On Aliyah and Being Devoured By the Land

On my flight back to Toronto after my Year in Israel, I was writing furiously in my journal, trying to make sense of all that I'd seen, felt, learned and experienced, when a fellow passenger came up to me and struck up a conversation. We spoke about the power of Eretz Yisrael, and our mixed feelings about leaving. It was Parshat Shelach that week, and he explained to me Rebbe Nachman's interpretation of the spies' evil report of the land, specifically the phrase “the land...is a land that devours its inhabitants”(Bamidbar 13:32). Unfortunately I don't remember his exact understanding, but it implied that this statement was both true and potentially positive, if read correctly. “Perhaps it's true,” he suggested with a smile, “no one can deny that you become a part of this place. Whether you like it or not, your soul gets stuck here. Eretz Yisrael absolutely swallows you up.”

Those words echoed in my ears as my aliyah flight took off from Toronto just over a month ago. Exactly a year had passed, and as I learned Parshat Shelach on the plane, I thought about the deep, enigmatic connection between Am Yisrel and Eretz Yisrael. Over the past month as I've gone through the technical motions that will officially make this place my permanent home, I have been trying to better understand the meaning of this phrase. As I go from office to office, line to line, bus to bus, mountain to mountain, maayan to maayan, tiyul to tiyul, and Shabbat to Shabbat, this questions comes with me. What is it about Israel, about this physical mass of land in the Middle East, that completely consumes the Jewish people?

At first, I felt nothing. I felt like I was just here for the year. Perhaps it was all just so natural, so right - - the fulfillment of 3000 years of waiting. And then I began to panic. Am I in denial? Do I not understand the magnitude of my decisions? And then, suddenly, I felt everything. I felt everything, all the time. The most aggravating annoyance as I went through (and continue to go through!) the infamous Israeli bureaucracy. The most incredible frustration as I struggled (and continue to struggle!) in Ulpan, realizing my personal handicap in the language in which I will soon be studying. The most painful longing for friends and family members so far away, on so many levels. The most frantic helplessness as I heard the news of a terrorist on a mad rampage, bulldozing innocent people, smashing into the 13 bus I take to my Katamon apartment. The deepest sorrow upon feeling the effects of our captured soldiers tragic return to their home, to our home. And then the most all encompassing relief as I lit the candles and brought in my first Shabbat in the holiest city in the world. The most refreshing peace as I returned to Sfat for the first time. The indescribable feeling of touching the Kotel and realizing how close it will always be. The subtle comfort of being home. And the final clarity I have as I develop these thoughts at a maayan in the Judean Mountains at sunset (not to be too much of a cliché, or anything).

The greatest challenge, I have found, has been allowing myself to feel all that is constantly coming my way. Israel is a place so intense, so loaded, so powerful, that it is virtually impossible for my Western mind to categorize, analyze, and understand it, intellectually. My roommate gave me the wise advice of her mother, “Your emotions are a part of you. You need to embrace them, experience them, let them wash over you, and only then can you let them go.” But how could I feel something that didn't make sense? How could I understand what I was going through, when it was so much larger than my limited perspective? Moreover, how could I be frustrated, annoyed and negative when I knew it was all part of something so Good? I tried so hard to remind myself at the peak of my frustrations, that each time I was being sent from office to office to office, I was spending more time exploring the streets of Yerushalayim, Ir Hakodesh. “It doesn't matter how time consuming it is to get your medical insurance sorted out, or that every single person has given you completely contradictory directions,” I rationalized, “at the end of the day you are receiving free health care from an independent Jewish state in Eretz Yisrael that you have had the opportunity to make your home after thousands of years.” But it didn't work. All of my efforts were futile, and this type of thinking only increased my frustration.

And then it hit me. I was at a friend's going away party and met a woman who'd made aliyah close to two years ago. We spoke about the process, the challenges, the highs and lows, and she helped me to understand the inherent purpose of all that I had been going through. “This land will absolutely flatten you and rebuild you,” she warned, “any personal hang-ups? Ego-trips? Character flaws? Forget them!” And that is when I looked back over the past month, and realized that the entire experience has been picking at the very aspects of myself that need the most work. Whether it is learning how to ask for help, validating my own emotions, letting go of my ego, or relinquishing my desire to control my own fate (among many others!), my very environment is refusing to allow me to get away with my flaws. Every day, the things that frustrate me so completely, only do so because, in His abundant love and kindness, God has designed a reality where we are so intrinsically connected to this land that our experiences here reflect that which is happening internally. We are forced to address these issues head on, and the more we attempt to avoid them, the harder they will chase us. We need to become completely devoured by this land in order to realize our true potential and become the greatest versions of ourselves possible.

I know that I am currently living the dream of so many of Tzipiyah's readers, and I feel a responsibility to be as honest as possible to those who look here for inspiration as I make my own personal report on the land. It is not necessarily easy. It is not necessarily fun. Perhaps this land really does devour its inhabitants. But it is real, it is worth it, and I truly believe that any time spent here, no matter in what capacity, has the power to bring us deeper and deeper into the reality of the world, into the heart of the people, and into the individual potential of ourselves. Please God, we should all get here soon.