KUMMUNIQUE

Shalom! We are proud to present another issue of Kummunique.
This issue is filled with Aliyah and Eretz Yisrael inspiration - so enjoy!

In this issue you will find:

1. "The Spy Who Loved Me" by Malkah Fleisher
2. "Shelach Lecha: A Lesson Still Not Learned" by Levi Chazen
3. "Thoughts From Texas" - A Letter To Kumah
4. "Coming Home" by Iris Maimon-Toledano
5. "Arrivals: From Teaneck to Jerusalem" Rena Rossner

Check it out at: http://kummunique.blogspot.com/

*Dedicated to the Refua Shlema of Leah bat Faiga

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1. "The Spy Who Loved Me" by Malkah Fleisher

About this time every summer, a mirror is put up to the face of every Jew, in every synagogue in the world. As the chronicle of the catastrophic biblical struggle unfolds, those of us who are given over to private introspection and spiritual growth peer into that mirror and look for that ancient Hebrew who stood on the threshold of freedom. We try to smell that smell, to see that vista, to hear those words, and to feel the impact of that choice – the choice to forsake the Land of Israel.

As you read parshat Shelach this week, take a moment to channel your Siniatic Jew. Suffer the pain of the fear-mongering reports. Search the face of Calev ben Yefuneh as he begs for your strength. Hear the rip as you rend your clothes, mourning the wrath of Hashem and the shame of the nation’s weakness. You have failed as a Jew. And you will pay.

The “sin of the spies” is a favorite biblical allusion of Israel activists. Twelve spies are sent by Moshe to scout and strategize Jewish entry into Israel. Instead of fulfilling their mission, ten of the spies return with scathing and dreadful predictions of suffering and catastrophe. Only two – Calev ben Yefuneh and Yehoshua ben Nun – testify to the greatness and goodness that life will afford them: “The Land that we passed through to spy it out – the Land is very, very good! If Hashem desires us, He will bring us to this Land and give it to us, a Land that flows with milk and honey…”(Bamidbar 14:7-9) Ultimately, the Jews believe the 10 spies, incurring the wrath of G-d, who condemns the men to death in the desert, and foretells of Jewish suffering throughout thousands of years of exile, as punishment for their rejection of Israel.

Obviously, this Torah portion provides us with the opportunity to warn Jews against rejecting our birthright and plunging ourselves and our nation into darkness. We look to this portion as an incontrovertible sign that the Land of Israel stores deep and brilliant secrets and blessings for the Jewish people that are irreplaceable and inexchangable.

In light of this parsha, soul-searching may reveal some flaws in our relationship to Israel. Complaints about the “difficulty” of earning a livelihood in Israel, the frustration of dealing with “brusque” Israelis, the challenge of living with “less” in Israel – these little falsehoods stem from the same slanderous impetus that overtook the 10 spies in the desert, and distance us from goodness and Truth.

Know that there is a treatment ready to restore the glint to your eyes and return the vigor and might to your heart. Calev is still calling for warriors. The Hebrew you’ve always wanted to be is waiting for you in the looking glass. The world, even some Jews, may try to convince you of your inability, your neediness, your fear. But listen to that small, clear voice that tells you that you can live the dream of your people and of your Creator. Take a look at everything our Land has to offer and say to yourself – “the Land is very, very good!”

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2. "Shelach Lecha: A Lesson Still Not Learned" by Levi Chazen
From Israel National News

When one dwells on the apparently harsh punishment meted out to the ten spies and to the entire congregation, one wonders: Does the punishment really fit the crime? Our rabbis teach us that the men who brought forth the evil report about the Land of Israel died in a plague before HaShem. Rashi explains that the plague was measure-for-measure; they sinned with their tongue, and so their punishment was that their tongues stretched to their navels and worms came out of their tongues and entered their navels.

The congregation was also punished harshly, by being totally killed off from the age of twenty and up. The entire generation - wiped out. Only because of the great Chilul HaShem that it would have caused if they were to be killed off all at once (what would Egypt say?) was the punishment spread out over a forty-year period.

Even more puzzling is that we find in last week's parsha that when Miriam spoke lashon hara - evil talk - about Moses, she was stricken with tzara'at and had to be removed from the camp for a period of only seven days. After that, she returned to her former position as one of the seven prophets the Jewish people had in our history. If so, why is it that in the case of the spies, they and the entire congregation were so severely punished?

The answer is just as relevant today for us as it was back then for the spies; and unfortunately, just as deadly. Firstly, the spies were men of little faith. HaShem had promised the Jewish people that He would bring them into a good land, being able to remove the nations that lived here. The spies, though, did not believe that G-d had the capability to conquer the nations that lived here. To the spies, the nations living in the land seemed stronger than HaShem Himself. Being the Torah giants of their time, what we would call today the Gedolei HaDor, they gave a psak - a Torah judgment - that the danger to life outweighs the commandment to conquer the Land.

Little did it concern them that he who dwells outside the Land of Israel is as if he worships idols; little did it concern them that over 300 times in the Torah G-d states that He is giving this land to the Jewish people; little did it concern them that over 300 of the commandments can only be done in the Land of Israel; that G-d's entire blueprint for the Jews and humanity was to have the Jews enter into their land right away and set up a G-dly kingdom in this world.

And so they, the leaders of the Jewish people - the Gedolim of their time - fell, and took all of us with them. Their only wish was to return to the fleshpots of Egypt - what they knew as the Goldene Medina. This, though, was not to be. Because of their lack of faith in HaShem - that He could not bring them into the land, a land that they thought was dangerous, a land in which they thought they could not make a living - they were punished, and punished severely.

And the Torah wears sackcloth, for the sin of the spies runs after us and overtakes us and is still not corrected. In the time of Ezra, when the call went out to return to the Holy Land, we find that the great majority of the Jewish people had all kinds of reasons for not coming home. It is too dangerous; you cannot make a living; we're waiting for Messiah; who is this Cyrus, king of Persia, anyway, that he should be telling us to come back home? He is not even Jewish; they're not religious enough for us; and on and on it went.

Our rabbis, though, tell us that because the Jewish people did not come back to their land en mass, G-d's Divine Presence also did not come back, paving the way for the destruction of the Second Temple. Resh Lakish, a leading Talmudic rabbi, yelled out in anguish over this and said: "G-d, how I hate them, for they could have brought the Redemption to the Jewish people if they would have come home!"

And what can we say today? Why do we not heed the call? Can anyone look over the past 60 years of history and not see the hand of HaShem bringing His people home? Is the G-d of Israel not great enough to give us a livelihood also over here? Sure, there are problems, but with an influx of three, four or five million good Jews into the Land we would be able to fix all the problems, ensuring that there would be no more expulsions like the one from Gush Katif. What will we answer our Maker on our Judgment Day, when we are called into account? Will we be able to say that "our hands have not shed this blood"?

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3. "Thoughts From Texas" - A Letter To Kumah

Hi Yishai and Malkah,

First, we want to say welcome to Texas and we are happy you are here, that you had a safe journey from Israel and have been reunited with your family. It is never easy to come back to such difficult circumstances however and we are praying here in Fort Worth, Texas for Malkah's mother, a complete and speedy recovery. May Hashem watch over you and your family as you face this difficult time.

Yishai, thanks for your talk, " Thoughts from Texas. " My husband and I plan on making aliyah in the summer 2007 and have just returned from Israel, our first pilot trip. We have been on a rollercoaster of emotions since we began the process last year. Each stage of preparation brings with it new moments of joy as well as stressors but we are keeping our sanity thanks to our local shaliach and all the good folks at Nefesh B'Nefesh.

Your comments on Texas were very interesting. As would be expected from future olim, we are struggling with the prospect of leaving all the "comforts" of life in the western world but really it is truly as you say, the culture of consumerism we have grown accustomed to living in. I don't mean to sound dramatic but I wonder if Texans have an even deeper struggle when making aliyah because it has been drilled into us from birth that by American standards " Everything is bigger and better in Texas. " The Texan pride is very strong and I never knew how much until I lived overseas in the 90's. I lived in the UK for 5 years and whenever someone asked me where I was from, instead of saying, I am American or I am from the United States, I would always say " I am from Texas. " Historians attribute this Texan mentality to the fact that Texas was its own nation from 1836 to1845. Hence, slogans like " Texas - it's like a whole other country " promoting tourism...and " Don't Mess With Texas"... the do not litter slogan.

When I look at our future home, Israel, she is so tiny compared to Texas. You could fit 28 Israels into the State of Texas. Having just spent a month in Israel, we learned about living simply, how living in Israel means living among family. After returning to Texas early this month, our mood became somewhat melancholy, we were missing Israel.

American culture seemed so excessive, it was depressing to walk into a Wal Mart and watch people consume so much with such little regard. Two, three, four cars in every household is a way of life here and Americans complain about gas prices at $2.75 a gallon! Oh brother. When we announced at our shul that gas was over $7.00 a gallon in Israel they were shocked. Although we struggle with leaving the "comforts" of western society behind, and most importantly family, friends etc... we know Israel is our home and long for it everyday. Maybe it sounds corny but we want to be joined to Israel for better or for worse....come what may. It is our true home.

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4. "Coming Home" by Iris Maimon-Toledano
From YNET

10 years abroad is a long time – too long. Still, it isn't easy packing up and starting again

A few weeks before I and my family return to Israel after ten years in Canada, we are in the throes of packing and checking – what do we have to do about health insurance and national insurance? What about import duty, education, and finding a new place to live?

We are closing our lives here, gathering up the things we'll need in Israel, and I my anticipation and my worries are keeping me awake just about every night.

Gripped by fear

But the panic that struck me today was different. Today, I was overtaken by fear, a debilitating panic so powerful I couldn't even concentrate on the things I was supposed to be putting in the cardboard boxes all around me. As I watched my children playing happily in the garden, by heart suddenly started racing, and for the first time in months I asked myself, "What the hell am I doing?"

And my standard answer – "I'm going home" – didn't work this time. Neither did my laconic answers, the ones constantly on the tip of my tongue like a mantra and come out almost automatically. "Because my children think Canada's their home. I want their only 'home' to be in Israel."

Or: "Because if I don't do it now, I never will." Or: "I've got to give Israel an honest chance. We've never lived there as a family, and Israel is supposed to be heaven for families." Or a host of other answers.

I don't have a lot of family left in Israel. Two sisters and their families, some uncles and cousins we see at family celebrations, and that's about it. The "glue" we all know so well is no more.

Even my return will not give me back the years lost, the time I wasn't by their sides. It also won't atone for feelings of regret and guilt.

Maybe it will be easier to mourn, and to connect to the loss. When you are far away, even the death of a parent can be considered so distant as to be unreal. When you are far away, it's amazing just how easy it is "to continue."

My Israel

I'm coming home to my beloved country, a land I love so much it hurts. My Israel makes my laugh and cry, it warms my heart and freezes me with shock and horror. My Israel gave me a stubborn root. Even if it were to be removed, nothing could replace the hole that would be left.

Israel is a mother, a daughter, a wise old man who has seen it all, and who sometimes dresses up in clothes that don't belong to it, adopts foreign customs that add nothing positive to the country or culture. No other country inspires its people to the same levels of anger and love, of loathing and admiration, happiness and sadness like Israel.

Israel's got everything, and yet the country is poor and shabby, and for some reason I am afraid that I and my children are going to live there.

Building tomorrow

Naomi Shemer wrote about a better, nicer "tomorrow." For the past year, I have been living inside songs such as "I have no other country" and "Songs from the land I love." Is the reality of my Israel to be found in these lines, or is the reality to be found in the prophecies I encounter day after day, year after year, when I sit down at my computer?

I want to come home so I can play a part in perfecting our society and creating that better "tomorrow" for my Israel. Over the past 10 years I have done this in a foreign country. Today, I have great dreams and faith in the power of my ability to do it all again.

The fear that has overtaken me came from a conversation I had with a dispirited Israel who somehow found his way to Vancouver. There are hundreds, thousands, tens of thousands like him around the world.

Kosher émigrés

I never closed my ears to all those "dispirited Israelis". We were Israelis who went abroad for "kosher" reasons – teaching, aliyah representatives, etc. These claims allowed me to survive for several years happily and with no pangs of a guilty conscious.

But the years go by too quickly. Our visions of serving the country abroad dimmed as we moved on to other positions. Eventually, the years catch up with you and you begin to feel uncomfortable.

The Israeli I met today caused me to feel radically uncomfortable. He ran away, he harbored a deep hatred. He had been broken by life in my Israel. When I told him my entire house was for sale, that I'd just packed up my 40th box, he looked at me like I was a fool. Not crazy, not innocent.

My beloved awaits

So I packed up my kids toys and bid farewell to my distressed friend. When I heard them babbling about the squirrel running up the tree and about the fact it was cold already, I was filled with fear, so much so that I couldn't think about anything else.

I went in the house, stared at 40 packed boxes in the corner and a lot more to go. There are Israeli passports to renew, a huge health insurance debt to repay, and a million other things to do.

10 years, a fool's happiness, a little girl killed by a shell in Gaza, another Pesach abroad, a child who calls me "Mommy." And my Israel, by beloved, awaits.

Iris Maimon-Toledano is the coordinator of the Vancouver Jewish Federation's fight against poverty

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5. "Arrivals: From Teaneck to Jerusalem" Rena Rossner
From Jerusalem Post

Rabbi Bob Carrol, 47, Ruthie Levi, 47, and Mona: The Lion of Zion

When Ruthie Levi received an e-mail response to her JDate profile from Rabbi Bob Carrol, she knew he was not the man for her.

"He had written in his profile that he wanted to make aliya. I had broken up relationships with other men because of the issue of aliya," she says.

But Bob persisted.

"We only lived one mile away from one another. Why not just meet and see?"

Now, Bob looks at Ruthie across the table of their temporary Baka rental, surrounded by unpacked boxes and quips, "I elicited your inner Zionist."

FAMILY HISTORY
Both Bob and Ruthie grew up in New Jersey but came from very different backgrounds. Ruthie grew up in a German-Jewish modern Orthodox home, "I was a thoroughbred yekke," and went to Hunter, a New York public school for gifted kids. At 15, she graduated and went to City College, later working at New York City's famed Dean and Deluca Market, where she ran their gourmet food importing division. She currently runs a gourmet food company that sells upscale food products to supermarkets all over the US.

Bob was raised in a Reform household and had his bar mitzva in the local Methodist Church, where the Reform congregation met. In high school he got involved with the Conservative movement's USY (United Synagogue Youth).

"When I went to my first USY convention, I was blown away. I have never seen Jews doing the stuff talked about in the Bible. It was explosive! I was hooked," he recalls.

But it wasn't until he went to Brandeis University that he was able to fully practice Judaism the way he wanted to. There, he studied Jewish studies and philosophy, and then went on to Rabbinical School and got a Masters in Jewish philosophy. He later studied at Yeshivat Hamivtar in Gush Etzion and at Yeshivat Darche Noam, also known as Shapell's, in Jerusalem.

After working for a few years as a Hillel director and as a computer project manager and network administrator, Bob landed his dream job as program director for EDAH, a Modern Orthodox web portal that explores all aspects of Modern Orthodoxy and runs seminars, events and lectures in New York and Jerusalem.

BEFORE ALIYA
Ruthie was very involved in her Teaneck community. She ran a Yahoo Group with over 7,000 members called "Teaneck Shuls" and was comfortable and happy.

"Aliya was never on my radar screen," she admits.

Bob was captivated by Israel from the age of 13.

"I felt that Israel was just such a captivating story to be a part of," he says. When he started working for EDAH six years ago, he came back to Israel for the first time in 15 years. "I realized that I didn't want to look back when I was 70 and say, why didn't I make aliya?"

When Bob and Ruthie met and dated, in the end it all came down to aliya.

"I didn't want to risk losing Bob," says Ruthie. "I did my community work in Teaneck and I realized it was time to move on to a new chapter in my life."

UPON ARRIVAL
Bob and Ruthie came on the December 27, 2005 Nefesh B'Nefesh flight and were married 10 days later on January 6, 2006 at the Kehillat Yedidya shul in Baka.

They went back to the US immediately afterwards and stayed there until March 29.

"We had a lot of loose ends to tie up and it took Bob longer than we expected to sell his house," Ruthie explains. They returned on March 29 with Mona, their cat. "We bought one business class seat and one regular seat so that Mona would be more comfortable," Ruthie explains.

"On the flight the stewardesses kept coming over to me and asking me if everything was okay," says Bob. "I was sitting on the floor taking care of Mona."

ROUTINE
"I don't really have a routine yet," explains Ruthie, "there are still so many loose ends to tie up. We generally spend our days sorting out all the bureaucratic stuff and work at night."

Both Bob and Ruthie are able to do all of their work virtually.

"It's a little strange going out with friends, coming home at 8:30 p.m., getting on the computer and starting to work," says Ruthie, "but we're getting used to it. A day without Internet here is not a good day."

Bob catches up on the news for about an hour in the morning and then usually sets out for a few meetings.

"The phone starts ringing off the hook here at about 6 p.m. There is no such thing as a restful evening in this house," Bob says.

LIVING ENVIRONMENT
For now, Bob and Ruthie are renting an apartment near the Talpiot industrial area.

"We started looking for something to buy right after our wedding. When we saw our apartment, we made an offer immediately. We fell in love with it," she says of the 3-bedroom apartment they just purchased in Baka.

"It was very important to us that we be located near Kehillat Yedidya, our shul of choice," explains Bob. "We are just about to begin renovations and we hope all will go well."

FAITH
"I consider myself a talmid of Rav Kook," explains Bob. "Not in the ideological sense, but in the logical, mystical sense."

Ruthie concurs: "I'm on the same page. We have the same sense of tradition and Halacha."

LANGUAGE
"I consider myself a davener," Ruthie says with a smile. "But we have so much going on that I don't have the time for ulpan. So for now I hired a private tutor who comes to our house 3 times per week for an hour. But I really speak mainly to Anglos."

Bob had a much stronger Hebrew background, but after 15 years of not being in the country he needs a bit of time to get his Hebrew back.

"I go to many meetings that are conducted in Hebrew, but I couldn't quite read a whole Hebrew newspaper," he says. "I try to read a few articles a day. I suspect that I'll be up to speed in a few months."

PLANS
"I'd like to do some volunteer work once I have more of a set schedule. I'd also like to expand my business here," Ruthie says. "It's not essential for the survival of the business, but I was the one who developed kosher balsamic vinegar in the US, and I'd like to do something similar here. But I need to get to know the market a little better."

Bob intends to continue what he is doing, too.

"I am committed to building a Judaism that has integrity, that is relevant and meaningful to a greater society. The potential for a truly productive and creative society that combines religion and state exists here. I want to do whatever I can do to be a part of that."