Standing IN instead of standing WITH

As I write this I’m caught in between the moods of getting ready for Shabbat in a few hours on the one hand and shaking off the cramps and tiredness 15 some odd hours of traveling back from Chutz L’aretz on the other. Thank G-d I’ve just arrived back home in Israel from an amazing visit to South Africa (first time in the country and the continent) from which my wife is an expat. I’m still trying to internalize and absorb all the sights and experiences, from driving alongside giraffe to boating through crocodile and hippo filled rivers and davening shacharit in the bushlands next to a group of zebra to traveling by entire communities that each have out-houses outside their homes to having to double check that the doors are locked when you come to stoplights in case of carjackers. It’s a country of luxuries such as live-in maids on the one hand countered with dangers on the other such as daily news of people (sometimes one’s own neighbors) getting robbed, raped, and/or murdered.

As interesting and exciting as it was to experience all of this, what caught my attention and intersted me the most was my short but powerful experience with the Jewish community. I had the pleasure of spending last Shabbat with the Jewish community of Durban and getting a glimpse into the life of South African Jewry (who make up some of the most polite and soft natured people of the olim that I’ve met in Israel) in their “native habitat.” When you daven in the huge shul’s comfy chairs with pretty wood trimmings all around you get a sense of a dying community as a couple dozen men struggle in vain to fill a vast majority of empty seats no longer necessary for use as many of people have left, many to make aliyah. One of the members of the kehilla told me that at one point they had to move the bimah closer in order that the smaller number of people should be able to hear things.

The people are as friendly as can be - the family whom we stayed by for example. The couple had actually gone to Cape Town for Shabbat yet still opened their home up to us and left behind their children to host. I had an incredibly hard time believing their son was only 15 years old as he had the maturity of somebody almost twice his age, a phenomenon my wife informed me is fairly common among the boys there.  While the homes are beautiful, often complete with swimming pools and hired help, to live in them you have to get used to life behind bars. I don’t just mean bars on the windows, but remote controlled gates on every driveway, security alarms, and collapsable bars that slide across all the doors and windows at night locked with keys in case somebody gets past the actual door or window itself. Sometimes these bars even lock up in the middle of the hallway securing the bedrooms from the rest of the house. If you get up in the middle of the night craving a midnight snack you have to find your keys to get out of the hallway and be willing to leave your secured area to venture to the fridge.  Some of the homes have, in addition to their perimiter fence, additional electric fencing which I was told is not strong enough to actually kill a person but gives enough of a shock to keep them from getting past it. To enter the shul you pass by non-Jewish security men as well as  Jewish security trained in self-defense and sporting those little curly-wired earbuds that you usually see on secret service members.

Throughout the Shabbat, though we were shown great hospitality I felt something was off. I was struggling to get through a lot of the prayers and I didn’t feel any connection or concentration in them. As Shabbat came to a close and we davened Maariv it dawned on me that I had gotten off the plane just two nights before from Jerusalem, the spiritual capital of the universe, and was now trying to connect to Hashem somewhere very very far away from that place. Aside from the communal tragedies that have come with 2000 years of galut including violent persecution and mass assimilation, my eyes were opened to something I known about but never before personally expierenced – the shtark contrast between the spitual acessibilty to Hashem and feeling in touch with one’s own soul in the land of Israel versus outside of Israel.  Part of me wanted to break into tears as I started to feel a tiny fraction of the realization the Jews getting kicked out of Jerusalem thousands of years ago must have felt.

I also started contemplating a dvar Torah I heard recently which greatly stressed the importance of defending Israel and standing with it ideologically against its detractors. Unfortunetely this speech didn’t make any mention of actually moving to Israel, just saying good things about it from the comfort of one’s dwellings in Chutz L’aretz. As I thought I about the spiritual conection one has with Hashem in Israel and how one’s soul, to a certain degree, gets cut off from that connection outside of our land I realized that this spitual darkness has become so great that for many of those living outside of Israel that they don’t even yearn to live here.  Though I’ve thought about it in the past, this was a rare moment where it went from just being an idea in my head to an actual reality I was experiencing.  It felt like Hashem was, if just for a moment, really waking me up to just how real this problem is.

People can talk about how important Israel is to them until the cows come home, but if one doesn’t desire to make their life there, then what does it all really mean? People often where t-shirts that proudly proclaim, “I stand with Israel.” That’s all nice and well, and I for one do honestly appreciate the support, but at the end of the day there are people out there who love us and those who hate us and I wonder just how many of those from the second group have heard some good old fashioned Hasbara and been convinced to switch over to the first group? Apparently not enough to make the situation in Israel any better as our enemies now hate us as much as ever before.  Ideological support is great but when it comes down to it we have the Creator of the universe to fight our battles for us. The parshiot of the last few weeks have continuously mentioned our role in inheriting the land of Israel and making a life there. Of all the mitzvot of the Torah, this has to be one of the most often and most blatently mentioned (no Rashi needed!). I have yet to find where in the Torah it says we have a Chiyuv to argue on Israel’s behalf. Again I’m not knocking those who want to defend Israel, I’m just perplexed as to why many of these people can’t muster the same gusto about actually moving here.

Many counter that due to their financial situation, family complications, or some other personal hurdles they can’t make aliyah and maybe not even in the forseeable future. To that I would answer that you don’t have to try and accomplish the impossible, but even if your current situation prevents you from going, at least WANT to go. Wake up every morning and tell Hashem, “Even if I can’t go to Israel right now please G-d help things to be different so that I can go as soon as possible!” Spend a few minutes telling yourself every day that your goal IS to move to Israel even if you currently don’t know how or when.  Sound like useless pipe dreams? Don’t think so! One of the most important teachings of Chassidus is based on the idea that Hashem desires the heart. Even if you can’t achieve your goal right now, Hashem also takes into consideration the desire to achive the goal. But for somebody who is not living in Israel AND doesn’t arouse any desire in themselves to move then Hashem so-t0-speak has nothing to work with and the person is a double loser as even if they can’t make the move they can at least kindle the desire. 

I hope and pray that more and more of the people that currently say they stand WITH Israel will start contemplating aliyah so they can make the much more powerful statement of, “I stand IN Israel!”

2 Responses to “Standing IN instead of standing WITH”

Comment from democracy
Time כ״ח באב ה׳תש״ע (August 8, 2010) at 4:56 am

The interesting part if Israel is the problem of having a minority rule of´a majority and still manage to call it democracy.

Solve that and your problems are over.

Comment from AMG
Time כ״ח באב ה׳תש״ע (August 8, 2010) at 7:05 am

The first time RaSh”I comments on Bereshit (where he quotes R’ Yitzchak, and also his first comment on Chukas. We are supposed to defend Eretz Yisrael and the Torah.