I'm an Israeli
Shalom! Ani Malkah Fleisher. Ani Israeli! That's right, ladies and gentlemen, little Melissa Fleisher from Texas, with a 30 hebrew word vocabulary and a bank roll number which dare not be mentioned for reasons of appearing crazy or suicidal, has reached her promised home. My name is Malkah Fleisher, and I am a citizen of the Jewish State. (Send your mazal tov wishes to Shalom@kumah.org).
No disdainful goyish El-Al worker, no frowning Israeli striker-to-be, no 2 hour wait for a taxi from the Airport, could keep me from enjoying maybe the second most important day of my life. Israel is amazing. It is beautiful here, the work necessary to get my bank account, my health insurance, etc. was Baruch HaShem, relatively painless, and the people who haven't been totally exhausted by the matzav are still raring to get to work and make this country a better place. Posters on highway dividers sport portraits of Rabbis. I wouldn't trade our Israeli frustrations for your American indifference any day of the week.
There's just so much hope here, despite it all. No one might say it, because I'm not sure they see it, but it's just such a clear part of the big picture...
Yishai brought our shofar on the airplane. Landing at 5:00 in the morning to get in before yet another government strike, we step off the plane and kiss the tarmac. Home, sweet home. On the bus, people eyeball our pins which say "I'm Making Aliyah" with a little gleam in their tired eyes. And we get to the terminal. My husband and I survey the landscape and he blows the shofar. Some 30 feet away, a so called "Hiloni" Jew looks at Yishai and says "Od Pam" - "One more time"- with a grin. Yishai blows the shofar and the man, probably in his mid-twenties, just like Yishai, with perfectly warped jeans and a shaved head, stands at attention and puts his hand on his head - his instant kippah replacement - listening intently. He was totally there, in the spiritual moment. At the end, he smiles broadly at Yishai and throws a kiss up to the sky. Never tell me this country is doomed. It just isn't so. We're going to win this thing - not just the right wingers, but all of us, all the Jewish people. We're going to win. Because we're all the same thing, the same body. And I, little Malkah Fleisher, am yet another organ that has grown into place.
Tomorrow, Tomorrow
Tomorrow, with God's help, and perhaps (general strike of the airport authority notwithstanding) in solidarity ("Wherever we Stand we Stand with Fleishers") with the Aliya our holy friends Yishai and Malka, my wife and I will ascend Har HaBayit - the Temple Mount.
It is the the apex of the universe. The foundation stone of the tangible world and the seam-line between us and the Infinite. We have consulted (and will be accompanied by) the head of the Machon HaMikdash - the Temple Institute - with regard to all the halachic preperations men and women must undergo before their ascent and today we are spiritually prepping ourselves for the visit.
I really don't know what to expect. Our eyes are often able to view the infinite through the lens of beauty, but, like Rabbi Akiva, we know we will see foxes and wakf hooligans doing everything they can to keep us Jews away from the great spiritual electric outlet that is our Holy Mountain.
V'techezena Eineinu B'Shuvcha l"Tzion b'rachamim - May our eyes behold Your return to Zion in Loving mercy. We say that three times a day - and the words are quite clear - we are not asking God to return to Zion quickly while our living eyes can still behold it. No, no. We are asking God to allow our EYES the special vision of being able to see that He is already here. God eyes. Eyes of the coming world, as Reb Shlomo Carlebach always put it.
There is a great illusion standing there upon our Holy Mountain. It screams out - THIS IS THE WORLD WITHOUT YOUR HOLY TEMPLE!
But the great secret is that our eyes can behold - if we look from the right PLACE - a place of treading on the Holy Ground at such a critical time when so many in our community who LOOOOOOOOOOOOVE to visit the Kotel, who LOOOOOOOOOVE getting close to holy things - shield their eyes from.
Ze HaYom Assa HaShem. Today is the day. It is like no other. Who knows what will be tomorrow. Why are people not flying in from America to tread on this Holy Holy Ground that Avraham Yitzchak and Yaakov, the Rambam and so many others waited their whole lives to set foot on.
Zeh HaYom!
I am very excited. Thank You, God.
Tomorrow
I didn't get the chance to finish that last one - oh well. I'm too tired to do it now. After much effort (!) we've finally packed up our house - I'll give you more details when that tiredness I mentioned is long gone - and are just hours away from the airplane which will bring us home to Israel. Unbelievable. With the proper time and energy to reflect, I'm sure I'd be battling waves of nostalgia, terror, excitement, worry, gratitude... as it is, I'm praying for a comfortable seat on the plane to sleep. I don't feel overwhelmed, I just feel unable to interrupt the momentum of this whole thing with too much emotion or intellectualism. I'm happy and eagerly anticipating the future, especially the moment when I can survey a home, whatever and wherever that will be, that is neatly arrayed and ready for me to leap into bed!
