In the spring of 1985, I was recruited to lead an NCSY
summer program, which at the time was the only one the OU offered teenagers.
They called it ISS: Israel Summer Seminar. My reluctance notwithstanding, I was
encouraged to do so by a few NCSY regional directors, one of whom requested I
take his NCSYers from the West Coast and be their madrich (counselor). Though I had never been to Israel before, a
free trip seemed like a great idea. Our group consisted of teenagers from
Florida, Kentucky, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana, Oregon, Maryland, and of
course, California. I am happy and proud to say I still have relationships with
a good number of those NCSYers to this day, and while I continue to refer to
them as “my kids,” they are now thankfully my friends, whom I still love very
much.
Although I thoroughly enjoyed
spending time with them all day in Israel, I would have been just as happy to
do the same thing in the Catskills or across the United States. Israel was hot,
most of our tour guides bored me, and everywhere you looked there was sand. To
top it off, dealing with the Israel Agency as well as the bureaucracy that
comes along with a trip like that made my summer of 1985 one I did not want to
repeat any time soon.
* * *
It is with this background I write
these words. On July 30, 2024, my wife, Peshi (Paula) and I moved to Israel,
officially becoming citizens of the country the next day. Had you told me in
1985 that I would be living in Israel during this lifetime, I would have thought
you were nuts. We miss Baltimore, we miss our friends, our neighbors and
community, and, for me, my parents, and my brother, who lives next door in
Silver Spring. We also still have four of our children with growing families, ka”h, who live in America, but
admittedly, having none of them in Baltimore made our move a bit easier, though
still extremely difficult. We are buoyed a bit by one of our sons, who lives in
Ramat Beit Shemesh with his wife and children, but with gratitude to Hashem and
the world of technology He created, we’ve been blessed with our Friday morning
(afternoon for us) FaceTime, which lessens the distance, albeit through a
computer screen. All that being said, we very much believe we are finally home.
I’ve always been humored by those
who spoke of their aliyah as if they
were living in some kind of fairytale. As our first month here taught us, we
are far removed from a Disney movie. We landed on a Wednesday, and by Shabbos,
we were receiving instructions from the Israeli rabbinate about how to proceed
due to the imminent threats from Hezbolah and Iran hanging over the entire
country.
“Keep the lights to your ma’amad (safe room) on, and be sure to
stock it with plenty of water, food, flashlights, and backup batteries. Make
sure you have downloaded the Home Command App so you are aware of the threats
to your neighborhood. Make sure your phone can accept urgent messages over
Shabbat. Carry your phone if the place you are going has no phone. Make sure
your shul has a safe room. If you own a weapon, carry it with you at all times
on Shabbat even without an eruv. It
is a mitzva to take actions to protect, save, and preserve life on Shabbat, not
a violation. But only actions which do so.”
Welcome to our fairytale. Kabbalat Shabbat that night was arguably
the safest tefillah I ever attended.
To the left of me was a young man dressed in Shabbat clothes, a Carmel rifle
wrapped around him grazing me during Shemonei Esrei. To my right was a middle-aged
man whose Tavor rifle constantly nudged my thigh. In front of me, a line of
Barretta or Glocks – and I can only assume the same in the row behind. Cue
romantic music!
* * *
With all that going on, daily life
continued. No cowering in the corner or even looking over shoulders, albeit
being aware of one’s surroundings. Life simply just happens here. You meet new
people, most of whom have either lost someone in their family over the last 11
months, or they – or their children or grandchildren – have been in Gaza or up
north.
When we first moved in, we found
that a few things required expertise of some kind. We were given the name of a
more than competent handyman, a young fellow probably in his late twenties with
a young wife and child. He is an exceptional person. He didn’t speak much
English, but it was enough, and between that and our broken Hebrew, we were
able to communicate. He was attentive, hardworking, and meticulous. The last
time he was here, he informed us he was going into the reserves for a bit and
if we needed something to contact his father, who could help. It was not his
first time being called up nor his second – truly heartbreaking. Still, he does
it with pride. It’s what his country and his people need him to do. We have met
so many holy people just like him. I am in awe and in a sense feel somewhat
inadequate due to age, circumstance, and station in life. If only I could do
more to help my people.
* * *
The community we chose, Mekor Chaim, is a
somewhat hidden, quiet spot in Jerusalem, sandwiched between Talpiyot, Baka,
and Katamon. We are roughly a 40- to 45-minute walk from the Old City, a 10- to
15-minute ride to Machane Yehuda, and down the block from Emek Refaim and
Pierre Koenig Street. However, what stood out most when we first pulled up to
our new home was the overwhelming number of posters and banners with Hersh
Goldberg-Polin’s face on them. They were everywhere. We found out later that his
parents live a few doors down from us. At no time did it resonate more than
last Monday, when they drove him past our home on the way to his final resting
place. Our street was lined with people, Peshi and I watching and paying our
respects from our mirpeset (balcony)
overlooking the street. Sound like a fairytale yet?
There were also daily aliyah-type business that needed
immediate attention: banks, health insurance, ID cards, municipality matters.
And yet it all seemed so trivial in the big picture. I have learned quickly
there are pretty much two rules to live by in Israel: Rule one: Don’t sweat the
small stuff. Rule two: It’s all small stuff.
The refrain we heard for years
about living in Israel was “life is difficult.” It is in fact true, though not
in the way you might think. It is difficult to see daily reports of soldiers
who have been lost in battle fighting on behalf of all of Klal Yisrael. It is also difficult to see this country plagued by
political opportunists who ride on the backs of hostage families’ misery and
pain to score political points with an emotionally charged populace. It is
difficult to fathom how the same groups that sowed strife amongst the Jewish
people a year ago, do so again in the midst of a war, knowing they will never
be held to account. It is difficult to see a shiva tent with lines a mile long for the thousands of visitors who
simply want to perform the mitzva. The two- to three-hour wait for a two-minute
audience has no equal. Mi k’amcha Yisrael.
Yes, it is difficult to not be
able to get in our car and drive a couple hours or hop on a two-hour flight to
see our children and grandchildren. It is difficult to not be there for our
elderly parents, ad meah ve’esrim shana.
It is difficult to learn of the constant barrage of rockets pounding the north
and feel helpless to do anything about it. It is difficult to be the target of
ire from Jew haters across the globe. Still, it does give me pause to think how
we as a people only apply that “life is difficult” mantra to living here in
Israel but nowhere else in the Jewish world. Can someone tell me a place where
life is not difficult? We all must work for our bread, pay taxes, navigate
school tuitions, drive carpools, deal with pain and sorrow, and figure out a
way to raise a healthy, well-adjusted family.
I am not blowing it off – it is
difficult to be sure, but so what? In the Talmud, Brachot 5a, the first thing
Reb Simon bar Yochai says in Shas is, “The Holy One, Blessed be He, gave Israel
three precious gifts, all of which were given only by means of suffering,
[which purified Israel so that they may merit to receive them]. These gifts
are: Torah, Eretz Yisrael, and the World-to-Come.”
Indeed, life in Israel is
difficult; that is what makes it worth it, just like Torah and Olam Haba. We simply accept the
difficulties that come with Torah and Olam
Haba. It is hard to live a Torah lifestyle, yet which one of us would not
do so? Why? Because we also know that the joy far outweighs the struggle. That
is the Israel we have experienced.
* * *
We all know of G-d fearing Jews
who walk to shul, study Torah, and do chesed.
They look and dress the part in our communities. What happens in Israel is
different. During our second week here, walking down the block to an outside
minyan for Mincha/Maariv (they are everywhere!), I passed a young girl who had
stopped in the middle of the sidewalk to daven Mincha. She was not dressed
inappropriately, but was also not dressed as we were used to in Baltimore.
Later that week, I took the train to Tel Aviv for work, and across from me was
another girl, in pants, davening Shacharis. Another young woman saying tehillim on a bus offered me her seat.
(It happens almost every day; do I really look that old?) I refused, though I
can’t say it didn’t irk me a little that the young men around her did not offer
the same.
I say all of this because the
paradigm here is very different. If you have preconceived notions of how Torah
Jews should dress or what they should look like, you will be disappointed. I am
amazed at the amount of learning that goes on here. The soldier next to you on
the train learning Chullin, the woman in pants and a T-shirt doing shnayim mikra on the bus, the man in
jeans arguing over a Tur, not to mention the guy delivering your furniture
covering his head with a forearm to make a bracha
over coffee. You turn on your radio, and they don’t say today is Monday August
19th, they says it is Yom
Sheni, Tu b’Av. Sunday, Yom Rishon,
is a workday. Friday, Yom Shishi, is
preparing for Shabbat day. Everywhere you go, “Shabbat shalom” is the refrain
once Yom Chamishi begins. If I had a shekel for every time I hear baruch Hashem, or Hashem yishmor, or b’ezrat
Hashem, I would be wealthy beyond my dreams. That is life in Israel.
Aliyah for the sake of aliyah
is a mind-blowing and massive undertaking. People all around us have given up
so much to be here to fulfill this mitzva and to build the land promised to us
thousands of years ago. Yet, from my perspective, aliyah to Israel in conjunction with aliyas neshama is what the ultimate goal of aliyah should be about. I don’t mean in a life-and-death way, chas veshalom. I mean it as an
opportunity to raise your neshama
through avodah and dveikus with Hashem in His land. Those
moving here have an opportunity to immerse themselves in the land where ma’aser rishon, ma’asser ani, ma’asser sheni,
and terumot are everyday, real things
and not just ideas of yesteryear to be dreamt about from a page of Talmud. That
is aliyah to me, at least from my
perspectivem and that is why our fairytale has, iy”H, only just begun.
* * *
I feel like I am not even
scratching the surface. There is so much more to write, but space is limited so
I will end with this, and maybe one day in the future, iy”H, I will be asked to write again. In 2019, after 34 years of
not being back to Israel since that summer decades before, a group of former
players and NCSYers got together and gave my wife and me a trip to Israel for
my birthday. Upon our return, I wrote this to our 1985 group: “America is a
land of possessions. Israel is a land of purpose, and every day they uncover
something hidden underground that testifies to G-d’s relationship to His people
and man’s relationship with his Creator.”
I had lived in Baltimore since I
was 18 years old. I met the love of my life in Baltimore, my best friend and
wife Peshi, and it is in Baltimore that we married and, together, built our
home and raised our five glorious children. Baltimore will always be a part of
me. Nevertheless, the Master of the World led me down a different path for the
next stage of my life. Ma ashiv l’Hashem,
kol tagmulohi alai – How can I repay You Hashem for all You have given me?
I would be remiss if I did not publicly thank my Creator for granting me far
more than I have ever deserved. When the very same Hashem spoke to our father
Avraham for the first time, He told him to go to the land. When Hashem spoke to
Yitzchak for the first time, He told him to go to the land. When Hashem spoke
to Yaakov the very first time, He told him to go to the land. To live in the
land is to truly put your life in Hashem’s hands. Living in Israel, you know that
Hashem runs the world.
We followed Him where He has led
us, and although not a day goes by when we don’t think about or communicate
with our friends back in Baltimore, we are, in fact, living the fairytale. It
is a Jewish fairytale, where the protagonist, avdi Yaakov, has to suffer through difficulties, experience sorrow
and pain, and make sacrifices that sometimes belie logic or explanation. Jewish
history is being written here. No, there is no candy falling from the sky or
streets paved with gold. But there is something very different here, something
we have never experienced. Our tefillah
is different, our Torah study is different, and our day-to-day life is totally
different. We have learned that Hashem indeed has a plan for all of us based on
His timing, not ours, and it is my hope and prayer that He will bring us all
back to the land of our forefathers and end the suffering we have endured for
Torah, Olam Habah, and Eretz Yisrael with the coming of our Mashiach, may he
come speedily in our days.
G’mar chasima tovah.
Chaim Katz is a simple
Jew married to a fantastic wife and together they are working to live their
best life in the land of their ancestors.
