אוירא דארץ ישראל Avira DEretz Yisroel

Several years ago I was in a serious predicament and needed guidance. I made the trip from Lakewood to Eretz Yisroel, to solicit advice from Rav Chaim Kanievsky zt”l. Rav Chaim told me, “come to Eretz Yisroel.”

We had come to vacation in Eretz Yisroel several times before, and made all of our boys’ bar-mitzvahs there. We just never envisioned it as a place to actually live in.

At the time, we had been living in Lakewood for 13 years. We had a whole list of reasons why not to come live here. I was well-established there; I had opened up my own kollel, ran a chabura, had a shul, and operated a successful gemach. My children were older and therefore at high risk for successful transition. There was the issue of making a parnassa in a new country, and making sure the kollel I had started would continue. My wife did not feel confident to just pick up, leave everything behind, and move to Eretz Yisroel.

Rav Chaim insisted though, “ta’aleh laAretz” (make aliyah to Eretz Yisroel). Knowing that such a move would be challenging, and also wanting to ease my wife’s concerns, I asked Rav Chaim for a havtacha (promise) that things would work out. He responded “havtacha!” That was it! We came, and we definitely see his bracha playing out.

We moved to the very ‘Anglo’ city of Ramat Beit Shemesh. People here are helpful, and go out of their way to welcome you – many are themselves immigrants from America who understand you. It’s a great landing place for kids. Here, any random store I enter will generally have a majority of English speakers. Though we’re living in a city, the culture and pace of life is more country-like, with beautiful mountains all around, and many parks, malls and stores. Socially, it’s a place where many different kinds of people can find their ‘crowd’.

One thing that had a major impact on me and my family is being part of the shul of Rav Avraham Halevi. Although the davening is nusach Edot Hamizrach (Sephardic), the open and welcoming, happy and comfortable environment attracts a mix of all different kinds of people. There are many Yeshivish English-speakers davening there.

Rav Halevi had been the rav of a large kehilla of 200 people in Mill Basin (Brooklyn, New York). He always had a tremendous love for Eretz Yisroel, and so every year he asked gedolim for permission to move to Eretz Yisroel. When they finally allowed him to go, he already had a large family of eight children, but making the move at that stage didn’t faze him!

Here’s one concept I learned from Rav Halevi: When replanting a tree from chutz laAretz to Eretz Yisroel, the orlah process (the first three years of a tree’s life, when it is forbidden to eat its fruit) may start again. Similarly, when ‘replanting’ a Jew in Eretz Yisroel, there is a ‘renewal’ process the person’s neshama goes through. This resonated with me very much, as I really felt a difference here. I felt that I hadn’t really known myself before living in Eretz Yisroel. It was as if for the first few decades of my life, I had not really actualized my true identity.

Ever since I was in yeshiva, and all through different trades and business ventures I was involved in, I was always learning at least a half-day, so I know what learning is all about – and I feel that my Torah learning in Eretz Yisroel is simply on a different level. The same is true for davening – it’s on a completely different level here. It used to bother me to daven in a garage, or in a shul without chandeliers; but now I feel that davening in the simplest place in Eretz Yisroel can get me to a higher madrega than davening in any high class setting in America.

Having grown up in America, where, in many frum communities, the Torah’s viewpoint on Eretz Yisroel is not actively taught (I think it’s just not yet in style, after years of having to challenge secular Zionism), we were inadequately prepared on an emotional level to tackle the challenges that inevitably accompany anyone’s move here. Learning from Rav Halevi and educating ourselves about the ma’alot of Eretz Yisroel through other venues, while appreciating the significance of us Yidden coming back to live here after many long years in galut, helped us accept these challenges as part of the process, and played a crucial role in helping us tide over the waves, aiding in our process of acclimation.

B”H, despite every challenge or perhaps actually through every challenge, I believe we have managed to instill in our children a love and appreciation for Eretz Yisroel. This definitely had a positive impact on their adjustment to the move. The bottom line is that moving to Eretz Yisroel is the best thing that ever happened to us!

Helping Others Connect

B”H we have a solid connection with Eretz Yisroel by living here, being mekayemmitzvat Yeshivas Eretz Yisroel.

I think that if we can give Jews living in chutz laAretz a tangible connection to Eretz Yisroel – in which they can relate to it as real and relevant, not just as some abstract concept – it would serve to keep Eretz Yisroel in their conscience. With this in mind, I helped establish Eitz Mitzva, an initiative which gives Jews in chutz laAretz the opportunity to own fruit trees and a piece of land here and be mekayem the relevant mitzvot. For more information call (845) 280-0840 or visit EitzMitzva.com

Yehuda A., M.D., Ramat Beit Shemesh

My father was not politically oriented one way or the other when it came to his attitude about modern developments in Eretz Yisroel; our family was one of bnei Torah originally from Poland, and that was what primarily defined us. My father – like many Jews in Toronto at that time, including my mother and her parents – was from Ostrovtza, and he had learned by Rav Meir Yechiel Halevi Halstock, the Ostrovtzer Rebbe, until he left with his family for Canada at the age of sixteen.

We were associated with a shul, Chevra Shas, which – as its name indicates – was centered around limud haTorah. The members of the shul would divide the shas between themselves, and make an annual siyum on the Ostrovtzer Rebbe’s yahrzeit, 19 Adar 1. I first joined in the effort when I was nine or ten years old, making my first siyum masechta together with my father. My father, who was a working man, would spend hours learning daily. My own involved learning schedule, including during my continuous medical practice and up until this very day, B”H, must have been influenced by his example.

As a young six-year-old boy growing up in Toronto in the early ’50s, I once asked my father what he had to say about Eretz Yisroel, i.e. the fact there is a Jewish country there with Jews living there. My father answered, “Without Israel, we would not be able to hold our heads up anywhere.” He recalled that some short years before, back in Poland, the goyim would denigratingly say, “Jew, go to Palestine!” The recent Holocaust caused a sense of humiliation for many Jews. The fact that there was now a Jewish country instilled a sense of pride in the average Jew, and at least a small dose of respect for the Jews in the average goy (at least back then…). This had nothing to do with one’s association with Zionism, the State, its government or policies.

When I got engaged to my first wife, a”h, in 1966, we considered moving to Eretz Yisroel. When my in-laws got wind of this, they became quite concerned, as it seemed to them a very impractical move. My in-laws had been there in 1949, and they remembered it as a very economically-backward place. My mother-in-law, tblc”t, was a survivor of Auschwitz, and my father-in-law had endured living in Siberia. In Eretz Yisroel they had lived in the ma’abarot (transit camps), and food was rationed – 3 eggs a week, and one piece of chicken for Shabbos. All of this must have influenced their opinion about living in Eretz Yisroel.

From about two years after we got married – this was shortly after the Six-Day War – we would travel to visit Eretz Yisroel almost every year for at least a week. On our first visit, I came to realize that even though I had lived all my life in Canada, Eretz Yisroel is our true home. Most of our daughters subsequently learned in seminary here, and some of our children lived here in Eretz Yisroel for a while as kollel families.

About seven years ago, we came for a two-week trip to look for land to buy, and to see if we could move here. I came to realize that such a move would be very hard for my wife, with all our kids back in America as well as her elderly mother, so I didn’t think it would be appropriate to try to convince her. When my wife passed away, I told my kids “im lo achshav eimasai (if not now, when)?” They convinced me to stay back in America for a bit, but after a year I decided it was time to move on and up.

On Pesach Sheni, the second chance for offering the korban Pesach, I got a second chance too. That’s the day, in 5777 (2017), that I landed in Eretz Yisroel with the official intent of living here. About a month after moving here, a shidduch was suggested, which turned out to be my second wife. We started out in Yerushalayim, in the Sanhedriya Murchevet neighborhood, as I was familiar with the neighborhood and its shuls etc. from previous visits.

With the advent of corona, we moved to Ramat Beit Shemesh. Bli ayin hara, Sanhedriya Murchevet is a neighborhood full of children; the stairwells and elevators can be quite full sometimes. We felt that for our health, a more spacious environment, such as was available to us in Ramat Beit Shemesh, would be better. Though we at first did not think it would be a permanent move, we came to appreciate the place and its nice and welcoming residents, and are now here for the long term, BE”H.

I am now living here almost five years, and enjoying every minute of it – actually, every nanosecond. Of course, this doesn’t diminish the fact that I miss my children; aside from about 2 years of corona, I have travelled abroad to participate in family simchas. My children do come to visit though, and some are contemplating moving here or at least buying a dira here. I have some grandchildren living and learning here, and was the sandak for one of my great-grandsons here. Every day I wake up with a smile and thank HaShem for my wonderful family, for living in His Holy Land, and for everything else He has given me.

People say that ruchniyus is better here; I say, also the gashmiyus is better here. People live here much more besimcha (with happiness), and have hana’ah (pleasure) living here. My wife and I make an effort to visit and enjoy every nook and cranny of HaShem’s Land that we can. It’s a Land where “tamid Einei HaShem Elokecha bah” – HaShem’s Eyes are always fixed upon it – you can’t get better than that! Here in Eretz Yisroel, I can more strongly feel and realize our collective yearning, ‘vesechezena eineinu beshuvecha leTziyon berachamim!’ May we understand and appreciate HaShem’s compassionate return to Tziyon!

Practicing in Advance

When I was fourteen years old, I took myself to task for not having yet learned the entire tanach, and so I decided to learn it one perek at a time. I would pronounce the words with the Sephardic havara (pronunciation), so that if I’d move to Eretz Yisroel, I would be able to communicate with the locals.

While here on visits in later years, I always made a point of practicing speaking Hebrew as much as I could. Every time I came, I became a bit more fluent.

Though I still don’t have the greatest command of the language, I am able to get across what I want to say. I participate in a Daf Yomi shiur given in Hebrew, and occasionally substitute for the magid shiur. I am also sometimes given the opportunity to say a shiur to an audience of Hebrew-speaking bnei Torah, politely attentive despite my noticeable lack of fluency.