samson and Tzvi Fishman
Torat Eretz Yisrael Publications
The rabbinic name most associated with Religious Zionism is HaRav Avraham Yitzhak HaCohen Kook, better known as Rav Kook, who lived and taught in pre-State Palestine. This book is an accessible English commentary on Rav Kook's teachings about Eretz Yisrael.

Eim Habanim Semeichah: On Eretz Yisrael, Redemption, and Unity
by Yisachar Shlomo Teichtal
Urim Publications
Rabbi Yisachar Shlomo Teichtal was an Eastern European scholar living during the Holocaust. While hiding from the Nazis in Budapest in 1943, he wrote this lengthy argument on behalf of the establishment of Jewish dominion over Israel, a position that he had previously opposed.

A Question of Redemption: Can the Modern State of Israel be the Beginning of Redemption? Questions and Answers in Halachah
by Rabbi Ya'akov Moshe Bergman
Kol Mevaser
Can the State of Israel really be "The First Flowering of our Redemption"? This book presents the Religious Zionist viewpoint of the State of Israel and the ultimate redemption. I was not able to find this book online. Ask for it in a Jewish bookstore.

Moshiach and Geula

The Ishmaelite Exile
by Yechiel Weitzman
Jerusalem Publications/ Feldheim
This book focuses on Jewish prophecies as they relate to the difficult events facing Israel and the Jewish people in the days closest to geula. The author argues that everything that is playing out in today's headlines about the conflict in the Middle East was predicted by Jewish texts long ago.

Talking About The End of Days: View of Our Times Based on Revealed and Inner Teachings of Torah
by Rabbi Pinchas Winston
ShaarNun Productions
A guide to better understanding the stage of Jewish history in which we find ourselves.

Redemption Unfolding: The Last Exile of Israel, Chevlei Mashiach, the War of Gog & Magog and the Final Redemption
Alexander Aryeh Mandelbaum
Feldheim Publications
This book will help you understand current world events in their larger, Torah context.

As A New Day Breaks: A Contemporary View Of Mashiach And Israel's Redemption
by Rabbi Eliyahu Touger
Sichos in English/E.M.E.T

Sound the Great Shofar: Essays on the Imminence of the Redemption
by Rabbi Eliyahu Touger
Sichos in English
Based on the public addresses given by Rabbi Menachem M. Schneerson, this book offers answers to many of today's most frequently asked questions on the subject of geula.

Living With Moshiach: An Anthology of Brief Homilies and Insights on the Weekly Torah Readings and the Festivals
by Jacob Immanuel Schochet
Merkos L'Inyonei Chinuch
Observations on the redemption by parsha.

On Eagle's Wings: Moshiach, Redemption, And The World To Come
by Rabbi Herschel Brand
Feldheim Publishers
Awaiting the Moshiach is one of the underpinnings of Jewish belief, one of Maimonides's Thirteen Principles of Faith. The author gathers together the teachings of the Sages on this subject in an illuminating and thought-provoking question-and-answer format.

Mashiach: Principles of Moshiach and Messianic Era in Jewish Law
by Jacob I Schochet
Sichos in English

Mashiach: Who? What? Why? How? Where? and When?
by Chaim Kramer
Moznaim
Based on teachings about Mashiach in the Bible, Talmud, Midrash and Kabbalah, together with insights from the writings of Rebbe Nachman of Breslov.

Do We Know Who We Really Are?

While shopping for food for Shabbat at the mall in Ma’ale Adumim last week, I saw an unmistakable cross-shaped tattoo on the forehead of an Ethiopian woman who was otherwise dressed as an observant Jew. Then I started seeing it on the foreheads of lots of other Ethiopian women.

Apparently, tattooing crosses on the forehead, arm, neck or chest is very common among Ethiopian Christian women. So how did so many Ethiopian Jewish women end up with these same tattoos? Was it religious coercion? A way to hide their Jewish identity? Or some other motivation I’ll likely never understand?

We are all marked, impacted, by the experience of living in exile. For Ethiopian women, the mark is obvious to all who look at their faces. But a tattoo can often be removed.

The situation can be much more dire for North American Jews. The experience of living in exile in Brooklyn or Lakewood or Baltimore very often blinds us to the fact that we are living in, and building up, someone else’s land.

Where Do You Really Live?

DATELINE: Ma’ale Adumim

When Yosef was languishing in prison in Egypt, he began to interpret dreams. In the process of interpreting a dream for Paroh’s cupbearer, he described himself as a member of the Hebrew people. “For I was kidnapped from the land of the Hebrews” (Bereishit 40:15)." Because of his willingness to identify himself as a proper resident of Eretz Yisrael, he merited to be buried in Israel.

Moshe, on the other hand, did not protest when the daughters of Yisro referred to him as an Egyptian man (Shemot 2:19) and, as a result, he did not merit burial in Israel.

If we consider the matter further, we realize that Yosef was born in Israel, but Moshe actually was Egyptian by birth. It makes sense that Yosef would identify as an Israeli, but why punish Moshe for not doing so when he had never even been in Israel?

On this distinction, Rav Meir Yechiel of Ostrov teaches, "From this we learn that from the time Eretz Yisrael was promised to Avraham, every Jew must see himself as a citizen of Israel."

As Jews, we ought to see ourselves as citizens of Israel, regardless of where we actually live.

Although I can’t find the exact quote, I once read that, when asked where you are from, it is proper for a Jew living outside Israel to respond, “I am from the Land Of Israel but because of my many sins, I find myself living in galut.”

Yesterday, as we were leaving shul, we were engaged in conversation about how long our visit here will be and when we will come back to stay. A casual comment by neighbor totally changed the way I think.

"Don’t say, 'I live in Baltimore and I hope to make aliyah in X years,’ she suggested. "Rather, say, 'I live in Israel, but I am currently on shlichut in America.'"

Paradox

One of my favorite things to do in Israel is to listen to tales of people’s Jewish journeys. So many people with amazing Jewish stories end up in Israel. It’s so inspiring. I’ve noticed frequently that many of the most powerful stories come from people who were not born as Jews. Converts to Judaism seem to be able to see clearly that Jewish life in Israel is a natural extension of their Jewish journey. They keep growing and that growth leads them to a life in Israel.

It's a paradox that it can be so clear to some and so off-the-radar-screen for others.

How Soon Will The World Change?

About five years ago, I stumbled upon a new avenue of Jewish information that blew me away. It’s called Facilitated Communication and, at least in a Jewish context, it offers a way for the world to access spiritual information in a most unexpected way.

The process, at least for the layperson, is relatively simple. Profoundly physically handicapped, often autistic, children are given a means to communicate, either through an alphabet board, a computer keyboard or other instrument. With the physical support of a trained facilitator, these Jewish souls (for they are more soul than body at this stage) deliver messages from another, higher level of reality that most of us can’t access with our intact brains.

They “speak” of great changes coming to the world. They passionately urge all Jewish people to return to Gd. They excoriate the profound attachment even religious Jews, and especially religious Jews in America, have to the material world. They teach that the destruction of the World Trade Center was a lesson. The Twin Towers were the symbol of gashmiut, and, just as they were destroyed and ground to dust, soon, so will the rest of the materialism with which we fill our lives.

When I first started learning about this, I bought several books that published transcribed conversations, usually between an autistic child from a Jewish family and a parent, with the help of a trained facilitator. At first, the books scared me, because they revealed the actual presence of a world beyond our own. But after a time, I became comforted by the evidence in these books that a more spiritual level of reality actually exists, and that these souls, tortured in this world, have the ability to open limited access to other, more spiritual levels of existence.

I didn’t exactly forget about this whole avenue of Jewish information, and I reread the books a few times, but time passed and they lost their hold over me.

And then, a few months ago, someone sent me to a website with brand new facilitated communications. And just this week, while shopping for books about geula in a Jewish bookstore, I came across the new book that publishes much of the material on the website.

It is less than an hour before Shabbat in the part of the world in which I find myself. I just finished reading the first 65 pages of the book and, even though the book foretells that we are at the cusp of a very dark and difficult time, my soul leaps within me, because the messages also reminds us of the process of giving birth. As I can tell you from first-hand experience, in the last hours before birth, the pain is indescribable. It was as if my body was separate from the rest of me. And yet, eventually, the pain subsided and I had the simcha of a new, healthy baby.

This is the stage of the world we are in. We are as a woman in late stages of labor. There are dark and difficult times ahead, when the world will change in ways we can’t anticipate, but there is also Redemption following.

To this ultimate end, my soul leaps.

Even if you’re sure I’m wrong, or if you’re simply not sure what to think, look at this site. Read this book.

Because that way, you won't have to weep and say, "I didn't know. I didn't see it coming."

Staying Awake

Here’s how it feels to be me.

There’s an underlying disquiet that never really leaves me. I am, at all times, waiting for the other shoe to drop. It could be imminent. It could be years from now. It doesn’t feel like it’s going to happen to my family in particular, but that something will happen on a global scale that will affect my family. And my biggest concern now is staying awake, staying alert, making sure I do what I can to keep my family safe.

I have been teaching a Jewish history course for several months now. When you look at Jewish history globally, from Biblical times to the present, you have to be struck by how certain themes prevail.

There really are, perpetually, enemies that want to annihilate us. Jewish history truly does keep repeating itself.

And we never learn.

We cozy up, time and again, to our hosts in the Diaspora, and promptly experience group amnesia.

There’s a shul around the corner from my home that has tripled its building size in the last year. Building and building as if the next several decades of Orthodox life in America will be much like the previous ones. That’s group amnesia.

The feeling that something big is coming won’t leave me. So I wake up every day expecting it.

I often think of the Jews in Germany in the 1930s. Of the ones who said, “Something bad is coming,” and of the people in their lives who said, “Don’t be silly. This will all blow over.”

It’s not like I think another physical annihilation is headed our way, Gd-forbid. This time, I think it could come in another realm – an economic annihilation would be particularly fitting for the Jews of America. But if I tell people that I worry that I will awaken one day holding dollars that are worth 10% of what they were worth the night before, they look at me like I’m cracked. When I consider, despite the tax implications, that I should liquidate some of our retirement savings and pay off our Israeli mortgage, even I question whether I’ve taken this currency devaluation worry a bit too far.

But what if I’m right.

Major Paradigm Shift - Addendum

In my last post, I inadvertently left out an important aspect of the process.

There is a back door to avoiding, or at least diminishing, the negative impact of having the sar of the country in chutz l'aretz strengthen its dark side by taking a portion of the kedusha we've generated.

Here's how we can retain the kedusha generated by our mitzvot, even when they are done in chutz l'aretz.

If a mitzvah is completed outside of Israel, but the Jew who does the mitzvah really and truly yearns for geula and also yearns for Eretz Yisrael, the kedusha is able to retain its strength on its journey to Eretz Yisrael, thereby accomplishing something spiritually similar to what it would have accomplished if the mitzvah had actually been done in Israel.

So if you can't, for a halachically-valid reason, live in Israel right now... yearning for it, and longing for the Redemption, are your best spiritual defense.

There now. Isn't that better?

Major Paradigm Shift

Is the decision of whether to live in Jersey or Jerusalem, Baltimore or Beit Shemesh, Monsey or Modi’in one of personal choice? After all, in Teaneck, in Baltimore, in Monsey, all the necessities of Orthodox life can be found in abundance. Here in Baltimore, there are six restaurants where you can get a taste of kosher pizza (seven, if you count pizza bagels). The American cities where religious Jews tend to congregate are rich with resources – day schools, synagogues, mikvaot, chesed organizations, kosher groceries, eruvin, etc. etc.

It’s really a matter of where you feel the most comfortable. Where your family is. Where your parnassa is the most certain and secure. Most of us know, on some level, that Israel is a religious ideal. And maybe someday, we’ll get there. Or maybe our children. Or grandchildren. But we don’t speak the language and fear that we’ll never learn at our age. And it’s so hard to make a living there. And we just built an addition on our house. And our shul is in the process of expanding again. And the government in Israel is so anti-religious. At least in America, the government tolerates, and even protects, religious people.

Rabbi Pinchas Winston was here in Baltimore teaching last Sunday. He gave two sessions, both of which I was privileged to attend.

At the first session, he met with a small group of people, all religious women, and as he spoke, as I realized the significance of what he was saying, my head started to spin.

Here’s what he described, according to my understanding. The simplicity of the language is mine. His was much more scholarly.

Each nation, except Eretz Yisrael, has a sar, a representative angel which has the power to intercede on behalf of its nation. Eretz Yisrael is overseen directly by Gd. Tefillot (prayers) spoken in the Land of Israel go straight up to shamayim (the heavenly realm). Torah study and other mitzvot completed in the Land and the kedusha (holiness) they generate go straight up.

The kedusha of prayer, Torah study and mitzvot done in other lands takes a more circuitous route before it can get to shamayim. It must pass through the sar of other nations, and when it does, each sar, each representative angel, retains a portion.

Which means that every bit of kedusha generated outside of Israel feeds the koach, the strength, of other nations.

So, according to this paradigm, to be a Torah-observant Jew outside of Israel actually works to strengthen the host nation which may use (and often has used) that strength against the Jews in its midst. It also greatly diminishes the spiritual strength of the mitzvot done outside The Land.

If what he's teaching is really so, Jersey or Jerusalem, Baltimore or Beit Shemesh, Monsey or Modi'in is hardly a pareve choice anymore.

Doing Jewish Stuff in Israel

I'm a little behind in my reading of The International Jerusalem Post. So it's an interesting confluence that today, after I just wrote about how jarring it can be to really pay attention to all the ways we adapt our traditional Jewish ways to life in America, I see this article in the November 30-December 6, 2007 issue.

Herb Keinon writes about the exact corollary to my point:

ONE OF the things we take for granted here [in Israel] is that you can do all that Jewish stuff that looks extremely odd to the uninitiated without feeling overly self-conscious.

You can walk out of synagogue on a cloudless Saturday night once a month and pray while glancing at the moon [Kiddush Levana] without people thinking you a lunatic. You can use a cup to alternately pour water three times over each hand before eating bread without people thinking you obsessive-compulsive. And you can walk with tzitzit sticking inadvertently out of your pants without someone believing your undergarments are in disrepair.
Years ago, while a university student in Boulder, Colorado, a few tzitzit strands were sticking out of my pants as I traipsed across the campus. A fellow student, obviously thinking she was doing me a great kindness, stopped and said, "Sucker, yo' underwear be unraveling."

Not a Joke

Motzei Shabbos, we were driving around running errands while I talked to my endlessly patient husband about how, as observant American Jews, we don't even realize how much of our environment we censor out. Think of it: restaurants we can't eat in, clothes we can't buy or wear, holidays we don't celebrate, recipes we can't make, magazines we subscribe to whose content becomes irrelevant to us several times a year, fast food we can’t eat, month-long Christmas music festivals on radio stations we no longer feel comfortable listening to, etc. etc.

We are so used to automatically censoring our environment that we don’t even realize we do it.

Right now, there is a very popular YouTube music video called Chinese Food on Christmas, which bemoans the that fact that, for American Jews, there’s not much to do on Christmas day except eat Chinese food and go to see a movie.

It’s not a joke. We really do live in a Christian country.

Many of us like to see America as a place of liberty for all people. New York State Assemblyman Dov Hikind recently called on the US government to grant refugee status to European Jews who are victims of increasing acts of anti-Semitism.

Dov Hikind is an Orthodox Jew who wants America to absorb European Jews running from skyrocketing anti-Semitism in Europe.

Not in 1937.

Today.

If it weren't so scary that Hikind, an Orthodox Jew, doesn't see the irony of what he's proposing at this time in Jewish history, I would assume it was a joke.

Sadly, it's not a joke.

The Playground Too Few Play In

This past Friday night, we had wonderful Shabbos guests – smart, committed, articulate Jewish friends who appear to welcome engaging in discussions about Israel almost as much as I do. Or at least they have great patience with my obsession.

We were talking about how Gd might view the fact that some of us love Israel, really love Israel, from a distance, but aren’t planning to live there anytime soon. My husband, a master of analogies, responded with this:

Imagine you are a wealthy philanthropist. You endow a beautiful playground in a poor neighborhood in your city. Over time, you notice that, although the people of the neighborhood talk a lot about how much they love and appreciate the playground, virtually no children actually use it.

So you, as the wealthy philanthropist, warn the members of the neighborhood that you are going to have the playground dismantled because it is clearly under appreciated. “Oh please, no! Don’t take away our playground!” they plead. “We love it. It’s a highlight of our neighborhood.”

And what might you, the wealthy philanthropist say to those upon whom you’ve bestowed the gift of a lovely playground?

“If you really appreciate it,” you’d say, “don’t just give it lip service. Don’t just tell me how much you like it. Use it! Bring your children there to play. That’s how I will know that my gift is truly appreciated.”

How can our lip service possibly be enough? How can Gd appreciate Tehillim said in groups of 400 Jews who plan to visit Israel every other year, or even every year, but to live, raise their families, and die in Baltimore?

The secular State of Israel isn’t perfect so we prefer to stay in America where things are easier, all the while crying “Uvenei Yerushalayim ir hakodesh. birnheirah ve’yameinu” – rebuild Jerusalem The Holy City rapidly in our lifetimes!

Maybe we’re in jeopardy of having Jerusalem dismantled and given over to our enemies because Jerusalem is Gd’s playground.

Where too few of us want to play.

Stirring Up Flaming Coals

I know it sounds like I'm ranting sometimes. My new rabbinic hero, Rabbi Eliyahu Kitov, says, "I am well aware that he who touches upon this delicate subject [reminding Jews about the centrality of the Land of Israel to Judaism] is as one who stirs up flaming coals - he never goes away without being burned."

At the risk of being burned by flaming coals, I must ask. Doesn't it seem plausible to you that the reason dominion over Jerusalem (and Yehuda and the Shomron) is being threatened is because the majority of the world's Jews don't care enough to even live there?!

Love for the Land of Israel

First published in 1957, nearly a decade after the creation of the modern State of Israel , Ish U’Beiso, officially translated as The Jew and His Home, is the book that made Rabbi Eliyahu Kitov famous. Rabbi Kitov was born in Poland and made aliyah in 1936, at the age of 24.

In the section called "Love for the Land of Israel", he writes:

When a child lives outside the Land of Israel, his parents and teachers must imbue him with a love of the Holy Land and its centrality in the relationship between God, His People and the Torah. If his eyes and heart are always turned to the Holy Land, seeing it as the cradle of his identity, and if his hopes for the future are centered there, it is a positive sign about his education….

A Jewish youngster must realize that he is out of place outside of the Land of Israel and that he is living in exile. He should look forward to the Ultimate Redemption, and naturally desire it, as much as he wants to grow up and be successful in life! …

A child must live this promise [of eventually leaving the exile and returning to the Land of Israel], and always have it fixed in his mind. He must have the feeling that his present existence is far from the ideal, and is lacking reality, as if he were sleeping and waiting to be awakened. This must be one of the first lessons that he learns, and it must be repeated to him, in many ways, every day.

I can forgive his old-fashioned use of the exclusively masculine pronoun to refer to all Jews, because his ideas are so delectable.

There’s more.

Indeed, who would argue the point that every Jewish child should yearn for our Homeland? Every Jew should yearn either for the Land of Israel of today, or for the Land of Israel of tomorrow. But where, in fact, do we find such yearning? People can find a hundred different explanations as to why the Land of Israel is not on their mind. Some of these explanations are truthful, but many Jews are simply fooling themselves and rationalizing what they know is wrong.

Even though Rabbi Kitov doesn’t actually come out and say, “Make aliyah!”, he does remind his readers that: “[A Jew] must have the feeling that his present existence is far from the ideal, and is lacking reality, as if he were sleeping and waiting to be awakened.”

Really, how big a leap is it from realizing that your life in exile is, by definition, spiritually wanting, to seeing that your destiny, as a Jew, is a life in Israel?

Completely Unmoved By Jerusalem

Last night, I went to a Tehillim rally much like the one held here in August of 2006.

This time, the rally was billed as a Community Wide Gathering for Yerushalayim. The last time, I was moved by the sense of klal but troubled by the silence of the women. This time, I knew to expect silence from the women.

I didn’t know I would be completely unmoved.

There were several big name rabbis who spoke about the importance of Jerusalem to the Jewish people. Normally, I’m a sucker for any topic remotely related to Israel. But these talks didn’t move me. They covered lots of Torah sources, reminding the crowd of the importance of Jerusalem in our tefillos and reminding us about the power of tefillos to change Hashem’s decree regarding the proposed division of Jerusalem, Gd-forbid.

But not once was it suggested that actually leaving galus and going to live in Israel was a way to influence the ultimate destiny of Jerusalem.

What a wasted opportunity! Hundreds of religiously-committed Jews in a room and not one mention of aliyah as a possible response to threats to Jewish dominion over Jerusalem.

And yet, can you imagine the impact of 100,000 or 200,000 Torah observant American Jews opening up aliyah files with the Jewish Agency and planning on making aliyah in the next five years?

This point was made quite powerfully in a recent article by Rabbi Barry Leff. “I would say that for the serious Jew, the ultimate philosophical question is aliyah. If you believe all the stuff you say in your prayers, why aren't you here?”

Rav Kook

Last night, I stayed up until 5:00 AM learning a commentary on the teachings of HaRav Avraham Yitzchak HaCohen Kook. Okay, some of it was fueled by the excessive amount of sleep I got over another 3-day yom tov. And some of it was that, finally, I had no meals to plan, prepare, heat and serve.

But most of it was that his Torah sings to my soul.

In truth, I can’t learn his Torah directly. His language, even in English translation, is too poetic and symbolic for me. But the series of commentaries, called Lights on Orot by Rabbi David Samson and Tzvi Fishman takes his teachings and presents them in language I can access.

Here are some of the major points I gleaned from spending 8+ hours with the sefer. I hope they sing to your soul as well:

• When Jews live in the Diaspora, we live as individuals. This is a profound diminishment of the potential of the Jewish people. We were created to live as a klal, as a nation in our own land, not as an assortment of individual Jews.

• Jews can make contributions outside of Israel, but we do so only as individuals, not in fulfillment of our national mission. Only by living together in Israel can the Jewish people reach our potential.

• Judaism outside of Israel is temporary. It is a punishment and a curse, an incomplete manifestation of the whole Torah. And it causes people to become preoccupied with personal mitzvot to the exclusion of seeing the whole Torah picture.

• Everything tragic that happens to the Jewish people happens as a result of Jews becoming too comfortable in galus and forgetting our national mission.

• The yearning to return to Israel is dawning on the Jewish people gradually, one soul at a time.

• The Jewish people’s role in the world is to be conduits of prophecy. Although we are not on the level of prophecy now, we have been in the past and we will be again in the future. Our collective job, to bring the knowledge of Gd into the world, can only be accomplished when we are living as a klal in Israel.

• When we see corruption in the Israeli government of our day, we have to remember that the Jewish people have been in galus for 2000 years. It is going to take time, perhaps several generations, to recover and rehabilitate before we can shake off the shmutz from chutz l’aretz and achieve what we are capable of achieving.

• Gd wants the Jewish people to live in Israel.

• When we could make aliyah and choose not to, we are rebelling against Gd.

• The feeling of spiritual emptiness while living in galus is actually a sign of spiritual health. Gd is reminding you that you don’t belong where you are.

• “If a Jew is not actively yearning for Israel, then something is wrong with his spiritual life.”

• One of the manifestations of spiritual growth is yearning to live with the klal in Eretz Yisrael. To have the desire for it grow within you is to grow closer to Gd. Every Jew has the yearning, but it is dormant in the masses who are distracted along the way.

• When one makes aliyah, one becomes more complete as a Jew. Olim chadashim are now participating in the building of the Jewish nation. Just by living in Israel, they are contributing to the klal in a way that is not possible while living in the Diaspora.

• “The pathway and ladder to Gd is living a full life in Israel.”

Those in Exile

There are lots of people, I suppose, who are living one way in their heads while their bodies are in another place altogether. Those with serious a physical illness or disability, for example, that limits the body but doesn’t impact the mind. Prisoners. Transsexuals in women’s bodies who know, without a doubt, that they are men. Daydreamers.

And those who know they are living in exile.

The underlying commonality is the discordance - the sense that you are partially in one place and partially in another. That’s what it’s like for those of us who long to live in Israel but who, for whatever reason, are not yet able to.

I recognize the incongruity in others who are still living in America in fact, but are already living in Israel in their heads, because it echoes my own internal pull.

A friend recently writes a blog entry that ends, “May you all be blessed to build your Sukkah in Israel.” and it makes me cry. A different friend who made aliyah this past summer called to tell me that it rained in Israel for the first time this year and there is such joy in her voice that I cry. A third friend is making aliyah right after Sukkot, Gd-willing, and there was a party for her and many of her musical friends earlier this week. A mutual friend is singing a song she wrote with lyrics urging Rochel Imeinu to stop crying because her children are coming home, and I am crying because it really, really does seem to be true.

I am so moved so many times in an average week, it has become part of my life. The center of my emotional life is shifting from here to there. As time goes by, it seems that I have more friends in Israel than I do here. In some cases, it’s because the people I feel closest to are those who are in the process of making aliyah. But it’s also because of the number of friends I have lost on this journey.

Admittedly, this journey takes up a lot of space on my hard drive. Old friends are not always able to accommodate the changes in me. Understandable. People who make big changes in their lives, in their outlooks, in their priorities, can’t always hold on to old relationships.

Those of us who feel the exile deeply, inevitably come to understand that.

Fish Out Of Water

So now we’ve been back from Israel for two weeks. Everyone asks, “How was it?” or “Did you have a nice time?”

I haven’t a clue how to answer those questions.

How do I explain that I am feeling completely out of my element here? It gets more intense with each trip. I don't need every Jew in America to see things the way I do, but I am tired of explaining, justifying the centrality of Israel in my world view to people who don't care or who argue that you can be "just as a good a Jew" in America as you can in Israel.

When I'm IN Israel, people get it, so I feel like I am among my own. And on this most recent trip, we spent time greeting and visiting with the newest group of friends to make aliyah from Baltimore. My husband really captured how I was feeling toward the end of the trip when he said, “You’re sad because they all get to stay here.”

Premium Judaism

Every time I refer to Jewish observance in America as ersatz, someone takes issue with it. So let me explain further.

I don’t mean to suggest that Jewish observance in America, or anywhere outside of Israel, is completely valueless. But neither is it the ultimate Jewish expression.

Can a person feel close to Hashem in chutz l’aretz? Can s/he do mitzvot? Can s/he make Jewish choices? Of course.

But if one imagines that because the neighborhood is Jewish, the grocery store is kosher, the shul is nearby, the friends are Orthodox, the school teaches Torah and the mikvah is within walking distance on Friday nights, that the lifestyle is completely kosher, therein lies the problem.

If one thinks Judaism is comprised of Torah observance and loving Hashem, life in an intensely Jewish neighborhood in America can seem complete.

But if you understand that you are part of Am Yisrael which has a mission that can only be realized in Eretz Yisrael, all your brachot and tefillot and Torah learning in chutz l’aretz is simply not enough. It’s not nothing, but it’s not premium Judaism either.

And if you think you live in an American community that has “everything you need to be fully Jewish”, you’re missing something pretty fundamental. In that sense, mitzvah observance outside the Land of Israel is ersatz. It’s artificial. It’s outside its natural habitat. And it’s terribly misleading.

Every bentching, every Shemonei Esrei, every parsha leads us to the mitzvah of returning to Israel. So, either you mean it and put yourself on an aliyah track (no matter how long it takes), or you don’t mean it, and you live an ersatz Judaism in chutz l’aretz, convincing yourself all the time of what a good Jew you are.

The Real Deal

Many years ago, fresh out of graduate school, I was offered a job at an historically black university. Working at an historically black institution was eye-opening in much the same way international travel is. You begin to see the world through the eyes of others and you see that ordinary things can look very different, depending on your perspective.

As a white person growing up in America in the 1970s, race barely registered on my radar screen. As a white person on a college campus where virtually everyone else was black, I came to regard my race differently.

I spent all day working with, surrounded by, people of color. And it began to appear to me as if white people were missing something. As if white skin was a deficient form in the range of human color.

Every time I come to Israel, I see that Judaism outside of Israel is similarly deficient. It’s missing something – something essential. I once stated that Jewish practice outside of Israel was ersatz. Some American Jews didn’t like that characterization very much. But I still think it’s true.

Jewish practice outside of Israel can only approximate the real deal.

There was a ceremony last night at the religious kibbutz of Ein Tzurim, which is the temporary location of approximately 40 families who were “disengaged” from their homes in Netzer Hazani in Gush Katif. The ceremony marked two years since the Israeli government tore them out of their homes, destroyed their communities and turned the land over to the Arabs who have been shelling the now-border city of Sderot ever since.

But this rumination isn’t really about politics. It’s about the authenticity of the Jewish spirit in certain parts of Israel.

This community, living in temporary housing, financially crushed by the disengagement and unable to work in the fields for which they were trained, got together last night, not to mourn the destruction of their whole communal life, but to celebrate the 30-year history of Netzer Hazani. There was a photo exhibit detailing the early years of the community, honoring the memories of those among them who died, and celebrating what they had built on the empty dunes of Gaza.

There were songs and choreographed group dances performed by elementary-aged girls. And, most stirring of all, there was a PowerPoint presentation of all the smachot – births, britot milah, marriages, bnei mitzvot, that the community had celebrated since the destruction of their former lives.

What gives them this kind of strength, to honor what can be celebrated in the face of communal crisis?

Their commitment to Hashem, to the Torah, to the Land of Israel.

As we sat in plastic chairs, on a gorgeous August night, watching the program, watching a community celebrating its own strength in the face of adversity, I whispered to my husband, “It doesn’t get any more authentic than this.”

Torah Jews in Israel are The Real Deal.

Just Like Living In Israel

Yesterday, I had an experience that made me feel like I am actually living in Israel.

Our daughter and her friend traveled with us from America to Israel two weeks ago. They both wanted to return sooner than my husband and I did, so I made arrangements for them to have an earlier departure date.

Yesterday, we took them to the airport to fly back to JFK. We parked in the regular short-term parking lot at Ben Gurion airport. We took the elevator to the third floor, stayed with them through the check-in process, bought them ice coffees (which, in Israel, are more like coffee slushees) and sat with them until it was time to go through security and on to their gate.

I was a little sad, saying goodbye to our daughter, but only a little, because I expect to see her again in 10 days. If Moshiach comes in the interim, she’ll be back here; if not, we’ll be together again in Baltimore.

We waved and threw kisses through the glass that separated us, and then, when we couldn’t see them anymore, we left the airport, drove to Modi’in and had a lovely dinner with friends.

Exactly as we will, Gd-willing, do in the future, when we actually live here.

Vatikim

We are 12 days into a three-week visit to the Holy Land. Each time we come, I tend to notice a theme in the messages that make their way into my consciousness.

This time, I’m hearing a lot of weariness and disillusionment from vatikim (veteran immigrants). It’s true that I spend a lot of my time among people who are excited about Israel, excited about the prospect of making aliyah and living in the Land Gd set aside for the Jewish people. And I do whatever I can to encourage that line of thinking.

So it’s painful for me to hear how worn out, battle fatigued and cynical some vatikim are. They seem to have forgotten the sense of honor and privilege of being able to sustain their families in Israel. They seem to have lost their connection to the religious motivation that brought them to Israel in the first place.

Instead, they buzz on about how hard life is here and how naïve and starry-eyed olim chadashim (new immigrants) are.

I don’t blame them. Goodness knows, I respect what they have accomplished and pray to be among them in years to come.

But I hope I never lose my enthusiasm.

And it makes it even more important to increase the numbers of olim, not just for the sake of the olim themselves, although they are obviously the primary beneficiaries. But olim chadashim also breathe new energy into this country and, at least in potential, can reinvigorate those vatikim who seem to have forgotten why they came.

Guess who else wants dominion over Israel?

There’s a certain corner in Jerusalem that startles me every time we drive by. At that corner, there are always Arab women, walking with their children, Greek Orthodox clerics, monks and a few Jews, going about their daily business. When I see that mass of humanity converging on this corner, I always think, “Why are all these outsiders living here? And why are we not?”

Last night, I heard a talk by Penina Taylor, Director of Shomrei Emet: Institute for Counter-Missionary Studies. In the talk, Penina vividly described the three-part hidden agenda of the Messianic Jews (Hebrew Christians) regarding Israel.

1) Offer huge amounts of humanitarian aid to the needy of Israel

2) Use the goodwill generated by that aid to apply political pressure to make it easier for Messianic Jews to make aliyah

3) Once Messianic Jews are able to enter the country in large numbers, use their influence to have Messianic Judaism (which, despite its name, is actually Christianity) be considered in Israel as an accepted form of Judaism.

Here’s what that really means. If they are successful, and by all measures they are beginning to make tremendous inroads, Israel stands to lose its status as a Jewish state.

According to Penina, there are reportedly 100 Hebrew Christian churches in Israel. Compare that to the 400 Hebrew Christian churches that exist in the US, which is, in round numbers, 50 times more populous than Israel.

Said another way, Israel could become a Christian nation.

Of course, that’s only if the Islamic fundamentalists don’t turn Israel into an Islamic state first.

And here’s the great irony.

The Hebrew Christians desire dominion over Israel and are working vigorously to achieve it.

The Islamic fundamentalists desire dominion over Israel and are killing violently to achieve it.

Even Gd says,“For Zion's sake will I not hold My peace, and for Jerusalem's sake I will not rest.” (Isaiah 62:1)

And the diaspora Jews?

It seems the only people that aren’t willing to sacrifice for the sake of Israel are the Jews of chutz l’aretz who are busy building lives in other people’s countries.

Gradual Klita

When we first started researching the possibility of buying an apartment in Israel years before we could make aliyah and actually live there full-time, we were advised by potential neighbor, a woman who worked for the Misrad haKlita (Ministry of Absorption) and was thus speaking from actual experience, not to do it. “There is no such thing as going through klita gradually,” she said. One becomes a citizen of Israel all at once or not at all. “It is simply not possible to live your life on two different sides of the ocean,” she chastened me.

That was four years ago. Since then, the phenomena of olim working in America and living in Israel has become commonplace.

And we bought an apartment that summer anyway.

The impact of that purchase on me has been extraordinary.

I have become obsessed with Israel. My collection of books about Israel has swollen to overtake its own bookcase. On Shabbat, I read a review of a novel that takes place in Israel. After Shabbat, I ran out to a late night bookstore to buy the book and I stayed up until 4:30 AM to finish it.

I am a woman possessed.

But even more, I had two experiences this week that demonstrate to me that gradual klita, that learning about Israel a little at a time so one is not shocked by the reality, is absolutely possible.

We had a guest over Shabbat, an earnest young man whom we have known since his childhood. He just returned from two intense, growthful years in yeshiva in Jerusalem. “Just last Shabbat,” he reported, “I was davening at the Kotel. I was standing in the place where all Jewish prayers arrive.” Further, he taught us the Jewish secret of deja vu. This is the holy Israel, the spiritual potential that draws my neshama like a neodymium magnet.

Earlier in the week, I met with an Israeli banker. More mundane than prayer at the Kotel, but also necessary for life in Israel. We spoke about many things, among them the current government and its policies. “If you’re going to live in Israel, you have to understand that it’s like living in Chelm,” he said with a sly smile, referring to the legend of Chelm, Poland where all the residents are fools, though they think of themselves as great sages.

This is what the last 10+ visits to Israel have taught me. Chelm and the Kotel are both a part of life there. So when I get there for real, when I live there full-time, Gd-willing, this contrast will not shock me.

Because for all these years, I have been experiencing gradual klita.

Square Pegs in Round Holes

My mother lives five states away, but I know she thinks about me every time she reads her local Jewish newspaper. Every now and then, she sends me a clipping that she thinks I’ll enjoy reading. This last time, she sent a fat envelope with multiple articles.

I began to notice a theme in a few of them. One details the dispute of a Jewish community in Venice Beach, CA. They want to erect an eruv but the residents of the beachfront fear that the fishing line that is being proposed as the eruv will spoil their ocean view. Local environmentalists are afraid that birds will fly into the line and, I suppose, decapitate themselves.

The fight in Venice Beach reminds me of two local, related stories. In one, Shabbat observant Jewish residents of a high-rise condominium want to install a Shabbat elevator and the condo board voted against it. The issue has been referred to the Maryland Commission on Human Relations.

In the third, similar story, older Shabbat-observant residents want to keep the back door of their apartment building unlocked during Shabbat so they can dramatically shorten their walk to shul, but other residents object over security concerns.

I’m not arguing for or against any of these viewpoints. It struck me that each of these news stories represent groups of American Jews who want to alter their environment to enhance their religious observance but who are being barred from doing so by other citizens.

This is one of the prices we pay for live in galus, where worldviews collide.

The Ishmaelite Exile

All my life, I have been a quintessentially non-political person. I don’t subscribe to newspapers and I don’t watch TV news. Since the Internet has become a part of my life six days a week, I'm admittedly a bit more informed than I used to be. And, truth be told, since I began this obsession with Israel, I’m much more likely to know what’s going on in Israel than in the US Congress.

Nevertheless, I recently read a book that was written as a warning to Americans, but it involves Israel as well. The book is called Because They Hate: A Survivor of Islamic Terror Warns America. It was written by Brigitte Gabriel, the founder of the American Congress for Truth.

Here’s the essence of the book in a nutshell. Brigitte Gabriel grew up as a Christian in Lebanon at a time before Lebanon was a Muslim county. She lived, if you can call it living, through the Muslim takeover of Lebanon. Her message? The Muslims intend to take over the entire world and will kill all the non-Muslim infidels in the process. Sounds like the plot to a B-movie I would never go see.

But she’s not the only voice making this argument. The Terrorism Awareness Project has two brief videos on its site that make the same claim. The goal of global jihad is to make the entire world Muslim.

If you’re paying attention, and Gd help you if you’re not, this message has to penetrate into your soul. There is a connection among the dozens of major terrorist incidents that are springing up all over the world. They are sourced from the same well.

When I was a kid, being educated in American public schools, we were taught that the American Civil War was fought over slavery. Later, I learned that subtler, more sophisticated political questions were also at issue.

Similarly, if you think that the problem Israel has with its Arab neighbors are all because of land disputes and Israel’s treatment of the Arab refugees and their subsequent generations, your vision would benefit from some expansion. The Muslims openly refer to America as The Great Satan and Israel as The Little Satan. The issue of Palestinians is like the issue of slavery in the American Civil War. Related, but not the essence of the conflict.

So, what’s the spiritual spin on all this bad news? The Torah predicted all this long ago. To learn more, read The Ishmaelite Exile by Rabbi Yechiel Weitzman

What are they thinking?

I really can’t understand world opinion. Here’s an example. A little-known Islamist group abducts Alan Johnston, the BBC's Gaza correspondent while BBC correspondents walk around in freedom in Jerusalem. At the same time, the BBC has a long-standing reputation for anti-Israel bias.

I can understand how someone can focus on the sad stories of Arabs living in disputed territories in Israel and feel sorry for the limitations in their lives. But I can’t understand how anyone can look objectively at the bigger picture of how this sad situation came into being, and what perpetuates it, and conclude that Israel is the oppressive villain in the story. So there must be something else going on.

I liken it to Hashem hardening the heart of Paroh before the Israelite slaves were freed. Gd took us out of slavery in Egypt after we had been slaves for 210 years. We had sunk so low, we were practically indistinguishable from the Egyptians themselves. How much greater was this redemption than if Gd had taken us from palaces and the highest crust of society!

So, the more Israel, and, by extension, the Jewish people, are reviled in the world, the greater the miracle when Gd sends our Ultimate Redemption.

Are You Tough Enough?

It was only when Israel started looking to me like a legitimate option that I began to notice the myriad may ways I have to compromise to live as a Jew in America.

A quick example of the hegemony of Christianity in America. In his role as a synagogue rabbi, my husband went to a Catholic hospital recently to visit congregants. He was directed to the Spiritual Care Department to register. On the registration form, he was asked all the usual questions: name, title, etc. And then the form, which asked him to identify his congregation, asked the question this way: “church?” You may say, “Well, it’s a Catholic hospital.” But this was the Spiritual Care department. If anyone on the hospital grounds knows that not all people in the world are Christians, it ought to be the chaplain’s office.

My nephew sent me to the Internet today to look at the website for Hard As Nails Ministries. Hard As Nails Ministries uses in-your-face street culture to attract kids to a Christian life. In a clip on their website, Justin Fatica, Executive Director of Hard as Nails Ministries asks his prospective participants, “How tough do you think you are? Are you tough enough to live for Christ?”

The Spiritual Care Department’s form and the Hard As Nails Ministries are two in a long list of examples of how blunt American Christians are about their public identification as Christians, of their religious beliefs, not afraid to be outspoken, forthrightly claiming the airtime in American cultural space that they feel, that they know, is legitimately theirs.

Contrast this with American Jews. When was the last time you heard of America Jews rallying for Hashem? At best, when we get together in this country, it’s to wield our political opinions. Jews rally. Jews speak out. But more often than not, it’s about politics, not about Gd.

Ah, but in Israel… where we are the majority culture! Think Lag B'Omer in Meron.

Think Kiddush Levana in Tzfat.

Think of the power of being part of a place where your religion is the religion and you never, ever have to feel embarrassed about being a Jew.

An uncomfortable admission: a have an Israeli flag on my car, an easily understood symbol in my predominantly Jewish neighborhood. But when I, even I, drive through other neighborhoods, places where Jews don’t live, let alone make open statements of religious identification, I worry. Will my Israeli car flag make my car more vulnerable to vandalism?

I hardly think Christians have the same concerns about their “What Would Jesus Do?” bumper stickers.

Don't misunderstand. I have nothing against American Christians claiming this country as their own. Unlike the majority of American Jewry, I am happy to cede America to its Christian majority.

As long as we get a country of our own to live in peace and security.

Lihyot am chofshi b'artzeynu.

The Next Best Thing To Being There

I just got off the phone with my brother, who has the great merit of living in Israel. He recently moved to an apartment from the porch of which, he says, he can see my apartment. Since he lives in the same neighborhood as our apartment, I can visualize everything he describes: where he was shopping earlier today, where the Lag B’Omer festivities will happen motzei Shabbat, where the dog I hear yapping over the phone lives. Everything is clear in my mind.

Earlier today, my husband and I listened to a woman from our community report about spending Pesach in Israel. Where she stayed, what tours she took, the feeling that she had while there. And every bit of what she said was so REAL to me. I could picture exactly where the apartment was because I have a nodding familiarity with that section of Jerusalem. We took most of the tours she described, even with the same touring company. Everything felt familiar.

Earlier in the week, a friend sent me an email invitation to a weekly Torah class, along with a note that said, “When you’re living here, we’ll go to these kinds of things together.”

Sunday, we are headed to New York City for the Salute To Israel Parade and Israel Day concert. While there, surrounded by thousands of other people waving blue and white flags, wearing pro-Israel t-shirts and eating felafel, it will be easy to imagine that I am actually in Israel.

I spend so much time in Israel in my head that it sometimes shocks me when I open my eyes, look around, and see America.

The Full Quote

Thanks to Andrea F. for helping me find the exact Gordis quote:

"For after all, if there's a place in this world that can make you cry, isn't that where you ought to be?"

The quote appears on page 44 in If A Place Can Make You Cry: Dispatches from an Anxious State by Daniel Gordis.

My Heroes

In his most recent dispatch, Daniel Gordis writes about the lack of flags in his Jerusalem neighborhood, relative to previous year’s celebrations of Yom Ha’atzmaut (Israel Independence Day). He lives there and I don’t, so I can’t be too hard on the guy, but his most recent dispatch was depressing. In fact, his last few have been on the gloomy side. In the end, he rallys a bit and argues against the world-weariness that seems to have engulfed his neighbors. But the overall impression of the article left me feeling deflated.

Contrast that with the Yom Ha’Atzmaut celebration my family went to at Yeshivat Rambam in Baltimore. Among the highlights were the daglanut (flag dancing ceremony) where dozens of middle-school students marched and formed joyous patterns with dozens of Israeli flags.

The other highlight was a very special community celebration of families who are making aliyah this year. Each family is brought up to the stage amid wild applause and standing ovations where they light a Candle of Inspiration. These families are our heroes.

They are our heroes because they make aliyah when the current government is misguided… or even corrupt. They make aliyah despite the fact that the outcome of our last war was a major disappointment. They make aliyah even knowing that we have enemies who kidnap our sons and hold them hostage for outrageous demands. They make aliyah knowing that enemies who want to destroy us surround Israel. They make aliyah anyway, because they know there are four inseparable parts of being a complete Jew.

Gd

The Torah

The Jewish Nation

and the Land of Israel.

True, all is not fine and dandy in the Holy Land. But to his eternal credit, Daniel Gordis also taught us that if a place can make you cry... you should live there.

Dear Reader: Please help me find his exact quote.

The Calendar Conspires Against Us

Pesach in America in 5767: Two sederim, two days of Yom Tov, one regular day of Chol haMoed, erev Shabbos, Shabbos, erev Yom Tov and two more days of Yom Tov.

It’s hard to sustain holiness for so many days. And I’m not even talking about the endless rounds of shopping, cooking and eating. I feel this twice a year – Pesach and the Rosh Hashanah, Yom Kippur, Sukkot sequence. I know the whole calendar history reason and how, even though we have a fixed calendar, we don’t abandon the customs of our ancestors.

I still feel like the calendar punishes us for not being in Israel.

In his Haggadah, Rabbi Shlomo Riskin mentions how, in exile, even a Jew’s calendar can be taken away. He cites the example of Jews in Russia before they were permitted to emigrate. Their most fervent request from their foreign visitors was for a Jewish calendar, to which they did not have access in Russia, so they would know on which days to celebrate the Yamin Tovim.

But there is another way we Jews in America feel the consequences of living in the calendar of our hosts. We have adapted to life in exile in subtle ways we don’t even notice. For example, today is Sunday. Easter Sunday. So even though it is one of the days I could have done some household shopping, I couldn’t because the vast majority of the country is celebrating their holiday and most stores are closed.

I once had a Catholic secretary. Through working with her, I realized that she got all of her holidays off automatically, while I had to take leave to be off for mine. Admittedly, the fact that it was possible for me to keep the Jewish holidays while working in that job made me a lot better off than many others whose jobs just will not allow for taking time off according to a totally different calendar. Still, I rarely took a real vacation in all those years because I had to use my leave time to fit my Jewish life into a non-Jewish calendar.

Two successive days of yom tov just four days apart. Easter Sunday. Taking precious leave time to enable you to live as a Jew. No mail on Sunday because of the Christian Sabbath. Counting our years according to the major religious event of another religion. Using names of days that have their origins in Norse and Greek and Roman gods. Being constantly reminded that your calendar is not the calendar of the host country.

In how many ways does the calendar of the non-Jew work against us?

Reading The Haggadah With Aliyah Glasses

Many years ago, disheartened at the overwhelmingly masculine face of the Haggadah, I went on a search for commentaries that would reveal something, anything! feminine about this essential story of the Jewish people. And I found lots of material hidden, as much of the feminine aspects of Torah are, just below the surface. For years after that, at least once during the pre-Pesach season, I would give a talk called Feminine Aspects of The Passover Story.

This year, in preparation for Pesach, I looked at Haggadah commentaries with a different appetite. The seminal story of the Jewish people is found in the Haggadah! Gd took us out of slavery in Egypt to be His people. For what purpose? To live our lives in Monsey, Lakewood or Baltimore? I don’t think so. The whole purpose of the drama in Egypt was to bring us to the Land of Israel.

The Haggadah is a virtual pre-aliyah seminar!

One point that came to me quite clearly, when learning The Haggadah of the Jewish Idea (Or Ha’Raayon) by R. Binyamin Zvi Kahane, son of R. Meir Kahane, was that American Jews are asleep at the switch.

“But in every single generation they rise up against us to destroy us. And the Holy One, Blessed be He, rescues us from their hands."

Is it true that in every generation, the non-Jews want to destroy us? Haman and Hitler wanted to annihilate us physically. In other times and places, we are seduced into assimilation and thus destroyed spiritually.

R. Shimon Apisdorf complied a list of 30 attempts to get rid of the Jewish people by the nations of the world. Slavery, crusades, expulsions, pogroms, war. There is no end to the ways other nations have wanted to extinguish the Jewish people.

But that could never happen in America, right?

“America is an advanced, civilized country.”
“We have never had such good friends as we have in the White House.”
“A strong Jewish community in America assures a strong Israel.”
“America is different.”

I pray, when the time comes, that the Jewish exodus from America be as gentle and pain free as possible. But that is not the same as assuming that the time we will be leaving America in large numbers will never come. When we leave, may it be volitionally, by Gd's Will, and not by the will of the rest of the American people, Gd-forbid.

In the words of George Santayana: "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it."

My advice to American Jews?

Get a passport.