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First and foremost, I have to give credit to my one and only absolutely incredible Rabbi, Rav Dovid Abramovitz for the incredible “shmutz la’aretz” pun. Secondly, I need to apologise to everyone (absolutely everyone involved in this project..readers, bloggers and especially Dan!) for my lack of writing over the past while. I had been, unfortunately, preoccupied with preparations for my departure from the holy land. I thought I would be able to stay, but l’tsaari, my funding fell through (aka my parents wanted me to come back, get a degree and THEN make aaliyah..any other way and it would be coming out of my pocket!). So now it’s back to the sitting around and dreaming of returning home…

I think that’s what everyone feels. It’s almost as if we have been genetically preprogrammed with a homing device set on “Israel”. Things can be just great outside of the country..we live comfortable lives, eating our OU food that’s easy and convenient to buy..we have restaurants, shuls, community centres, shiurim, kollels, community schools, great Rabbis, easy lives…what more can we really ask for?

 Here’s how I explained it to my parents. As we all know, everyone has a bashert, as it says that forty days before a child’s birth it’s “soul mate’s” name is announced in heaven. This person has the other half of our neshamas,  they complete us and compliment us, they support us, and the love that we have for them is incomparable to any other. However, it’s possible to get married to someone who isn’t your actual bashert. You may love and be in love with them, live happily ever after with them, raise a wonderful family..and never know they weren’t the bashert assigned for you back in heaven. Had you been with your true bashert, things may have been that smidgen more amazing, that drop more incredible. But you had no way of knowing any of this, and as the saying goes, “ignorance is bliss”; you are perfectly content where you are, thinking that this is as good as it gets.

As I told my parents, though, Israel is my true bashert. Sure, I could stay in North America and be content, comfortable. Realistically, the life there is harder; it’s a struggle and it’s not so easy. But isn’t that the deal with any solid relationship? You may fight, but real love overcomes it. True connection overrules anything and everything else. So if I’m blessed enough to know who my real bashert is, why would I marry some shmendrick who’s just okay?

I think it’s so important to keep it in mind that our “homes” outside of Israel are not really our homes. It’s not where we are meant to be. They should just be a stop on the way to our true destination. And I know there’s so many reasons a person can come up with to justify not going back, but think about it..G-d doesn’t want you chilling out in your fancy home driving your North American car doing chesed work for Israel. That’s all commendable and well and good but it’s not your true purpose. It’s easy to be distracted by the material comforts that just make this feel “right”. But it’s like walking on the street in the dark-you may look up and think the light is coming from the street lamp. Only looking at the small picture will obviously make it easy to say you need to say. But if you were to look at the whole frame, you would see the long run,the workings in Hashem’s ultimate plan…you would see the light of the moon.

We are returning to Eretz Yisrael. We are waiting for redemption, not only to leave galut and the suffering therein, but much more than that; to reveal the entire light, to pour the flow of life until the holy of holies, the source of Israel, the source of her elevated soul, that illuminates us in the special land, the Holy Land, the land of life and the land of light.

Last week’s Parsha, Behar, laid out (in summary) the rules of Shmita, Yovel, slaves, redeeming Jews, charging interest, and idols, and Rav Kook explained that the reason why the parsha began by saying “vayidaber Hashem el Moshe behar sinai-the Lord spoke to Moses on mount sinai”(25:1)* was because through these halachas Hashem gave us, He was given us the opportunity to bring ourselves closer to Him. The link to Har Sinai is that, on it, Hashem gave us our mission in this world- to bring down Kedusha, and the parsha continued to elaborate on the tools He had given us to actualise this goal.

This week’s parsha, Bechukotai, begins two psukim into perek kaf-vav (26), which began in Behar, and also ends by stating “eleh hamitzvot asher tziva Hashem et Moshe el b’nai yisrael behar sinai-these are the commandments that the L-rd gave Moses for the Israelite people on Mount Sinai”. Clearly, the enjabment between the two parshiot, and the repition of the idea that these are the mitzvot Hashem gave us on Har Sinai hint that there must be some sort of connection between the two-it must show that Parshat Bechukotai is also illustrating ways for us to fulfill our job as Hashem’s am segula, and is continuing from last week’s portion.

I can’t even begin to explain the joy I get in the realisation of just how blessed I am that my entire life right now consists of a series of “Only in Israel” moments. You all know what I mean by that- those times when it feels like you’re on some parallel universe where being a Jew is the absolute, coolest thing to ever happen to the face of this planet, and you’re a part of it. Just like everybody else. And it makes sense, and it’s normal and that’s just the way it is on this plane of consciousness, right? That’s when you realise that you’re not caught up in some warped reality..this is Israel’s real, day to day life, the impossible is truth. As Ben-Gurion said,

“In Israel, in order to be a realist, you must believe in miracles”.

The most incredible part of these moments is that you stop and marvel at these incredible people with inner strength beyond the scope of your typical ex-pat’s understanding..and then you realise that these seemingly superhuman beings are your people. You stop to ponder-could you possibly be made from the same material as these resistant sabras? The reason why I have gone off on this “whoooah Israel and Israelis are so amazing” tangent (aside from the obvious fact that Israel and Israelis ARE so amazing :p) is that, especially over the last little while, I have found myself caught up in the things I see around me and the incredible acts of chessed people are doing on a daily basis. They are living incredible lives of yiddishkeit and true goodness, on a scale others dream of, and to them it’s…just the way things are! All of these little moments slip by in time and are often left unnoticed, and I thought it would be nice to do them some justice..so I’m inviting you to share with me (and all the other awesome Yidden here checking out Tzipiyah-you are the GREATEST!) some of your favourite “only in Israel moments” that have stuck out in your minds over time!!

To kick it off, I geuss I’ll start with acute moment that I got to witness today. Unfortunately, it’s not the most incredibly profound (don’t worry, I’ll mull it over and get back to that!) but it’s sometimes the small little things that happen all the time that have the greatest effect. In the same way that we often forget to thank Hashem for all the little miracles he causes on a daily basis and only thank Him when He does something huge..the everyday miracles are still nonetheless miracles! For example, I took the first train from Yerushalayim today to (or at least, in the direction of) the airport (needless to say, getting a group of half asleep girls to ANY destination will always be quite the adventure). By chance, we sat in the last car of the train, and it absolutely warmed my heart to see a minyan instantly formed, and a bunch of men davening out loud (picture to follow!). Between Jerusalem and Bet Shemesh, they managed to finish all of shacharis, but on his way out, one of the men informed me that there would be another minyan on its way. I didn’t think much of it, until I saw a positive FLOOD of men walking into that last train car, half of them already decked out in their taleysim and tfillin. The car was absolutely packed, and as we made our way through the hills they swayed and fought gravity in order to say to Hashem they are grateful for the things He does in their lives, that they acknowledge His goodness and hand in everything and to beseech Him to continue to do so. Sounds a bit melodramatic, right? Technically, there’s no hyperbole here-this is all just fact. If our ancestors could even see what I was lucky enough to witness today (just another ordinary every day occurrence) they would likely fall to their knees and praise Hashem through their tears. What?? The Jewish people are able to FREELY practice their beliefs and openly display their religiosity without the fear of persecution? A life of halachic adherence is actually attainable, even by a man on his way to work?? Impossible. The broken-spirited Jew in Auschwitz would never even dare dream that there would come a day where a Jew could carry a siddur on a train, let alone wear a kippa, wrap himself in his holy tallis, bind himself with tfillin and daven with a minyan on his way to work. And yet, these dreams are our reality, and the impossible is truth…