REFLECTIONS ON OUR TRIP

It’s been several weeks now that we’ve been back in Chicago. The trip left its mark on us in a number of ways, but if I had to identify one lasting impression from our time in Eretz Yisrael, it would be the following:

In the Musaf Amidah of Sukkos, there was one phrase that really stuck out for me. It’s in the section that asks G-d to rebuild the Temple and restore our service in it. The phrase, in Hebrew, reads “V’Chonayn Mik-dash-cha al Mi-cho-no.” It’s translated, “Establish Your sanctuary on its site.” However, if it really meant site or place, the more appropriate term would have been “Mi-ko-mo” rather than “Mi-cho-no.” The term “Ma-chon” has a connotation not of place but of a foundation or a foundational structure. It also has a connotation of something that is still functioning and in operation. It’s related to the word for machine – “Machonit.”

THE SPIRITUAL "MACHINE"
The metaphor of a machine that is functioning, but only at a basic or foundational level, seems apt for Eretz Yisrael in its current state. My overall impression of Eretz Yisrael was as one very sophisticated spiritual apparatus, whose primary function is to bring G-dliness into the world. It’s like a spiritual transformer or relay station for taking in higher spiritual energies and disseminating them in a way that the world can be nourished by and benefit from those energies. Each holy site in Eretz Yisrael has its own unique function as part of the machine, but they all work together. The Jewish people are the only qualified operators of this machine. Looking back, that’s honestly what it felt like when I went to a holy site and prayed or learned Torah there. It felt like I was pushing a particularly spiritual button or turning a knob that I could not have accessed anywhere else. Even just walking on the land, touching the rocks and soil with my Jewish feet seemed in some way like the affectionate and nurturing interaction between a skilled machine operator and his equipment, be it an automobile, a printing press, or a computer.

JEWS AS NATURAL TECHNOLOGY GEEKS
Parenthetically, it seems like no coincidence that Israel is known as a world center of technological innovation. Jews are natural technology geeks. We have a natural talent for innovating new ways to put together the “stuff” of the physical world into machines and processes that do marvelous things. If you talk to many Jews and ask them what’s special about us and about Israel, many will respond by making note of this talent. Netanyahu’s recent speech at the Jewish Federation General Assembly focused on our “luminous achievements” in science and technology as what makes Israel and the Jewish people special.

What they’re ignoring, however, is that this talent for technological innovation was given to us as a gift to enable us to be fulfill our deeper mission as operators of the sophisticated spiritual technologies called Torah and Eretz Yisrael. In truth, because Torah is by nature wholistic and seamlessly weaves together the spiritual and the physical, there is no contradiction. We can and should simultaneously be maestros of both the spiritual and material technologies at our disposal. However, utilizing our spiritual prowess needs to be primary because that’s what gives meaning and direction to everything else we do. Without that spiritual focus as our foundation, it’s too easy to go astray after things with little lasting meaning.

Imagine that you have a son who’s a brilliant engineer and who chooses, rather than using his talent to contribute to curing cancer, reducing pollution, etc chooses instead to devote his life to designing video games. It’s not really so terrible. He’s making a living. He is contributing to making people’s recreational experience more pleasurable. But wouldn’t you at some level think it was kind of a waste of talent? So too, it seems so clear that what the world needs most desperately right not is not more or better material technology but a deeper connection to G-d. We Jews have been given a uniquely powerful set of spiritual technologies for doing exactly that, and Torah and Eretz Yisrael are the grandest and most powerful of those technologies that we and only we can operate properly.

RE-CLAIMING AND RE-FURBISHING THE "MACHINE"
Unfortunately, the spiritual apparatus called Eretz Yisrael has been neglected and partly disassembled from 2,000 years of exile and alien control. Since the Jewish people are the only qualified operators, we carry the responsibility, in addition to operating the machine, of fixing and re-furbishing it. It’s a responsibility that we carry not just for ourselves but for everyone on the planet. If only the non-Jews, including the Arabs, appreciated what blessings and vitality they would receive from the proper functioning of Eretz Yisrael, they would DEMAND that we re-assert our exclusive control over its entirety, particularly those places, like the Temple Mount, Chevron, Shechem, and all of Judea and Samaria – that are critical to its proper function. We can’t blame the Arabs or the Americans. When the leader of Israel (who by the way was introduced for his speech at the Federation Assembly as “the leader of the Jewish People”) can’t articulate why we’re in Eretz Yisrael other than that we’re good technologists, what do you expect from the rest of the world? Can you really expect the non-Jews to be more insightful than our leaders about us or more insistent that we focus on our primary spiritual mission? We really have no one to blame but ourselves and our own reluctance to accept who we are and what our primary role is. How confusing it must be for non-Jews who do have some insight into what our role is to witness the Jewish authorities in Israel actually preventing other Jews from fulfilling our essential spiritual duties in the our land. I am not only one who feels that the growing hostility in the world to Jews and to Israel is rooted in our own reluctance to accept responsibility for those vital spiritual functions that we and only we can accomplish in Eretz Yisrael for the sake of the entire world. We're letting them down by not being true to who we are.

THE "TIPPING POINT" IS NEAR
The good news is that the process of regaining control over and fixing up that magnificent spiritual machine has made tremendous progress. Yes, there has been and continues to be tremendous opposition (from other Jews as much or more than from the Arabs) and requires enormous self-sacrifice. Nevertheless, it was clear from being there that there's an awakening going on amongst the Jewish people in Eretz Yisrael. Despite the opposition, Jews have made enormous progress returning to our stations, fixing up the apparatus, and restoring more and more of its functionality. There’s a very influential and often quoted book, call “The Tipping Point,” that discusses the phenomenon of revolutionary change that begins and progresses at what appears to be a very slow and gradual pace but that, at some critical “boiling” point, the change becomes very rapid and dominant. It feels like we’re close to that “Tipping Point” in the functioning of Eretz Yisrael. It did feel to us like things there were percolating, that the machinery was on the verge of a new and greatly enhanced level of functionality that we’ve all been anticipating for 2,000 years.

Not surprisingly, Rina Shoshana and I both feel that the time is right for us to move to Eretz Yisrael, that we’re needed there, and that we want to and can contribute significantly to bringing that Tipping Point sooner and bringing the spiritual “machine” to its full and glorious operational capacity. There is a phrase common among Lubavitchers, who, quoting the Rebbe, feel a mission to create Eretz Yisrael wherever we find ouselves. In truth, we are and and meant to be "operators" of Eretz Yisrael wherever we are. In spiritual service, time and place do not limit our sphere of influence. However, it was clear from being in Eretz Yisrael that there are some spiritual labors, operating and rebuilding the "machine," that can only be performed on-site, and we feel very drawn to that work. Our house is for sale, we’ve submitted our Aliyah applications, and with G-d’s help, we’ll be living in Eretz Yisrael, in Bat Ayin, by this Summer.