Celebrating our Aliyah Anniversary

It is hard to believe that our first year of Aliyah is nearing completion. The Aliyah experience is one that seems to transcend time, so much happens so quickly with so many rapid changes and necessary adjustments, that it’s sort of like being in a whirlwind. The vistas of Eretz Yisroel are breathtaking. We just returned from an overnight trip to the north, which included an overnight stay at a tzimmer (guest house) in the picturesque town of Yavniel. From the vantage where we stayed one could easily see the imposing and majestic Har Tavor, which is the famed location of the biblical prophetess Devora. In Yavniel you can find a community of Breslev and Chabad Chassidim living alongside their secular neighbors. An immaculate and beautiful synagogue, built by Rabbi Shick of Boro Park for his Chassidim, services the entire community. It is an ideal vacation area, just minutes away from the Kinneret (Sea of Galilee), and the various holy sites, natural springs, private beaches, hotels, etc. all suitable for the observant community. We found a myriad of outdoor activities, including hiking, swimming in the Olympic sized swimming pool with men and women’s separate hours, animal farms, craft working, and this was just scratching the surface of all there is to explore. All around you the soaring purple mountains of the north, its lush valleys, and summer temperatures that implore you to indulge in all sorts of aquatic activities that abound.

The events of the last several months included for me a brief trip to New York around Tisha B’Av, where I had the opportunity to teach in several remarkable venues, including leading the Tisha B’av Kinnot at Congreagation Shaaray Tefiloh in Lawrence, our former kehilla with the Morah D’Asr,a my esteemed rabbi and friend, Rabbi Dovid Weinberger. (A recording of the very interesting and inspiring Tisha B’Av learning can be found online at www.benstorah.com under “Guest Lecturers.”) My wife, Chani, was asked to give a shiur on Tu B’Av in Ramat Beit Shemesh, which was extremely well attended and received. On the Sunday prior to Tisha B’Av I was hosted by Nelson Obus and his wife, Eve Coulson, of Princeton NJ, family friends. Nelson, his son, Eli, and had the opportunity to travel to Kiev, Uman and Tzfat, back in the summer of 2005, as part of our work in support of the Nachal Novea community in Tzfat. On that trip we searched for Nelson’s grandfather’s remains in the cemetery of Shpola, where the well known Chassidic figure, the Shpola Zeidy resided. When I arrived in Princeton, Nelson gave me a personal tour of the famed Institute for Advanced Studies at Princeton University, which was established in the 1930’s by the Bamberger family (of department store fame) to house Jewish intellectuals fleeing Hitler’s Germany. The most prominent resident of the Institute, was, of course, Albert Einstein. Nelson quipped that just driving through the area made one’s IQ rise by at least 5 points! We gathered in Nelson’s home, nestled in the heart of historic Princeton, with a group of friends including Rabbi & Mrs. Dov Peretz Elkins, and a Jewish convert from Puerto Rico along with Nelson’s son, Eli. Eli is a graduate of the NYU School of Filmmaking, and he had captured our trip to the Ukraine on film. We spoke about the process of Jewish redemption in history as outlined by the Vilna Ga’on and many other Jewish commentators. And here are some of the ideas we discussed—

The Vilna Ga’on, one of the all-time great Talmudic scholars and Kabbalists, revealed in the year 1740, when he was 20 years old, that the Jewish people and the world had embarked upon an irreversible process of Jewish redemption and renewal in the Land of Israel. He explained that based on the teachings of Nachmanides and the Zohar, the world was created by G-d imbued with a timeline that mirrored the original seven days of creation. Just as in the beginning, G-d created the world in six days and then rested on the seventh, so too the world itself, until the year 6000, would follow a similar time line. As it says in Tehillim, G-d views a day as 1,000 years. Based on this, world history will advance towards the year 6000. At that point it will enter the seventh millennium, i.e. 6001 to 7000. as an era of Shabbat, i.e. the Messianic era. Based on this reasoning, the Vilna Ga’on noted that the year 5500, corresponding to 1740 BCE, represented the midpoint of the world’s “sixth day,” the equivalent of Friday morning in a normal 7 day week. Just as on Friday morning one begins in earnest to prepare for Shabbat, so too on a global level the world had beguin to transform itself in preparation for Mashiach. Although Maimonides taught as a principle of Jewish faith that we must await the arrival of the Messiah each and every day, this is only if we are especially worthy, otherwise, the Ga’on explained, he will arrive at his appointed time (b’ito). Furthermore, that appointment with destiny cannot be delayed by human freewill or choice.

The Ga’on’s revelation seemed improbable even to himself and his inner circle of students, because in the year 1740 BCE, Israel was a barren and dangerous place. There was a tradition that the Ga’on was distraught and cried for two weeks over the thought of sending people to an untimely end until he was assured from the heavens in a dream that he must proceed. Despite these harsh realities, the Ga’on inspired his students, as did the Ba’al Shem Tov, to brave the dangerous trip into a land dominated by the Turkish Muslims who had ruled there since the early 16th century.

According to the Vilna Ga’on’s eschatology, if 1740 was the dawn of the Erev Shabbat, the “daylight hours” (the 500 years from 5500-6000) divide into 12 equal “hours” of 41.66 years each. Therefore, the year 1782 represented the dawn of the second “hour.”

Although the Vilna Ga’on, on two occasions, and the Ba’al Shem Tov were turned back for mysterious reasons in the first “hour” of the millenium, and never made it physically to Eretz Yisrael, the Ba’al Shem Tov’s relatives and students, including his great-grandson, Rabbi Nachman of Breslev, and Rabbi Gershon Kittiver, did break through in the second “hour.” Arriving just prior to the tumultuous Napoleonic invasion of the Holy Land in 1799, Rabbi Nachman barely survived many brushes with life-threatening dangers. It was as if the forces of impurity were determined to keep all these spiritual giants from making a physical connection with the Land of Israel, as if that itself would jettison the process of redemption forward. Truth is, when Rabbi Nachman finally set foot on the shores of Haifa in 1799 and walked four ells (amot) on the Land of Israel, he declared to his attendant: “I have already accomplished what I need to accomplish.”

By the early 19th century, Jewish life in Israel began to be transformed by the outstanding olim chadashim from Eastern Europe, as well as from North African countries. Great luminaries such as Rabbi Avraham Kalisker, Rabbi Nachman of Horodenka, the Ohr HaChaim HaKadosh, sparked new Torah communities into existence. These rabbis came, not only because of their love for the Land of Israel, but because of their profound belief that an era had arrived in which Israel must begin to return to its pre-Exilic state, i.e. the homeland for the majority of the Jewish People and the wellspring of its spiritual and religious identity.

Each successive “hour,” i.e. 41.66 year period, saw remarkable progress in the reawakening of Jewish life in the Holy Land. By the end of the third “hour,” 1865, there were signs of building and development in and around Jerusalem. Despite these stirrings, the famed American author, Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens), in his journal about his pilgrimage to the Holy Land in 1867, bemoaned the fact that the land was barren of vegetation, even cactus, the friend of the desert could not be seen and the city of Jerusalem was small enough to walk in one hour’s time.

The inspired leadership of Sir Moses Montefiore of England, known as the Patron of the entire Yishuv, and the philanthropic visionary, Judah Touro, of New Orleans, combined to help Jerusalem spread its boundaries beyond its restrictive walls. The first neighborhoods outside the walls of the Old City, such as Mishkenot Sha’ananim, Nachalat Shiva, led by Rabbi Yosef Rivlin, Machaneh Yisrael, of the Moroccan community, Me’ah Shea’rim, and others, all took root in the late 1860’s and early 1870’s.

By the end of the 19th century, the talmidim of the Chasam Sofer, including Rabbi Avaham Sha’ag and Rabbi Chaim Zonnenfeld, had arrived to make contributions of a lasting nature in building the yishuv. By the turn of the century, (the fourth and fifth “hour,” 1907) some 15,000 Jews already lived outside the walls of the Old City in approximately 50 neighborhoods.

Post World War I, when the British Mandate was established, Jerusalem and the settlement throughout the Land of Israel began to grow exponentially, from around 84,000 in all of Palestine, to 630,000 in 1947. Despite the Arab riots in the late 1920’s in Chevron, Jerusalem and elsewhere, the old yishuv and the new-comers of more secular orientation began to see the land bloom in prophetic ways. It was in this fateful “hour” that European Jewry was decimated by the Holocaust and the remnants, survivors and escapees of the Nazi era sought Eretz Yisrael as a refuge and a new beginning. By the dawn of the seventh “hour,” i.e. 1948-49, Israel had arisen as a sovereign state and survived an initial war of planned annihilation by its Arab foes, in a miraculous fashion. This period, i.e. 1949-90,,witnessed the expansion of Israel and the return to the Old City of Jerusalem as well as to historic Judea and Samaria, and the maturation of Israel as an evolving scientific and academically advanced country.

The year 5750, i.e. 1990, represented the seventh “hour,” or midday (chatzot), the time in which Sabbath preparations intensify. The fall of the Soviet Union opened floodgates of immigration which brought to Israel an ambitious and scientifically oriented wave of intelligent and upwardly mobile Russian Jews. With the introduction of the internet, Israel was now primed to ascend to a new place of significance in the world’s economy and technological advancement. Despite the horrific era of the Oslo Accords and the subsequent wave of terrorism that was brought upon us by Arafat, y’mach sh’mo, Israel continued its steady development. Now, midway through this seventh “hour,” Israel’s discovery of natural gas, oil resources, soaring technological success including billion dollar foreign business investments in Israeli military and applied technologies, has catapulted Israel’s currency, the shekel, to a consistently stronger valuation than the US dollar, something that no one could have predicted when this “hour” began.

As we approach the year 5574, Israel’s Jewish population has soared beyond 6 million Jews, ten times the amount that the Vilna Ga’on said was the prerequisite for this Messianic process to full actualize, and close to 10 times the Jewish population of Israel in 1948. I am proud to say that myself, my wife and our children can be counted among the 6 million that are currently Jewish citizens of Israel. What greater response could there be to the loss of 6 million that we suffered in the Holocaust?

The Ga’on said that seven specific steps would unfold in this millennial “day.” The first is the ingathering of exiles, the second is the building of Jerusalem, the third is the planting of the Land and the observance of Torah agricultural law (Sabbatical year, tithes, t’rumot and ma’asrot). In response to this need, Chani and I designed and planted a beautiful garden including a pomegranate tree and a lemon tree with which we hope to perform all the mitzvos relevant including orla, shmita, ma’asrot, t’rumot, etc.

All of these three stages have been largely accomplished. The remaining four stages include the emergence of people of truth (Anshe Amana), who will lead us politically with integrity and honesty, as well as circles of Torah scholars that will probe and teach the deepest mysteries of Torah. It is noteworthy that the notion of Torah Codes, which have revealed incredible information about world history as predicted by the living letters of the Torah, only began in this recent period. The remaining stages will include the spreading of Torah wisdom from Israel, which has already been accomplished in great measure, and waging war on Amalek. Amalek in this sense includes the mortal enemies of the Jewish people who represent the impure forces of Esav (Christian world), Ishmael (Arab world) and the Eruv Rav (Jewish secularists). This battle, according to the Ga’on will involve actual military confrontation. The wars of Israel with its Arab neighbors and with terrorist entities on both physical and political levels are embodied in this struggle. Unfortunately, the spirit of accommodation of evil has gradually become the official policy. This runs counter to the Ga’on’s principle that Amalek must be encountered and defeated fully. After the eventual eradication of Amalek, the final step will be the emergence of healing from Zion, i.e. Israel’s ability to provide spiritual and physical healing to all of mankind, eradication of disease, scientific advancement, emotional and psychological wellness. This, of course, will be the primary purpose and function of the Third Temple, may it be built speedily in our days.

These teachings and various historical and Torah insights are the spiritual core of the decision why my wife and I made when deciding to move to Israel and formally make aliyah. It is our goal that we and our children participate and contributed to this remarkable enterprise.

As we look out on our garden and the hills of Dan and Yehuda that surround our home in Ramat Beit Shemesh, we realize that although this process has a long way to go, so much has been accomplished and we are encouraged and very confident about our future here. Ironically, in the year ahead, the entire world will be focused on the developments in Yerushalayim, Yehuda and Shomron, and the future of Jewish life here.

We must daven this Elul with extreme passion that we will one day be able to build these areas, which will one day be firmly in our hands, according to their holiness and spiritual destiny. Until then, living here, visiting here, focusing your attention here, your investments here, and seeking a concrete connection to the Land, (i.e. investing in an apartment, etc.), are certainly ways to show where your heart is and express your emuna in Israel’s Jewish future, and perhaps even make a tidy profit!

With best wishes for a meaningful Elul and a happy and healthy New Year,

Yaacov & Chani Schwartz and family