After preaching and teaching about the importance of making aliyah and putting it on a pedestal almost on par with all other mitzvot in the Torah, I finally did it. I led by example, I made the move, the major sacrifice: I journeyed home.
As I sit here in my bomb shelter - converted into a cozy office - and look out my windows to the trees I planted and the lawn I mowed, I think about the millions of Jews who only dreamed of this moment. For many are they who could not even imagine we would be able to fulfill the Biblical command to Abraham, "Go live in that land, build your family and nation there, and there you will be blessed." Others, however, tasted it. Herzl prophesied that within a hundred years the land would be ours, we would have a place to call home, Jews would come home from all the corners of the earth. In his generation and the ensuing ones, the idea began to germinate, the meetings were held, the leaders emerged, and the nascent steps towards a Jewish sovereignty began to take shape.
Yet, a hundred years would be needed before any Jew - any Jew - who was willing to make the move was finally able to do so. And slowly, Jews started coming home. Today, one walks the streets and sees Jews in army uniforms with Magen Davids on the lapels, Sephardic Jewish police officers, South American Jewish postal workers, Russian Jewish engineers, American Jewish carpenters, Moroccan Jewish presidents, and Israeli Jewish taxi drivers. One can not help but marvel at the reality of this dream, of this kibbutz galuyot (ingathering of the exiles), of this manifestation of the words and the message of the Torah: The Jewish people should be together, in the land promised to Abraham by God.
And so, whether it is walking the streets of Jerusalem, or swimming in a pool in the Galilee, or shopping in a boutique in Tel Aviv, or studying in a yeshiva in Gush Etzion, I feel, experience and undergo a moment of exhilaration, a spiritual, psychological and emotional high.
The roller coaster makes its triumphant ascent to the pinnacle of the mountain.
Then, I begin to drop.
I drop because I run into an official who is rude, and does not appreciate my journey. She tells me I cannot be helped and that my Hebrew is pathetic. I tell her I am working on it, but she is uninterested. She passes me off to the next person and from him, to the next.
I drop because I read about, hear about and see thousands of Israelis who seemingly feel no spirit in this land, who choose to identify themselves as Israeli and not Jewish. They use the justice system to integrate ideas foreign to Judaism, foreign to Torah values. And this makes me sad.
I drop because after giving up all the opportunities in the land from which I came, I find myself uncomfortably jobless. After becoming somewhat respected in my field, I find myself ignored. After reaching a point in my life where I had spiritual, financial and social satisfaction in my work, I find myself asking myself what I should be doing here.
Should I stay in my field? Should I choose something else more lucrative, because there are so many others like me here and the market is flooded? Should I focus on my family and raising my children in the way that is ideal, or should I move to a place that will give me greater fulfillment in my vocation? Have I given up too much of who I 'am' in order to follow my dream? Where is that recognition of the enormous step I took? Where is that pat on the shoulder congratulating me for giving it all up?
And so I drop and drop. And like the twists and turns of the roller coaster, I become dizzy and almost lose my perspective.
Almost.
One day, amidst my gloominess, my daughter comes home and brightens me up. She tells me all the Torah she has learned and how she did well on her test in math, even though it was in Hebrew. My son asks me to learn some parsha with him and I listen to him chanting the Torah as if he were ten years older. I see my children playing with their friends, in the park, on the streets, in the hills of the Judean Mountains. I see my wife going to shul more and learning, and feeling comfortable striving to establish a stronger relationship with God. I notice myself setting up a chavruta to learn for the sake of learning, and reveling in the joy and beauty of praying with my community. I take notice of the fact that the tefillot (prayers) have more meaning to me, King David's words were spoken not far from here. I go on a tiyul (tour) and the guide speaks of the first Beit Hamikdash (Temple) and the second one, and look at this wall, and look how they lived here and what they fought, and how brave they were, and how much history there is with every footstep.
Gradually, my fears subside, my anxiety is subdued, and I begin to become empowered by what I have accomplished ? just by being here. Just living in my homeland, paying taxes, sending my kids to school here, just by paying my Arnona (municipal taxes), I am doing something magical. Planting my garden, looking out my window across the Judean hills, knowing that the bus driver, janitor, school teacher, and the man at the falafel stand all share my dream, all are part of my people, my spirit is lifted. It dawns upon me that every day I feel alive here, I breathe the air of thousands of years of yearning and hope, I share the pain of loss and tragedy, but I also share the joy of victory, of fulfillment - of redemption.
The roller coaster begins once again to ascend, to take me to the loftiest heights, to the peak of my spiritual and physical existence.
I have arrived. I am part of this great dream; this dream for me is a reality.
And so, I will continue to strive, to grow and to dream; I will continue to search for myself, but with the knowledge that most of me I have already found. I will continue to ascend to the peak, to the summit of my existence as a Jew, as a human being. I will go on armed with the recognition of what I have already accomplished and what I will accomplish in the future, for myself, my family and for the people of Israel.
Armed with the feeling of gratitude to God for allowing me to merit living in the same land as Abraham of old, the land Moshe could only view, the land that Joshua conquered, Devora judged in, Samuel prophesied in, David sang in, Solomon built up, Chizkiyahu strengthened, Jeremiah cried about, Yechanya was exiled from, Ezra returned to, Matityahu rededicated, Rabbi Yehuda Hanassi composed in, Rabbi Yehuda Halevi longed for, the Ramban ultimately returned to, Rabbi Yosef Karo lived in and Theodor Herzl prophesied about. This land, filled with such history and holiness, victories and defeats, milestones and moments of sadness, tears of loss, as well as tears of joy, this land is where I plant my roots, raise my kids, pray, play, smile and laugh.
For these reasons, I feel great joy, ascent, uplifted, and I feel, for the moment, that perhaps my journey is over, and I have arrived. Perhaps the roller coaster has reached its final destination; it rests on the summit of redemption, of togetherness, of a beautiful tapestry of Am Yisrael, Torat Yisrael, Be'Eretz Yisrael - the people of Israel abiding by its holy law, living in their divine destination, the land of our forefathers, Israel.
And then the roller coaster begins to move and my journey starts once again.
As I sit here in my bomb shelter - converted into a cozy office - and look out my windows to the trees I planted and the lawn I mowed, I think about the millions of Jews who only dreamed of this moment. For many are they who could not even imagine we would be able to fulfill the Biblical command to Abraham, "Go live in that land, build your family and nation there, and there you will be blessed." Others, however, tasted it. Herzl prophesied that within a hundred years the land would be ours, we would have a place to call home, Jews would come home from all the corners of the earth. In his generation and the ensuing ones, the idea began to germinate, the meetings were held, the leaders emerged, and the nascent steps towards a Jewish sovereignty began to take shape.
Yet, a hundred years would be needed before any Jew - any Jew - who was willing to make the move was finally able to do so. And slowly, Jews started coming home. Today, one walks the streets and sees Jews in army uniforms with Magen Davids on the lapels, Sephardic Jewish police officers, South American Jewish postal workers, Russian Jewish engineers, American Jewish carpenters, Moroccan Jewish presidents, and Israeli Jewish taxi drivers. One can not help but marvel at the reality of this dream, of this kibbutz galuyot (ingathering of the exiles), of this manifestation of the words and the message of the Torah: The Jewish people should be together, in the land promised to Abraham by God.
And so, whether it is walking the streets of Jerusalem, or swimming in a pool in the Galilee, or shopping in a boutique in Tel Aviv, or studying in a yeshiva in Gush Etzion, I feel, experience and undergo a moment of exhilaration, a spiritual, psychological and emotional high.
The roller coaster makes its triumphant ascent to the pinnacle of the mountain.
Then, I begin to drop.
I drop because I run into an official who is rude, and does not appreciate my journey. She tells me I cannot be helped and that my Hebrew is pathetic. I tell her I am working on it, but she is uninterested. She passes me off to the next person and from him, to the next.
I drop because I read about, hear about and see thousands of Israelis who seemingly feel no spirit in this land, who choose to identify themselves as Israeli and not Jewish. They use the justice system to integrate ideas foreign to Judaism, foreign to Torah values. And this makes me sad.
I drop because after giving up all the opportunities in the land from which I came, I find myself uncomfortably jobless. After becoming somewhat respected in my field, I find myself ignored. After reaching a point in my life where I had spiritual, financial and social satisfaction in my work, I find myself asking myself what I should be doing here.
Should I stay in my field? Should I choose something else more lucrative, because there are so many others like me here and the market is flooded? Should I focus on my family and raising my children in the way that is ideal, or should I move to a place that will give me greater fulfillment in my vocation? Have I given up too much of who I 'am' in order to follow my dream? Where is that recognition of the enormous step I took? Where is that pat on the shoulder congratulating me for giving it all up?
And so I drop and drop. And like the twists and turns of the roller coaster, I become dizzy and almost lose my perspective.
Almost.
One day, amidst my gloominess, my daughter comes home and brightens me up. She tells me all the Torah she has learned and how she did well on her test in math, even though it was in Hebrew. My son asks me to learn some parsha with him and I listen to him chanting the Torah as if he were ten years older. I see my children playing with their friends, in the park, on the streets, in the hills of the Judean Mountains. I see my wife going to shul more and learning, and feeling comfortable striving to establish a stronger relationship with God. I notice myself setting up a chavruta to learn for the sake of learning, and reveling in the joy and beauty of praying with my community. I take notice of the fact that the tefillot (prayers) have more meaning to me, King David's words were spoken not far from here. I go on a tiyul (tour) and the guide speaks of the first Beit Hamikdash (Temple) and the second one, and look at this wall, and look how they lived here and what they fought, and how brave they were, and how much history there is with every footstep.
Gradually, my fears subside, my anxiety is subdued, and I begin to become empowered by what I have accomplished ? just by being here. Just living in my homeland, paying taxes, sending my kids to school here, just by paying my Arnona (municipal taxes), I am doing something magical. Planting my garden, looking out my window across the Judean hills, knowing that the bus driver, janitor, school teacher, and the man at the falafel stand all share my dream, all are part of my people, my spirit is lifted. It dawns upon me that every day I feel alive here, I breathe the air of thousands of years of yearning and hope, I share the pain of loss and tragedy, but I also share the joy of victory, of fulfillment - of redemption.
The roller coaster begins once again to ascend, to take me to the loftiest heights, to the peak of my spiritual and physical existence.
I have arrived. I am part of this great dream; this dream for me is a reality.
And so, I will continue to strive, to grow and to dream; I will continue to search for myself, but with the knowledge that most of me I have already found. I will continue to ascend to the peak, to the summit of my existence as a Jew, as a human being. I will go on armed with the recognition of what I have already accomplished and what I will accomplish in the future, for myself, my family and for the people of Israel.
Armed with the feeling of gratitude to God for allowing me to merit living in the same land as Abraham of old, the land Moshe could only view, the land that Joshua conquered, Devora judged in, Samuel prophesied in, David sang in, Solomon built up, Chizkiyahu strengthened, Jeremiah cried about, Yechanya was exiled from, Ezra returned to, Matityahu rededicated, Rabbi Yehuda Hanassi composed in, Rabbi Yehuda Halevi longed for, the Ramban ultimately returned to, Rabbi Yosef Karo lived in and Theodor Herzl prophesied about. This land, filled with such history and holiness, victories and defeats, milestones and moments of sadness, tears of loss, as well as tears of joy, this land is where I plant my roots, raise my kids, pray, play, smile and laugh.
For these reasons, I feel great joy, ascent, uplifted, and I feel, for the moment, that perhaps my journey is over, and I have arrived. Perhaps the roller coaster has reached its final destination; it rests on the summit of redemption, of togetherness, of a beautiful tapestry of Am Yisrael, Torat Yisrael, Be'Eretz Yisrael - the people of Israel abiding by its holy law, living in their divine destination, the land of our forefathers, Israel.
And then the roller coaster begins to move and my journey starts once again.