AS SEEN THIS MORNING AT MY (HIS) ABODE IN BEIT EL ISRAEL

PRAY FOR RAIN

Chief Sephardi Rabbi Shlomo Amar called on all capable to fast and pray this Thursday in hope that God will bring an end to the drought that has depleted Israel's water sources and struck a blow to local agriculture.

"Because of our sins the water situation is in a serious state," wrote Amar in a notice that was sent out Monday to rabbis, synagogues and other religious functionaries across the nation.

"Our duty in this situation is to scrutinize and examine our actions and bring ourselves close to God with all our hearts. We must must be repentant with broken hearts and anyone who is able should fast, if not a whole day at least a half day."

Amar said that if there were ten men fasting a Torah scroll should be read and during the recitation of the Amida prayer the Anenu prayer should be added like any public fast day.

Why did the truck driver cross the road?

So I was walking down King George St one day when I spotted a lady crossing the street. She had a bag over her shoulder and was wheeling a stroller while a toddler was pushing his own riding toy beside her. There was nothing unusual about that. She was crossing the street perpendicular from where I was waiting at the red light. (A policewoman recently warned me not to cross against the light just near this intersection so I wasn’t going to press my luck.)

Right smack in the middle of the street the toddler apparently resented his mother holding his hand and became very uncooperative. This forced mom to pick him up with one hand, and wheel the stroller with the other, all while still having the bag over her shoulder. Inevitably, that yellow riding toy was left behind right in the middle of a very busy intersection. The red light that kept the long line of cars from smashing it to pieces was about to turn green.

There was nothing the mother could do, as she wasn’t about to abandon her children for this toy. As I was about to cross against the light to help her out, policewoman’s warning or not, something truly unexpected happened. Sitting in front of this long line of cars that were waiting for the light to change was a delivery truck. The truck’s driver side door flew open and down jumped the truck driver who happily rescued the riding toy from its precarious position and deposited it safely on the corner. With a wave, nod, and a smile he jumped back in to his truck.

As I stood there watching I was awed. I was wondering what exactly would happen if the same scenario played out in New York City. Would any NYC truck driver ever abandon his vehicle to help a mother in need? Would any NYC truck driver even bother driving around the toy rather than simply running it over?

Who knows? But one thing I know. Here in Israel when people see that help is needed – they help! Because after all, we are all part of the same family.

What's in your backyard?

There was a small news bite in the Israeli media which most people may not have even noticed. Today, there was a court hearing to decide the fate of a grave that was recently discoverd.

The story goes something like this. Mitch Pilcer owns a bed and breakfast in Tzipori in the lower Galilee. Business was going well so he decided to expand the hotel. But when they started digging in his yard they discovered something extraordinary.

Right there in his backyard was the grave of none other than Rabbi Yehoshua Ben Levi ! It's still being investigated to see if things pan out and it really is the grave of the important Amora sage. But it just goes to show you that when you are living in a land that contains thousands of years of our history you'll never know what you'll discover right in your own backyard!

My New Tisha b'Av Video: Rectifying the Sin of Spies

A Letter To My Rabbi

Shavua Tov Yishai,

Below is the text of an e-mail that I felt the need to send to my Rav. I felt compelled to share it with you too.

I'm writing this e-mail simply because I felt like sharing some thoughts which occurred to me yesterday in shul during our reading of the Torah.

Towards the beginning of the parsha (as you know, we're back at parshat Shelach because of Shavuot), Moshe clarifies the "mandate" which was conferred upon the 12 men selected "latur" the Land. As I see it, the mandate of these shlichim, was comprised of 6 elements (1 general directive, 4 questions of assessment to be answered and, lastly, 1 "grocery order"):

1) see the land, what it is;
2) [see] the people that dwelleth therein, whether they are strong or weak, whether they are few or many;
3) [see] what the land is that they dwell in, whether it is good or bad;
4) [see] what cities they are that they dwell in, whether in camps, or in strongholds;
5) [see] what the land is, whether it is fat or lean, whether there is wood therein, or not;
6) be ye of good courage, and bring of the fruit of the land.' (Now the time was the time of the first-ripe grapes);

Now, the 1st and 6th elements of the mandate seem to me to fit relatively easily into the "legitimate" side of the mission, namely to come back with good news and words of encouragement designed & intended to create a kind of "pep rally" among b'nei Yisrael in anticiaption of their taking possession of their inheritance. I was forced to wonder, however, about where the 4 question elements could find their legitimacy in Hashem's eyes.

Then 2 analogies came to mind. The first having to do with my children and the second, related to the context of newlyweds.

The first brought to mind many instances where I would offer things (yummy food or cool toys, for example) to my kids which I knew they would like. If I were to give it to them without saying anything, they would surely enjoy the thing given, but that would be it. So I would find myself saying things like "Well here's some chocolate ice cream, but I dunno, should I really to give it to you cuz' it's maybe kinda yucky, maybe you don't like it". Of course, this inevitably elicits responses such as "Daddy! Nooooo! It's so yummy! Of course you should give it to us - we love it!!" A whole "buzz" is thus created and the enjoyment amplified. It occurred to me that this is perhaps the way in which Moshe, in the name of Hashem, was talking to b'nei Yisrael - as if saying "kinderlech, there's Eretz Yisrael over there - what do you think? the people that dwelleth therein, are they strong or weak, are they few or many, the Land, is it good or bad, are the cities that the inhabitants live in camps or strongholds, and the Land, is it fat or lean, is there wood or not?" while expecting the answer to be "Oy Avinu Shebashamayim! You're being so silly with us - of course we love the Land, it's soooo good, it has everything we need and what difference does it make how the inhabitants are, whether they're big or small, strong or weak, few or many - we have You! - who could possibly compare to You?!"

This, in turn, (oddly) brought to mind the 2nd analogy - that of husband and wife - newlyweds. It's the image of a newly married couple - fresh from the chupah. For weeks, the groom had been preparing a new home for he and his wife - arranging everything just so, to accoimmodate his precious bride. Was this not the stage at which b'nei Yisrael found itself? - fresh out of the chupah of Har Sinai and on the point of being led into the home that Hakadosh Baruch Hu had set aside and arranged just so for us, his "bride". (I won't even get into the additional eggshells being walked upon by b'nei Yisrael as a result of the Chet haEgel fiasco). Moreover, what a groom to have! And now right before the point of being proverbially carried across the threshhold (the Jordan) by our All-Powerful groom - and what happens? The bride (at least in terms of her majority-led collective expression) has the audacity to say "We are not able to go up against the people; for they are stronger than we" [note that the denotes either b'nei Yisrael AND Hashem or b`nei Yisrael to the exclusion of Hashem - each interpretation being worse than the other!!] and "'The land... is a land that eateth up the inhabitants thereof; and all the people that we saw in it are men of great stature" as if to say "Hashem, I'm kinda concerned about the structural integrity of the home you prepared for us and, moreover, there are other men around that seem totally ripped - way more buff than You!"

Can the ensuing fury of the new husband be overstated?!?!

But wait! There's yet more!

The new wife adds fuel to the fire saying "'Let us make a captain, and let us return to Egypt".

After EVERYTHING that Hashem had orchestrated to bring his wife to this point - after the famines in E'Y, the whole episode with Joseph and his brothers, the miraculous hasgacha pratis which led Joseph to the house of Potiphar and then to prison, to the ruach hakodesh granted to Yosef in his dream interpretations, first for Pharoah's chief baker and chief steward and then for Pharoah himself. Then the 7 fat years and the 7 lean years, the Part II of the episode with Joseph and his brothers, then the descent of Yaakov and his entire household into Egypt only to transform into slavery - ALL only to be redeemed therefrom, brought to the Chupah of Har Sinai, given the Ketubah of Torah (being also the blueprint for all existence), lastly being brought to the threshold of the ultimate co-existence with the Creator of the Universe and the response is "Let's choose a new guide who will bring us back to Egypt"?!?!?

All of this struck me as the leining went on and all I could do is tremble from both fear and disbelief with tears rolling down my cheek. How dispicably unfathomable is it that we could have done this once so long ago - ever?! But that we have been doing it again over the course of the last 61 years?!?!!?

Hashem's statement "I will smite them with the pestilence, and destroy them, and will make of thee a nation greater and mightier than they" seems like getting off easy in light of the travesty exhibited. The fact that Hashem ended up acceeding to Moshe's pleadings saying simply "salachti kidvarecha" is just beyond rachamim - beyond my comprehension anyway. It is no wonder that our national punishment for that act of total betrayal had to be meted out over millenia of sufferings. If that was the consequence of the first transgression of our rejection of Hashem's invitation that we join Him in the Home he set aside for us, what in the world do we have in store for us this time around?!

Tomorrow is Rosh Chodesh Tammuz. The 17th (my birthday, incidentally) ushers in that most ominous and dreadful time of year for our nation - those 3 weeks during which we are acutely reminded (or at least ought to be acutely reminded) of our having failed yet again - for the gazilionth time - to correct and rectify that disgustingly grievous mistake originally committed thousands of years ago. Of course, I always try to muster up a tiny bit of hope that this year will be different - that this year I'll be able to celebrate my birthday along with far greater causes of celebration. But I'm afraid and ashamed to say that I don't feel particularly optimistic about this year being that year. I have no reason to believe that I'll be doing anything other than sitting on a milk crate in our shul here in admat nechar again watching other Jews who gather with a little facial hair growth and a bit of a growl in their stomach - but without, at least apparently, any intention of rectifying the very error that got them in that predicament in the first place or, worse, without any clue as to what error was and continues to be.

Hey whaddya know! This e-mail has been so long that it's brought me to nightime - so Chodesh Tov!

Yechiel

Shavuot Awesomeness

Please check out the amazing video of our Klean-Up in Hebron at the Tomb of Ruth and Yishai (just in time for Shavuot!)

Our Klean-Up Was Awesome!

Check out Yoseph and Melody's "Love of the Land" blog for some great pictures of our amazing, and miracle filled adventure in the Tomb of Ruth and Yishai.

Beit El Snow 5769 / 2009

See more of my beautiful snow pictures HERE

Happy 2B Shvat Israel Photos!

MORE OF MY GREAT 2B-SHVAT PICTURES CAN BE SEEN HERE!!!

I hope you will avail yourselves of our frankly awesome Tu b'Shevat seder, which Malkah compiled many moons ago. Gather your little fruits (and wines), your favorite folks, and pray for the good of Israel, and for all life, wherever it flourishes.

Chag Sameach from Kumah!

Kumah Call - Golan Heights!

Rebranding Israel: FM Just Doesn’t Get It - Still!

This is not the first time Kumah has written about this.

Last week I attended the Nefesh B’Nefesh First International Jewish Bloggers Convention along with the rest of the Jblog world. One segment of the program featured Zavi Apfelbaum, the Director of Brand Management of the Foreign Ministry. At the time I did not know that she represented the State of Israel. (I didn't read the program, okay?)

(Click the video for a transcript we posted on YouTube.)

Which is why when blogger Moshe Burt (“Israel and the Sin of Expulsion”) began screaming at the top of his lungs “this is a Jewish State!,” though I agreed with him, I thought he was taking the wrong approach. But now that I realize exactly what was going on I think he was exactly right and that might be the only way to keep making the point, as Burt wrote, “until it sinks irrevocably into their consciousness.”

Let’s start at the beginning. The Foreign Ministry spent millions of shekel of taxpayer money to figure out that, guess what, the world thinks Israel is a bunch of thugs and a very cold (not weather-wise), dull, place to live or visit. Well obviously the world has branded us waaay wrong! Apfelbaum, again blaming the victim, claimed it was not the world that did it but we did it to ourselves. Perhaps I’ll grant that as a half-truth but that’s for another discussion.

So once again the Foreign Ministry plans to spend waste millions of shekel “rebranding” Israel.

Akiva, summarized it like this:

The future brand and marketing image of Israel:
1. Tel Aviv Fashion Brands
2. Tel Aviv Modern Dance Troupes
3. Tel Aviv Beach Life
4. Israeli High Technology Developments
5. Tel Aviv Night Life
6. Israeli High Technology Medical Developments
7. Israeli Wine

With the exception of 4 and 6, basically they are trying to brand Israel as Italy, France or Spain.

When will they learn? Israel is a Jewish Country!

Here’s what I wrote a year ago:

Once Israel becomes "a nation like any other" we are thrust onto a world scale we have no right being on. On that scale, Israel appears to be a pretty crummy nation with nothing special at all. Hence the post-Zionists. But if we stay on the scale we are supposed to stay on, the "light-to-the-nations" scale we are untouchable! When we promote G-d, no nation anywhere can come close in terms of history, culture, food, family life, beauty, and spirituality. Indeed we have something no other nation has.

To summarize, Israel already has an excellent – but discarded - brand. The powers-that-be in the government just don’t like it very much. But this brand has been around for over 3,300 years! Let me explain it in simple terms:

New York is to “The Big Apple” as Israel is to “The Holy Land.”

Gee, whiz. Brilliant! Why didn’t anyone ever think of that before? It’s a brand we have and it’s a brand we should use. It’s a brand that will stick because it already sticks, much to the dismay of the government. Basically the country is spending millions because we don’t want people to think of us as holy! Stop pretending to be the Europeans we are not, because the world is not dumb enough the fall for it. Start being yourself, Israel, and good things will happen. In the 60 years since she was founded Israel never got to be herself - not for one day.

And Moshe Burt is right. In terms of Holy we are talking Judaism. No Muslims are going to view Israel more favorable if we tell them Israel is important to them. And the Christians already know the real deal and love the Jewish people for it. Just talk to any Christians you meet. They know the Holy Land is G-d’s gift to the Jews and they are cool with that. Very cool with it.

So here is a small part of Pinchas’s plan for “rebranding” (that’s "re" as in repeating something not as in changing something):

Shabbat


Kotel



Jewish Tradition



Jewish Children




Holy Things



The problem is the government is working backwards. Instead of displaying the beauty of Judaism and Shabbat for the world, the government does everything it can to destroy our image as a holy nation by doing things like attempting to have buses run on Shabbat. Sometimes the only way to get the message across truly is to yell it, and to yell it again, again, and again!

This Week's Torah Portion in Deuteronomy

Chapter 11:
10. For the land to which you are coming to possess is not like the land of Egypt, out of which you came, where you sowed your seed and which you watered by foot, like a vegetable garden. 11. But the land, to which you pass to possess, is a land of mountains and valleys and absorbs water from the rains of heaven, 12. a land the Lord, your God, looks after; the eyes of Lord your God are always upon it, from the beginning of the year to the end of the year....

Chapter 12
22. For if you keep all these commandments which I command you to do them, to love the Lord, your God, to walk in all His ways, and to cleave to Him, 23. then the Lord will drive out all these nations from before you, and you will possess nations greater and stronger than you. 24. Every place upon which the soles of your feet will tread, will be yours: from the desert and the Lebanon, from the river, the Euphrates River, and until the western sea, will be your boundary. 25. No man will stand up before you; the Lord your God will cast the fear of you and the dread of you on all the land upon which you tread, as He spoke to you.

The Good Things

Jacob Richman wrote:

Hi Everyone!

On Friday afternoons, I buy several newspapers including Hebrew ones. Every so often, the Hebrew newspapers include a special insert. If we get a new Israeli president there will be a picture of him / her; if a sports team wins a champinship there may be a picture of them; before Passover you can find a free Haggadah; and before Israel Independence Day there is a large flag folded inside the paper.

This past Friday (July 25), there was a small glossy, two-sided, flyer in the Yediot Achronot newspaper.

On the front of the flyer is a family eating together at the table. The Hebrew text reads: Friday is Reserved for My Family To talk, laugh, eat together. There is one day of the week that you can sit with the whole family and connect. So we declare: Friday is Reserved for My Family.

On the back of the flyer is the Shabbat Kiddush:



After close to 24 years in Israel, I still find nice surprises in the most unexpected places.

Shavua Tov,
Jacob

Kumah Kall 2 - At The Grottos

"iLand"

"I will remember My covenant with Jacob and even My covenant with Isaac, and even My covenant with Abraham will I remember, and I will remember the Land." (Vayikra 26;42)

In this week's parsha there is a long list of ultra-scary curses that G-d vows to bring upon us if we neglect His Torah. At the end of these awful passages promising exile comes a verse that is meant to give us solace. G-d promises to bring us back from the Exile in the merit of the forefathers and the merit of the Land. But why would G-d include in His list of the Patriarchs a special mention of the Land of Israel? Why did He not include other mitzvot He might remember, like: 'I will remember Jacob and his Tefillin, Issac and his Tzitit, and Abraham and his Etrog'?

In this iPod generation it is easy to believe that the world is here for our convenience. Everything is quick, easy and on demand. Through this attitude we may come to the false conclusion that the Land of Israel is our own little iLand, a personalized tool for our use. We may begin to treat the Land as merely a Cheftza, that is, a religious object like tefillin, tzitit, and etrog to be used and then put away when done, or even disposed of when it wears out...

This utilitarian thinking is actually a wide-reaching phenomenon. For example: Secular Post-Zionism is the belief that a few years ago we needed a safe haven from persecution and therefore we created a Jewish state; but now that we are well-off and safe from persecution we can scrap the state - it's boring, and anyway we can simply live in peace and harmony in the US, a very nice place indeed. We have used up the Land of Israel and now it's time to move on, to SKIP to the next song, to throw away this paper cup.

Religious Post-Zionism, that is, Orthodox Jewry outside of Israel, is just as utilitarian. Says the religious post-Zionist: "Sure there are Mitzvot connected to the Land of Israel and that's why I come to Israel now and then. It's there for my religious convenience. Now I would like to hit a button on my iLand and play the Israel song for a ten-day trip. On the trip I will pray at the Kotel, give some charity to the needy, and walk around Jerusalem like I own the place. When I'm satiated in my religious observance, I hit STOP on the iLand and I go back HOME."

These attitudes are reasonable symptoms of mistaken initial assumptions. In this week's Torah portion, Hashem tells us that the Land of Israel is not just a mitzvah or religious tool. The Torah equates the Land to the Forefathers and tells us that G-d's particular remembrance for the Land is amongst the merits that will yank us out of the Exile. But what is this merit? Why does G-d remember the Land?

When G-d created the world, he created the Land of Israel as a special entity – a land that has feelings and a personality, a land that is sensitive to how she is treated, and sensitive to how her inhabitants behave!

"And you, I will scatter among the nations, I will unsheathe the sword after you; your land will be desolate and your cities will be a ruin. Then the land will be appeased for its sabbaticals during all the years of its desolation, while you are in the land of your enemies; then the land will rest and it will appease for its sabbaticals. All the years of its desolation it will rest, whatever it did not rest during your sabbaticals when you dwelled upon her." (Vayikra 26, 33-35)

If we Jews are bad, the Land will evict us, if we Jews don't keep the Sabbaths including the Shmittah year, the Land will vomit us out. However, when we call out to G-d from the Exile, the merit of the Land, this entity which loves the Jewish people, this special being that only flourishes when the Jewish people are with her, helps convince G-d that indeed it is time to bring us home.

Once we understand that the Land has her own personality and that she has a relationship with Hashem, we become much more careful as to how we treat her. We will not litter our Land because it offends her, we do not speak ill of the Land because it hurts her feelings. Moreover, once we comprehend that our Land is our unique friend and partner, we stop treating the Land as some personal i-device that we turn on and off at our whim. Instead, we embrace her, we cultivate her, we protect her, and we honor her. Our Forefathers knew that the Land of Israel is a gift; let us also not take her for granted.

Understanding and Action

The following wonderful article from the OU's Jewish Action Magazine is entitled: "A Love Story in Anticipation of a Happy Ending" and was written by my friend and colleague Rabbi Hillel Fendel and I think it sums it all up pretty well:

“Skittering over the hilltops, jumping between the mountains” (Song of Songs 2:8). In sight for a moment, out of view for two, and once again back into range. How aptly the relationship depicted in Song of Songs between God and Israel describes that between the Jewish people of today—so clearly longing for Redemption and for Israel’s material and spiritual success—and the modern State of Israel.

We see so much good and beauty in Israel as it skitters before us over the hilltops—and then we recall its many shortcomings and problems as its glory falls out of view behind the mountains. True, we know it will soon come into view again—and maybe this time even forever! But when we look at the horizon and see nothing but the fleeting image of what could be, it is hard to remain encouraged. Perhaps all that’s missing is to view the mountainside from the proper angle?

Some decades ago, when I first arrived in Bayit Vegan, a neighborhood in Jerusalem, for high school, it seemed as if all was right with the country. A sense of confidence prevailed: The Kotel was ours, and work was underway to build a plaza in front of it. The War of Attrition was behind us, and whatever terror attacks there were—and there were—were faced with unity and a sense of justice in our national cause. The ba’al teshuvah movement was going strong, and new yeshivot seemed to be opening everywhere (though at a snail’s pace compared to the current frenzied rate). The ingathering of the exiles was proceeding apace, and the economy was growing. While it was difficult to get a phone line for a private apartment, the number of months one needed to wait seemed to be gradually dropping to single digits.

And now, several months before Israel’s sixtieth birthday, has everything turned upside down? Must we feel, as the introduction to this series of articles implies, that all of our accomplishments amount to nil? Must we feel that then we had a sense of unity, but today we don’t, that then we had confidence and direction, but today we don’t? Yes, we all know the many terrific problems we currently face, but must we assume that our national history has gone into reverse?

Am Yisrael is always advancing along the road toward Redemption, and especially so during the past 120 years. For more than 1,800 years we had been waiting patiently for the Divine call “Return, My children, to your borders!” It came finally, unmistakably, in the late 1800s, when Jews not only began arriving in the Land of Israel in large numbers, but were also self-supporting!

As the great visionary Rabbi Shmuel Mohilever wrote in 1890 after a visit to the Land:

Can anyone not see the finger of God in all that has befallen us? .... It has been now six years that towns and villages and wells and flocks have arisen from the dust; the fields are full of grain, and grapes and vines cover the hills. Fourteen colonies have been founded during this period, and 3,000 of our brothers are working there. Before, the holy ways were filled with thorns and thistles, and people could barely walk here and traveled only by covered wagon—but now, we travel from Yaffo to Jerusalem, Hebron, Petach Tikvah, Rishon LeTzion, Mikveh Yisrael, Zichron Yaakov—and all on a straight path, the “king’s way,” in a carriage drawn by three horses. And Jerusalem, so desolate before, is now as fresh as in its youth; outside the walls of old Jerusalem, we see straight and beautiful streets lined by hundreds of houses, soon to be thousands; and all the European countries are trying to buy a portion of the Holy Land and Jerusalem. Is all this not a sign and wonder that Hashem has remembered His people and His Land, and that all that He wrought was for our good, to bring us up to the heights of Mt. Zion?

Over a century later, can there be any doubt that the process of Redemption has only intensified? When commemorating sixty years of statehood, we must not look myopically at the past few years, but rather at the entire picture—beginning with the Exile, and extending through the centuries of darkness, wandering and persecutions to the gradual return of the Jewish people to their home—exactly as was predicted by our prophets and sages.

Though for many years it was hard to see how this process was developing, in our generation we are fully confident that our ascent towards complete national Redemption has started—and that we ourselves are playing an active role in moving the process along. As Rabbi Eli Sadan, the head of the first mechinah (pre-army yeshivah program) in Israel, wrote in a recent pamphlet:

The front line of great rabbis of the past generations—Rabbi Yosef Karo, the Gaon of Vilna, Rabbi Zvi Hirsch Kalischer, Rabbi Avraham Yitzchak HaCohen Kook and many others—told us: “Holy flock, the time of your redemption has arrived!” They marked the way for us—yet astonishingly, it was very hard for the Jewish people to accept the ruling [that the period of forced exile was ending and the time to return to the Land of Israel had come]. This was chiefly because it was truly a hard thing to do—to adopt a national lifestyle of politics, army, economy, and the like, and all in the old/new garb of the traditional sanctity and purity of Israel. How difficult! But “kol dodi dofek, my beloved is calling,” and “et l'chenenah ki va moed, the time has come to favor the Land”; the nation, in the depths of its soul, began to awaken; the Master of the Universe dropped the walls and opened before us the gates of Eretz Yisrael.…The time had come.

Even if the religious public hesitated, Rabbi Sadan continued, the non-religious Jews were unable to wait any longer. Creating facts on the ground, they burst forward. Tradition states that the coming of the Mashiach will take place in a similar manner—Mashiach “Ben Partzi” is destined to come from Peretz, the one who paratz, burst forth, into the world before his twin brother.

Ever since those early years of modern Zionism, Israel has continued to be on the ascendancy, with more Torah, more religiosity, more hi-tech and scientific inventions, more production of agriculture, more development of cities and towns—and more growth in the Jewish population.

Everyone is familiar with the fantastic rate of growth and construction in Jerusalem, Judea and Samaria. But what about the rest of the country? Take, for example, sleepy old Afula. When I lived there some twenty years ago, I would take my bicycle for weekly rounds around the outskirts of the city to check that the eruv was functional. Today, given Afula’s tremendous growth, the former “outskirts” are in the middle of town, while the current outskirts are blocks and blocks away in each direction.

Could any Jew who experienced the Holocaust sixty-five years ago have dared to entertain such a scenario? When commemorating sixty years of statehood, we must not look myopically at the past few years, but rather at the entire picture.Never in the last 1,930 years have the Jewish people, on a national scale, had it so good!

But, of course, there is the other side of the coin. If everything is so great, why does everything feel so bad? The problems in Israel are many and great. With a total lack of confidence in the necessity of listing them at all, here they are: Corruption in the government, poor quality of education, discord about our national goals, a growing non-Jewish population, growing socio-economic gaps, increased estrangement from Judaism and the Land of Israel, lack of inspired leadership, apathy regarding the fate of Jerusalem and uncertainty regarding the nation’s future and violent crime.

So what do we do? Give up? Throw in the towel? Say it was a good try but better luck next time, see you again in a couple of centuries? The very fact that we can entertain this question is an absurdity. Can you imagine the French or the Brazilians ever “giving up” and leaving their country? Is there any nation that would actually consider the option of calling for a “do-over”?

Moreover, it’s an incredible chutzpah when Jews living chutz la’Aretz criticize Israelis and their political leaders and assert that because of their mistakes, they will be staying in the Diaspora. Such sentiments are often found in talkbacks to Internet news reports on Israel.

History has decreed that our prophets’ Divine messages are coming true before our eyes; we can either jump on the bandwagon or get left behind. But to claim membership in a nation that has taken the path of revival while at the same time choosing to remain exiled is untenable in the long run.

This, then, is both the challenge and the solution: aliyah. It’s not just for those who live outside Israel (immigration) but also for those who already live here. The word aliyah comes from the root word aleh, which either means to “go up” or to “raise up.” Those who live here should be continually trying to raise the quality of Israeli life on all planes. Aliyah to Eretz Yisrael is necessary, for the sake of both the individual and the nation. We need Jews here, and they need to be here. The Jewish nation suffers when her children are not home, and the children suffer when they are cut off from their source.

At the risk of stating the obvious, the more people move to Israel in order to help solve our collective problems, the faster those problems will be solved. Decades ago, some religious leaders did not encourage aliyah for fear that the State would not be religious. Ironically, this almost guaranteed that the State would be irreligious.

There are those today who mock the religious leaders of previous decades for taking this road, yet they themselves take a similar approach today. However, there’s a difference. Back then, it was “spiritual” problems that kept some Jews away. Today, it is “political” problems. “First get rid of your government,” they say, or “your bureaucracy or [fill in the blank] and then I’ll consider coming.” (Insert small dose of healthy skepticism here).

Let us not make the same errors again. No more “I-told-you-so’s” after the fact. Instead of once again finding the perfect excuse to remain in the Diaspora, let us jump into the fray with real-time fixes. Let us be a part of the solution, not the problem.

And those who live here in Israel must also make aliyah. We must be constantly on the lookout, as more and more people already are, for ways to alleviate the problems that are closest to our hearts. We must be constantly on the alert to radiate to others that life in Israel, in the long-range, is not only good but is getting better.

And more: As we increasingly hear our rabbis—and our children—say, let us grab the chance to establish a society predicated on Torah values. Let us forge ahead to become a strong presence and influence in the army, in the courts, in the media. Let us combine purity and on-the-ground action to build our national home in Eretz Yisrael. Let us raise a generation imbued with dedication and even sacrifice. Let us be like the early pioneers, but with the added great ambition to live a life of sanctity in accordance with the Torah of Israel.

Let us not be fooled by what appears to be thriving Jewish life in the United States. The center and the heart of Jewish life is here in Israel. Taking active part in the enterprise that is Israel is the challenge of our times and is an opportunity that no one must miss. After sixty years, it’s way past time to come home.

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Rabbi Fendel has been the senior news editor of Arutz Sheva Israel National News since 1995. He studied in Yeshivat Merkaz HaRav for five years and started Yeshivat Mevaseret Zion for international students. He is the author of One Thing I Ask (Jerusalem, 1995) and has lived in Beit El with his wife Bina and their eight children since 1992.

Straight to G-d

With Pesach having come to a close I’m now looking forward to a short vacation. The funny thing is, with a month off from yeshiva for the chag, technically I’ve already been on vacation for several weeks. Yet with all the excitement of Pesach and the different Chol Omed activities going on around the country last week, I find I actually need a vacation from my vacation.

Thank G-d, I was able to do a lot of traveling this past week, from one end of the country to the other. Bus rides to Beitar, bus rides to Hebron, bus rides to Tzfat, even an amazing two day Carlebach music festival at the Dead sea. I’m left feeling much more connected to Hashem after tapping into these holy places but I’m also left something else as well… exhausted! As I now look forward to a short visit to America to make the mandatory family visits and get some well earned relaxation, I realize this rest is from more than just running around all last week. In some ways, the hustle and bustle of Pesach and Chol Omed has been a microcosm of a larger life here in Israel.

This land is called “Eretz Yisrael”, and if you split up “Yisrael” in half you get “Eretz Yishar El” (The land straight to G-d). Through the name of the land itself we understand it’s nature, if you want to be taken straight to G-d this is the place to do it in. The thing is, G-d is indescribably powerful, and being much closer to Him can infuse a lot of energy into a person, place, or thing. Often this high-energy state of being is a very good thing, but one has to be careful to channel it in the right direction or else you can get burnt. It’s no coincidence that this land produces the gedolim-hador, rabbis of saintly stature able to take spirituality to the utter heights, as well as suicide bombers who grab hold of that same spiritual energy and are driven to take it to the utter depths. While speaking with my rabbi this weekend he was describing how last Shabbat he saw huge amounts of Greek Orthodox Christian tour groups walking around Jerusalem and bearing huge crosses no less, and he said he was very pleased about it. Not expecting to hear such a reaction I asked him why and he replied that the holiness of this land is now such that all the non-Jews of the world are vying to get a hold of it. Not only is it a sign that Hashem is really doing something special here, but also that now it has gotten to the point where it’s only a matter of time before the rest of the Jewish nation also wakes up to this fact as the non-Jews already have.

Life in America now seems like watching a movie… something that’s not quite real and at any moment someone may hit the stop button. Comparatively, life here is quite real, sometimes almost too real. When things are good they’re really good, but when they are bad they can be very stressful. Often you only get a split second to jump from great to horrible and back again, not being afforded a moment to catch your breath. I was speaking to a police officer here after a heated protest recently and commenting on it he told me, “You see, it’s not always so easy to be here.” To that I replied that I’d rather have a hard life in truth than to live an easy life in falsehood. Sometimes facing reality can be uncomfortable or worse downright painful. But it’s not our purpose to use this life we were given to sit back in a lazyboy and grow fat and weak, it’s our job to seek out the truth in this life. To do that the best, we must go “Yishar El”, straight to G-d, and this is the place to do it!

Pig-Out

The photo above was taken on the mountainside below my house. Some people hate pigs. I don't hate them, I just don't eat them or let them run around the sanctuary. These wild boars don't harm people, and are said to be dangerous only when cornered. I have had no problems with them. In fact, I love to see G-d's amazing creatures. I do think though that the Torah's repeated warnings against eating swine is due to the fact the hogs are common in Israel and the Lord wanted to give us a stern warning not to partake of pig flesh. However, as you can see in the Forward article below not everyone has heard His call for an embargo on the pork:

On Israel’s Only Jewish-Run Pig Farm, It’s The Swine That Bring Home the Bacon

I stood beside the road with a traveling backpack and a yarmulke, my arm extended, hitchhiking to the junction from Ramat Raziel to catch a bus home. I was singing “Lev Tahor,” a verse from Psalm 51 meaning “pure heart” that I’d been singing all Sabbath long. A car stopped, and a bearded man in a knit yarmulke picked me up. As I entered his car, he turned to me: “I’m Oren… So where you going?” Damn. I’d begun to hate this question, especially when asked by religious people. “Kibbutz Lahav,” I answered, expecting a gasp. Unfazed, he further inquired, “And what do you do there?” Again, I hesitated, this time with dread. “Uh, well… I work on their pig farm.”

And just like that, I managed to overwhelm and confuse Oren, as well as myself, while simultaneously expressing the contradiction that pig farming in Israel played in my life for the two months I spent working at Kibbutz Lahav. Luckily, Oren was an open-minded man whose parting words to me were: “God put you on the pork farm for a reason.”

The kibbutz and its pigs sit comfortably in the northern Negev, just 30 minutes north of Beersheba, surrounded by the Lahav forest, Israel’s largest manmade woodlands. Pine trees, scattered acorns and orderly planted “wild” grasses and flowers seem somewhat out of place in the desert hills. The iconoclastic kibbutz similarly appears incongruous in a Jewish part of a Jewish country, next door to religious Kibbutz Shomeriya. As I learned over the course of two months, though, the kibbutz, just like the forest, fits into the complex web of Israeli and Jewish identity in more ways than one.

Toward the end of January, I moved onto Kibbutz Lahav in an effort to understand the phenomenon of pigs in Israel. While there are a number of similar farms in Israel, Kibbutz Lahav is unique because, as its slogan suggests, it is “the meat from the Kibbutz.” All the other pig breeders operate in a zone in the North dominated by Christian Arabs, the only place where raising pork is legal, according to a 1962 law. Kibbutz Lahav, a Jewish-run farm, proudly operates outside the legal zone.

Lahav’s pig breeding gained widespread notoriety because of its legal loophole, almost talmudic in its ingenuity, in which the kibbutz is exempt from the law and can rightfully raise pigs for research as a part of its Animal Research Institute. Thus, the kibbutz raises pigs for science and eats the excess, developing over the years a rather staggering excess. For many years the institute was no more than an ad hoc veterinarian research institute, which, on the scientific side, boasted little more than the successful splicing of an ibex with a goat.

“Israelis weren’t ready to pay more money for it,” said Dodik, a kibbutz elder whose last name I never learned, as was the case with most people on the kibbutz.

Today, as a result of the recent biotech boom, the institute is the center of Israel’s most spectacular medical advancements, where religious Jewish scientists are among the hundreds of researchers who use the pigs for innovative experimentation.

Despite the institute’s success, raising and processing pig meat is the main purpose of the farm, as the 10,000-plus animals suggest. Most workers commute from Beersheba each morning. Jewish immigrants from Argentina and Russian immigrants with little Jewish background make up the largest proportion of the 50-something workers. On any given morning, the workers are spread out among the 15 or so indoor buildings, administering antibiotics, slaughtering and butchering, inseminating sows and moving pigs to the fattening rooms from their weaning rooms.

Eshai, a proud Israeli-born pork eater — and self-proclaimed messiah (he was born on the Ninth of Av, the prophesied birthday of the future messiah) — was my supervisor for most of February. He seethed with a cynicism toward all things Jewish and traditional. I once asked him why nobody collects and sells pigs’ milk. He answered me, grinning: “Pigs’ milk isn’t kosher.”

One day after work, when changing out of my coveralls and knee-high boots, a new immigrant from Brazil, Yehoshua, was discussing his former religiosity with Marcos when he mentioned in passing that he still didn’t eat pork. “Me neither,” I interrupted their conversation, excited to discover I wasn’t alone. “I keep kosher.”

Then Marcos chimed in, in his equally broken Hebrew: “Yeah, neither do I.” And there we sat, three confused Jewish pig farmers, when Imat, the Palestinian Muslim pig farmer, who also didn’t eat pork, entered the room.

How can you spot a kosher pig farmer? We blended in — except for Yehoshua, who always wore facemasks in a last-ditch effort not to inhale or ingest the same air as the pigs, or the floating fecal dust. Early on I also donned a facemask, but unlike Yehoshua, who can hardly understand Hebrew or English, I got the jokes and insults, such as “Jewboy” and “rookie,” from the Sabras, not to mention Eshai’s looks, which implied “pansy.”

It was when I learned from co-workers that our manager doesn’t eat pork, and that his manager and the head of the entire pork operation has a pork-free home, that I first felt at home, comfortable as a kosher Jew on the kibbutz. Through such revelations I saw the pig-breeding center as home to the same neurotic Jewish traditionalism that courses through my veins.

Such contradictions shed light on the beautiful and confusing Jewish identity of Kibbutz Lahav and its pigs. On Friday night in the kibbutz dining room, there is a Sabbath display of candlesticks, a challah cover and a Kiddush cup. Kibbutzniks thus have the Sabbath on their minds as they eat their special meal of braised pork or ham on the ceremonial white Sabbath linens. During our celebratory barbecue just prior to Purim, management handed out mishloach manot, traditional Jewish gift baskets, to all the workers, with a note wishing everyone a “happy Purim.” Most workers ate the hamantaschen as dessert after the grilled pork spare ribs. One Thursday, while I was shopping in the kolbo — the kibbutz grocery store — a panicked woman ran behind me to speak to the cashier, urgently asking if she could leave a ham in the freezer and collect it tomorrow for Friday’s dinner. When she left with permission to do so, I turned to the cashier woman, smiled and asked her if the meat was “for Shabbat.” She nodded, and we both laughed.

According to Dodik, one of the kibbutz founders, Lahav embarked on pork production by chance. In 1952, the year of the kibbutz’s founding and a period of major food shortages in Israel, the struggling Lahav received a gift of one boar and two sows from a neighboring kibbutz. After a number of years, and thanks to the will of a few kibbutzniks, those pigs became the kibbutz’s financial linchpin. As kibbutzim have been failing and Lahav, in particular, has had trouble, the pigs have remained a stable revenue producer, an unlikely friend to a Zionist institution.

And even though most kibbutzniks no longer “work in the pigs,” the porcine influence on the kibbutz is nearly impossible to miss. Ten thousand-plus pigs howl throughout the night, along with the desert jackals. There’s a dreaded western wind here that brings with it the inescapable and potent scent of industrial hog waste that cannot possibly be ignored. In the dining room there is almost always a pork option. The kibbutzniks find no need for the silly euphemisms used by greater Israeli society, like “white meat” and “white steak.” Pork, or at least the right to raise it, serve it and eat it, is no doubt a point of pride at Lahav today, and part of the kibbutz’s national legacy.