12 to 120

B”H

17 Sivan 5768
Erev Shabbos, Parashas Shelach
June 20, 2008

Dear Friends and Family,

This coming Shabbos we read the Torah portion Shelach, recalling the sin of the spies. These were the 12 men that Moshe sent to scout out the Land of Israel before entering. When they returned, their distorted and negative reports caused the b’nai Yisrael to despair. As a result of speaking and believing this slander about the land, Hashem decreed a 40 year delay before they could enter the Land.

Today we are witness to all that is good and special about living here and we have the ability, and perhaps the obligation, to tell our family, friends and neighbors abroad what those things are.

Nefesh B'Nefesh is again this year promoting their "12 to 12" project. They requested that every Oleh compose a list of 12 things we appreciate and love about living in Israel and email our message to 12 (or 120) friends abroad. Last year David and I sent out a letter called “12+1” (if you’d like it, let me know). Here are our 12 for this year:


1. The education-yes, you read correctly. The Jewish education here is excellent. Secular, too. Our graduates become Nobel Prize winners, develop companies that attract a disproportionate amount of foreign business investment and Israel is depended upon for the next great medical breakthrough. Educating children anywhere is difficult. Look in any bookstore in the states; there are shelves of guides to help both parent and child overcome obstacles and get the most out of their schooling. In what other place do Jewish parents have so many opportunities to educate their children al pi darko, according to their ways? Here, parents tell me they love that they can choose the school and educational system that most suits their child. They do struggle with the decisions, but they have a decision to make. (And notice, I did not even mention tuition.)

2. We are surrounded by enemies who want us wiped off the face of the earth, and the best thing is that we know exactly who, and often where, they are. Random acts of violence are rare. Terrorist attacks are devised and planned, but before they are executed, they are usually thwarted. Baruch Hashem.

3. Tourists are everywhere, crowding the alleyways and thoroughfares, littering and talking loudly in the streets. They fill up the restaurants, empty the shops, and give parnassa to the street cleaners. We wake up every morning in their once-in-a-lifetime destination.

4. The government of Israel wants us to be a nation like all other nations. Besrat Hashem it WILL be. --despite what we “see in the news,” we are witness to a Divine Plan that will end when we are deserving of a leadership that represents the highest of ethical standards. Those which emanate from our eternal constitution, the Torah. Then we will be the nation that all other nations want to be like.

5. The kids have to serve in the army. We recently had the zechus of having a Shabbat meal with 18, 19 and 20 year old chayalim, soldiers, from both observant and non-observant homes. They exhibited more character, maturity, focus, dedication and wisdom than any young person to whom I have spoken in my life. Our children would do well to have these middos surrounding them.

6. Little kids run around without any supervision. And most of them are very well behaved. They look after younger siblings, they scoot out to the makolet to get milk for breakfast in the morning, and teens don’t spend hours on cellphones because they are always with their friends.

7. The buses rule the roads. They roar around, twisting, zooming, making impossible turns. They take us anywhere and everywhere. Those standing, stumble as the bus careens, and someone catches them. Mothers give their babies over to “strangers” as they fold their strollers and walk away to pay the driver. Young girls get up and tell not so young women to take their seat. Men move next to other men so women can sit together; this is so that everyone’s dignity is preserved. Simply put, the passengers on any bus in Israel are sharing the ride of their life.

8. Not knowing the language well is an opportunity to make someone’s day. I often find myself waiting for a bus with an elderly woman who knows not a syllable of English but wants a little connection to another Jewish woman. I try my hardest to tell her, using the 50 or so words I know, what I can about my life. When she helps me with my Ivrit, she feels needed, it’s the best. I met an ancient wrinkled beauty from Iraq, a sweet toothy woman from Russia and a 6th generation Israeli and her 88 year old younger sister that way. Plus, I picked up a few new words in the process.

9. The best jobs and special deals are discovered through the good ‘ol boy network and that is hard to get into. To break in, you have to be--an olah. We help each other find jobs, tutors, movers, doctors, ulpans, lawyers. We find a bargain or or hit upon a good idea and we share it on our local anglo yahoogroups. We promote olah business on http://www.nbnbusiness.co.il/ ,give recommendations on http://israeleasy.blogspot.com/ and list resources with maps on http://israelataclick.com/ All in English. It’s a great club, and no secret handshake.

10. I love that there are no long thin lines in Israel. If you expect to be waited on first come first serve, you are mistaken. Once we got here we realized it was best just to get over it. My take on it is that we are like a family; it really is not rudeness. It’s a cultural thing--like no personal space. Because we are family, there is no “alone space,” either. People care enough to tell us how to dress, how take care of our kids, our health and our relationship with our spouse. And if one is ever in need of help, lo aleinu, the shoving stops and our family is right there to take care of us.

11. Yes, there are indeed giants here. Giants of Torah. And we have the opportunity to gaze upon them every day.

12. Finally, the only best thing about living in Israel is that we are home, where every Jew belongs, where our Loving Father longs for our return.

Well, those are our 12 for this year. You might not agree that all of these are good reasons to live here, but please, as a tikkun for the spies don’t say anything. Life in Israel, like anywhere has its trials. Within our trials lies the opportunity for our greatness. Doing mitzvot with joy, being kind and merciful to one another and judging every Jew favorably will end this exile, the most difficult trial of all. Then the best thing about living in Israel will be that all of YOU will get to come home soon.

Love,
Renee and David ...

Coming Home & Back Again

B”H

17 Kislev 5768
November 27, 2007

Last Wednesday morning, jet lag awakened me before dawn and urged me to the Kotel early. I made my way just as I have done most mornings for the past six months. This time, though, it felt like the first time. The air was damp and chilly with intermittent sprinkles on slippery stones that kept many daybreak daveners snuggled in their warm homes. I love this weather because it holds the very air, the same cloud streaked skies and hovering chance of rain that welcomed and accompanied us throughout ten days in Kislev 1994, the first time we walked these stones and were kissed by the sweet clarity of the winter air.

This morning felt just like it did thirteen years ago, the morning of our first encounter with the remnant of our holy Temple, when our taxi wound its way down the steep road to the Kotel traffic circle and we watched the sky expand in pink and golden light as the sun emerged over the Har HaBayit.

Thirteen years ago David and I had no idea what Jerusalem, and Judaism for that matter, could mean to us. This was to be an adventure, a once in a lifetime vacation. We had guides lined up to take us to historical excavations, side trips planned so we could enjoy Israel’s natural beauty and interesting restaurant recommendations that we wanted to try. The restaurants offered new foods and presentations, our hikes were gorgeous, but it was the guide who gave us Jerusalem to whom we will always be indebted.

We spent three days with Barnea Selevan traipsing around the Old City and visiting every yeshiva (we had never been in one yeshiva, let alone half a dozen in one day). We explored the lives of Jews who came before us in every excavation, and learned about our cherished history in every museum and monument within these walls. We had questions and Barnea had answers. We had concerns, he understood them. We were developing ideas and he had a few of his own.

In the end, we took our lingering questions, nagging concerns and inspiring ideas back to Atlanta with us, but we also had something else to take home. Barnea held out a gift and he challenged us to take it. It was Yerushalyim. It was as if he was saying, “It’s your home, now what are you going to do with it?”

Of course, Atlanta was our home. Our loving family, good friends and supportive community are a reasonable definition of what a home is supposed to be. We had no family in Israel, few friends and no sense of community whatsoever. Our entire adult lives were spent in Atlanta. We’d spent a total of eight days in Jerusalem, yet we knew we’d forever be homesick for her as soon as our return flight lifted its wheels off the runway.

You all know the end of that story. Israel, Jerusalem in particular, is now-miraculously- our home.

Still, our ties remain strong to Atlanta and to everyone in America whom we hold dear, so two weeks ago I flew off for a week of concentrated catching up with my family and friends. Recurring questions settled on me everywhere I went: “What strikes you most about being back?” “Is being in America hard after being in Israel for so long?” “What do you miss most about Atlanta?” “…about Israel?” “What do you think about the Peace Process?” “What’s the prevailing attitude in Israel?”

And finally, “It doesn’t seem like anyone there cares...” Not a question, but it certainly does beg for an answer.

Of course we care. Every Jew cares.

Of course, I care. I care if our enemies will not only shoot fireworks on Friday night, but aim kassams at my neighbors, making French Hill another Sderot. Of course I care that our corrupt “leaders” think it will benefit our security to hand over to our enemies our security barrier of the Golan and once again exile Jews from their homes. It’s crazy. And I care that my government in America, in search of “signs of progress,” turns to the weakest party--banking on Israel’s capitulation --to save the administration from humiliation. Again.

Today is no different really than Begin,Sadat & Carter; then Rabin, Arafat & Clinton; then Netanyahu, Arafat & Clinton; then Barak, Arafat & Clinton; finally Olmert, Abbas and Bush. Now it's Mitchell, Clinton/Clinton & Abbas/Hamas. Don’t we get it?

It has always been Israel, Ishmael and Eisav. This is a struggle about gaining our inheritance, the Land of Israel.

Each of these leaders will bear responsibility for what he does...but ultimately God decides. He is involved in the tiny nuances of our lives and He is running the world according to His plan, taking care to worry us, pain us and distance us only as much as we can bear.

Three things, says the Talmud, are gained only through suffering: Torah, Eretz Yisrael and Olam Haba. But these are our inheritance, why make us suffer? Because suffering forces us to choose. We can choose to distract ourselves with our busy lives to alleviate our pain, or we can choose to look closely at ourselves and see what the Almighty requires of us to alleviate His pain.

Living in this Land, it is so easy to love God. Surrounded by incomplete, broken Jews just like me, I know He is compassionate. Driving through Judea and gazing at His hills dotted with homes filled with Jewish children, I know how much nachas we are able to give Him. Seeing hundreds of tourists each day huddled in dozens of groups around their guides in the Kotel plaza speaking Ivrit, English, Russian, French, German, Spanish, French and perhaps Swahili (really)... I know He wants the whole world to know Him. Talking to the bare headed driver who says Jerusalem is the best city in the world because Jews living here is a fulfillment of God’s Plan, I know every Jew can have an intimate relationship with Him.


We are in a struggle for our Land. God demands that we be worthy of it. That is all.

Be compassionate, give Him nachas, show the world there is a God, and talk to Him all the time.

God alone directs the hand of man. When we realize that we have no one to rely on-not this Prime Minister’s intellect, not the Presidential office, not the State Department, not Congressional clout and not even the IDF’s strength—no one except God. And we step up to the plate and ask Him, with all of our hearts-Bonei b’rchamav Yerushalyim....

Jerusalem is a gift and we are each challenged us to take it. Hashem is saying, “It’s your home, now what are you going to do with it?!”

Most of you aren’t here yet...but you yearn to be here, don’t you? And maybe that causes you pain. We are all suffering in this Galus. Through our suffering, we are acquiring the Land. He is only asking that we use the pain of separation to become the Jew who can inherit the Land that He so badly wants us to be worthy of.

May we all come home soon.

-Renee & David ...

A Very Different Sukkos

B”H

Cheshvan 2, 5768
October 14, 2007

Dear Family and Friends,

By Friday afternoon, Isru Chag, our scach ws neatly rolled, the decorations boxed away until next year and the sukkah walls and poles stacked and wrapped in a corner of our same courtyard where they stood linked together, for one majestic week.

Our sukkah arrived on the lift with just about everything else we own. It’s one of those interlocking metal bar and canvas types that have been so popular for their ease. Easy to erect, easy to store. Each year, that sukkah that has given us headaches: first, the parts were not all there. Then, after a very rainy Sukkos, we decided the grass was too messy so the next year David designed and built a wood floor--rendering ease of erection and storage benefits meaningless. Ever try to store a 10’ x12’ floor? Another time, the main beam broke, pressured by the weight of rain from a sudden downpour that settled on the tarp we put up to protect the scach. Three years, three trials. Honestly, the girls and I simply dreaded the day each year one of us would have to help David with this chore.

But, we brought the sukkah anyway. Change of place, change of mazel—maybe. But I think this was not the same sukkah.. Same frame and fabric, same scach and decoration. However, it was an entirely different sukkah.

This year our sukkah went up with barely a glitch in an hour or two with the assistance of a helpful aish student from Australia whom we have handily adopted. Already we had a hint that something was different.

Then, we literally moved in: our coffee table which raises to dining height to seat eight for the meals, also lowers to create the ambiance of our living room with the addition of a couple of comfortable chairs. Lamps, the portable phone, a vase of flowers and it was home for the week.

We don’t worry too much about leaving furniture in the sukkah all week because we don’t expect rain here on Sukkos. There is a bit of emuna that goes into it, as for a few days we saw something strange in the sky: clouds. But they soon made way for the familiar endless sapphire mantle that thrills us each time we raise our eyes heavenward.

From the kitchen where I, like almost every other woman I know, spent most of the chag, I could see right in our sukkah’s door and feel connected to whatever was going in there. David ate there, learned there and brought the laptop out to surf a bit. Visitors stopped by our sukkah, because everyone we know is also enjoying the holiday. I took a break now and again for snacks and chats and cozy chol hamoed meals.

Each evening, David did something he has felt comfortable doing only once or twice in our 15 years of sukkah dwelling. He slept in the sukkah, among our snoring neighbors. Other than an occasional rousing to shush yeshiva bochurs hanging out on the quiet streets at 2 am, or to shoo away a cat trying to get into the courtyard, he slept peacefully under a blanket of Jerusalem stars.

This was certainly a different sukkah. And a different Sukkos.

Sukkos here is a holiday for the entire country. Many people simply close their stores all week. Yeshivos and schools let out, offices and government services give time off and the country goes into vacation mode. Families go on tiyul; nature hikes and zoo outings are most popular. Many take day trips to lovely towns like Tzefat or Zichron Yaakov, with its charming shops and marvelous view of the Mediterranean.

Jerusalem, of course, is one of the main attractions. And everyone who comes to Jerusalem, comes to our neighborhood. We had plenty of opportunities to play Old City ambassadors, exercising our pure bred Southern hospitality in a land hardly known for being genteel. Imagine us-two recent Georgia transplants, helping third-generation Israelis of every dress code navigate their way through our crowded streets toward the place they all wanted to go. The Kotel, the object of every Jew’s heart--whether they know it or not.

The Kotel is like Hashem’s “homing device,” drawing these souls to the center of His universe—home to our Father.

And home to our sukkos, where we intimately enjoy His closeness.

The air in the sukkah, hovering in the Clouds of Glory, always feels different. But it was more so for us this year. We wanted to be inside it every moment, under its shadow, under that blue, blue sky. It was as if the astounding clarity of Jerusalem’s air and light was distilled within those same canvas walls, the same walls we arduously assembled in each of the previous years.

Erecting and living in our sukkah this year was infinitely easier. Life here in many was is also easier. The future is still scattered with roadblocks and stumbling blocks. But there are bridges, too.

We have been traveling from Elul to Simchas Torah under the shadow of the Har haBayit--days and weeks saturated with mercy, elevated with encouragement and potent with opportunity. Linked together, they brought us over expanses we could not have traversed had Hashem not been drawing us closer.

To a different sukkah, a different Sukkos and a different us.

None of us are the same people as when we began this journey over 50 days ago. Now, what choice do we have?-- other than to kiss the sukkah walls and say good bye. And where do we go from here? Most certainly, each of us will be led in the way in which our heart yearns to go. May it be with bracha.

Come home soon.
Rena & David ...

A Few Days In

B”H

May 15, 2007

Dear friends and family,

In between all the stuff we have get done first in order to stay here, we do the things that are the reason we want to be here. David is learning every day at Yeshiva Rabbi Akiva, a new place started by Rabbi Shalom Gold (of “The Dik-Duk Book”) for men who got a late start in learning. Rabbi Gold decided to begin a night seder when he found out David will not be able to come next week when he starts work. I daven every day at the Kotel, we visit with friends and take walks every night in the sweetest air on the planet.


Yom Rishon
25 Iyar 5767
Sunday, May 13


This week we have to go to government offices to fulfill certain requirements in order to live here and take advantages of services. In Atlanta, I did a lot of organizing for this to ensure we’d have all the documentation in order. I’ve heard how horrible this process is. How long the waits, how uncaring the officials, how inept the system. I was terribly tense. Everyone says go early and we were getting a late start. David wanted to know exactly where we were going and I seemed to have two addresses for everything. He wanted to know what the purpose of each stop was, and I did not understand the meaning of the words: Ministry, Absorption, Muchedet. I had a complete meltdown. I wanted to crawl back into bed and stay there.

So David called Nefesh b’Nefesh. A very friendly woman answered the phone and took him through it all; step by step and address by address, including directions. She told him all the documents we’d need and why we had to go to each place.

We realized we’d waited too late in the day to get anywhere with the Dpt. Of Ministry –they close at noon. So we went to the Post Office to get our applications for health insurance. It seems a lot is done at the Post Office besides mail. Bills are paid, certain checks are cashed and documents are authorized. We arrived at about 12:30. The room was huge, filled with people seated in chairs-stadium style in front of a bank of about 12 windows. Above each window was a flat panel television screen playing nature scenes from something like National Geographic alternating with extreme sports (such as skydiving on skis, and parasailing with kites). On the screen were also two sets of large red numbers: a one digit number for the booth and a three digit number for the last person called. They were on person 163 and we were number 229. We found a seat and settled in.

There was a cross section of Israeli society there. I did not feel we stuck out because everyone looked so different. There was a chassid in a long striped coat who had helped us at the door to get our number. An elderly frum couple looking a little lost and wearing many layers of clothing came in, they must have been suffocating. We sat across from a arab worker with rough hands. Arab women in tight pants and their heads covered with scarves walked by. Two large black nuns came in with packages in a hand truck they pushed. Mostly we saw secular Israelis. About ten minutes later they had called person 164. We nested.

The whole scene: the vivd television screens, the stillness, the unlikely assembly and our lingering jetlag combined to create a sense of surrealism. We felt vulnerable to this system we did not understand. Our collection of warnings and well wishes did not offer comfort. We watched with anxiety as they ticked through the numbers and surprisingly, they made it to 229 within 45 minutes.

Once at the window, it all went rather smoothly. We chose Muchedet insurance because that is what our friends in the Rova unanimously recommend. We got our registration and we went home.

Not too bad for a jetlagged day one.

Yom sheini
26 Iyar 5767
Monday, 14 May 2007

Today we are off to the Ministry of the Interior where we will hopefully receive our Teudat Zehoots (identity cards), banking permission and other documents essential to citizenship. Why-we are often asked- did we decide to become citizens? After all, we have said our choice to be here was because it is, in a word, a mitzvah. However, it is a mitzvah to live in Israel-the Torah does not say anything about becoming a citizen of the medina (modern state of Israel)-as much of miracle its existence is.

Usually one’s decision on whether to accept citizenship or not is primarily one of economics or ideology. Financially for us, the tax perks/disadvantages balanced out no matter what we did. The deciding financial factor for us was health insurance. At our ages the cost of private health insurance was comparable to that in the US—just too much to pay on an Israeli salary.

Ideologically, we are mitzvah oriented, not medina oriented. This is a hot subject, controversial and often divisive among Jews-so what else is new? Many say if 5,000 (some say 10,000) American Jews made Israel their home, it would result in a dynamic cultural/political shift here. Maybe. G-d runs this show, albeit through natural means.
We are here as Jews, true to Torah values and will participate in the government as loyal Jews, true to Torah values. This week’s parsha was about this. We are not a nation like others.

Speaking of this week’s parasha. David was called to the Torah on Shabbat for the Levi aliya. You won’t believe the first line of the aliya: “The land will give its fruit, you will eat your fill and you will dwell securely upon it.”


---Off to become citizens, now.


B”H
The day could not have gone better. We arrived at the Ministry of the Interior office 40 minutes before they opened; it was just a short walk from the Old City and a glorious spring morning. When the doors opened, we followed the crowd up the stairs and into the reception area where we got our number and papers to fill out. Problem #1: the papers were completely in Hebrew. But the good news is we were number 8! So when we were soon called, we told the official-who could not speak English-that we couldn’t do this. She solved the problem in a completely Israeli way. She found a nice young man, with a much higher number, whom she astutely identified as an English/Ivrit speaker to help us. He did, and we were then ushered to the only desk with an English speaking official. Chani was efficient, courteous and wished us well as she presented us with our prizes-his and hers teudat zehoots! It only took 20 minutes. We’d heard such horror stories, people leaving in tears, coming back three times, the office closing before they got their paperwork completed. This was a kiss from Hashem. And now we could open a bank account.

Off we went up Jaffa Road, and Ben Yehuda to King George. There it was, Bank Leumi. We were told to ask for Vivian who speaks English, but she was not there. So we took a number. Taking a number is de rigueur here, have you noticed? Morris who speaks French, not English called our number. David thought it was ridiculous to have someone open our account who could not communicate with us, but I thought it kind of fun. Morris clearly wanted to help and our request to open an account not so unusual; it just took forever and we had to sign our names an inordinate amount of times on forms and stickers. We have no ideas what we promised or agreed upon with all those signatures.

While we were sitting with Morris who speaks French at the bank, Inna who speaks Russian from the Ministry of Absorption called to make an appointment. Olim (immigrants) have to go there after opening a bank account because there is an Absorption Basket-30,000 shekels (about $9,000.00 for a couple w/o dependents) deposited into a oleh’s bank account over the first year. Since we were right around the corner, she waited for us. She was delightful and went over the future deposits, different ulpan options, told us how to get driving licenses. Wow-it only took 10 minutes, and we did not even have to take a number.

Our final destination to become “official” was to the Muchedet. That involved a long walk up Jaffa Road, past Machena Yehuda almost to the bus station. It was getting hot and we were getting tired. The Muchehdet building was well marked and we went in to the information booth where we got a nice "welcome home" from the attendant. (No one has been that friendly, he was probably a volunteer!). We were directed to the waiting room where we-you guessed it-took a number. Within 30 minutes, we were called, processed and back in the sunshine on Jaffa Road.

It was 11:30 a.m. And we were done.

We decided to celebrate the raging success of our morning with a nice lunch. Don't Jews always celebrate with food? I remembered a good café at Tachana Merkazit, (photo credit) the Central Bus Station, that Elise and I once enjoyed. Tachana is a multi story building that houses a mall, complete with shuk style kiosks and internet café. There are, indeed buses. The top level is the Jerusalem station for intra-city buses. We navigated through the crowds and security, up the escalator and enjoyed the best sandwich I have ever had in my life, in the best city in the world.



Come home soon.

Love, Renee & David ...