Update from chutz-la'artetz: It's enough to make a lazy man cry

I'm a lazy person. Well, I like to call myself relaxed but my mother, she says it's laziness. I'm not all that into things like working out, I think one of the best things about dressing in black in white is that I never have to pick out what I'm going to wear, and I recently switched dorm rooms in the yeshiva citing having to go walk a shorter distance to the beit midrash for davening in the morning as one of the key points of the move. About a week ago I stepped off a plane from Tel Aviv to Newark and I got hit by a really emotional moment. It was the first time in months I walked through a doorway without a mezuzah on it and I almost started to cry. But... now after about a week in chutz-la'aretz with my emotions having calmed down, it's now become else entirely that almost has me in tears- all the extra hustle and bustle my poor lazy rear-end has to go through.

In Israel, especially in cities like Jerusalem there is a shul on every corner. To find a minyan you literally don't have to walk more than ten minutes. Heck, if your really gutsy you can try and just grab ten guys off the street and daven on the corner of King George and Ben Yehuda, which several friends of mine and I have done so don't think I'm exaggerating! Now I find myself lost in a strange land where I sometimes have to sit in traffic for 40 minutes do daven with a minyan. Before I had to decide between which of eight kosher pizza places to eat at. Now I'm faced with choices lie getting pizza or not eating because there's only one kosher restaurant in town and that's all they serve.

Now perhaps if you live in Monsey, Boro Park, or LA then you don't feel my pain. For the rest of you “out of towners” there might be those who cite the fact that in the old days we had to deal with pogroms and inquisitions and feel we should be overjoyed these are the biggest problems one should have to face as a Jew in America today. But I know in my heart of hearts that there are those out there who are like me, those who dream of something better. There are those who strive for a more happy and carefree life of not having to worry where your next kosher steak is going to come from. To you, my brothers and sisters, I say no more! We're the few, the proud, the lazy, and we deserve to live in a country where you don't have to sit next to a non-Jew on the the bus happily chowing down on some fresh McDonalds while you look on with longing eyes! Pack your bags now, come home, and take comfort in the fact that if you want a chalav-yisroel candy bar all you need do is get off your chair and walk to the corner store!