Coffee Thoughts

After generations of persecution, the Jewish people deserve their own homeland, and deserve to live safely and peacefully in that homeland. Canada supports Israel because it is right to do so.
-Former Prime Minister of Canada, Stephen Harper

For there they that led us captive asked of us words of song, and our tormentors asked of us mirth: 'Sing us one of the songs of Zion.' How shall we sing the LORD'S song in a foreign land? f I forget thee, O Jerusalem, let my right hand forget her cunning. Let my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth, if I remember thee not;  if I set not Jerusalem above my chief joy. -Psalms 137;3-6 כִּי שָׁם שְׁאֵלוּנוּ שׁוֹבֵינוּ, דִּבְרֵי-שִׁיר, וְתוֹלָלֵינוּ שִׂמְחָהת שִׁירוּ לָנוּ, מִשִּׁיר צִיּוֹן אֵיךְ נָשִׁיר אֶת-שִׁיר יְהוָה: עַל, אַדְמַת נֵכָראִם-אֶשְׁכָּחֵךְ יְרוּשָׁלִָם-- תִּשְׁכַּח יְמִינִי תִּדְבַּק-לְשׁוֹנִי, לְחִכִּי-- אִם-לֹא אֶזְכְּרֵכִי אִם-לֹא אַעֲלֶה, אֶת-יְרוּשָׁלִַם-- עַל, רֹאשׁ שִׂמְחָתִי תהילים 137: 3-6

A few days ago, I sat with some colleagues over a cup of coffee and the conversation turned to foreign citizenship. I was the only one to actually have dual citizenship, and they were discussing the possibility, likelihood, and price of obtaining citizenship of another country. None of them was actively planning on living in another country, but dreamed of getting citizenship 'just in case'. 

They were rather incredulous when I said that I only travel on my Israeli passport, and even that rarely, as I prefer to stay in the country, and that, despite the fact that my offspring are eligible for half a dozen different European citizenships, they have none.

"Why would they have foreign citizenship?" I asked. "I was born abroad, so I still have mine, but my kids were born here in our HomeLand. What a blessing! Why would they need anything else?"

The answers were quick in coming:

So they can study abroad if they have to.

So they can work abroad if the opportunity arises.

So they can live somewhere else if they want to. 

I just shook my head. 

We are now in the middle of the period known in Jewish culture as the 'Three Weeks', between the 17th of Tammuz and the 9th of Av, traditionally recognized as a time of mourning and sorrow.
The Mishna tells us of five catastrophes that happened on the 17th of Tammuz:

1. Moses broke the tablets of law he had been given on Mount Sinai upon witnessing the sin of the Golden Calf, 
2. The priests in the First Temple ceased offering the daily sacrifice,
3. The walls of Jerusalem were breached by the Romans in the Second Temple Period, 
4. The Roman general Apostomos burned a Torah scroll,
5. An idol was erected in the Temple by the Romans.

On the 9th of Av the following five events occurred:

1. The 'spies' returned to the desert with a false report on the Land of Israel,
2. The First Holy Temple was destroyed by the army of Babylon; over 100,000 Jews were killed and more hundreds of thousands were enslaved and forced into exile, 
3. The Second Holy Temple was destroyed by the Roman army. Over 2,000,000 Jews were killed, a million more were sent into exile, thousands were tortured, 
4. The battle of Beitar, under the command of Shimon Bar Kochva, was lost, signaling the final defeat of the Jews for independence. The Jewish nation would wander the earth for 2000 years before reestablishing our State,
5. Jerusalem was ploughed over and rebuilt as a Roman city.

Over the course of history further events occurred on the ninth of Av:

The expulsion of the Jews of England,

The expulsion of the Jews of Spain,

World War One started,

The transports of the Jews from the Warsaw Ghetto to Treblinka began,

to name but a few.

These later events occurred, of course, as a direct result of the previous events, i.e., the destruction of our HomeLand and our exile. 

I didn't answer my colleagues while we were drinking coffee because it took me a bit of time to formulate my answer. 

The Talmud tells us that 'the man to whom a miracle happens in not aware of it himself' (Masechet Niddah). My colleagues, who, unlike me, were all born in the Land, are perhaps not as aware of the miracle we are living. 

 

For millennia, since the destruction of our Holy Temple, Jews have been harassed, beaten, expelled, enslaved, forced into ghettos, impoverished, tortured, forcibly converted, and murdered in every continent and in almost every country in the world.

Today, even as we remember and grieve over the destruction, we remember also that we are blessed to once again live in our HomeLand.  

And yet,

We don't live in Israel because it is a sanctuary for Jews, though Israel has taken in Jews (many, even most, as refugees) from every continent and almost every country in the world.

We don't live in Israel to escape anti-semitism, even when anti-semitism has become rampant across the globe - even in countries we had previously considered 'safe', and where incidences of violence towards Jews have climbed exponentially.

We don't live in Israel for the free Jewish education , or because of the almost (but not quite) excellent health system. 

We don't live in Israel because employment rights are better than in other places (15 weeks paid maternity leave and another 11 weeks unpaid, 30 days sick leave, and all Jewish holidays automatically off), or because of cheap housing (it's not).

We don't live in Israel because of the weather (believe me).

We don't live in Israel because of the amazing and abundant fruits and vegetables or the incredible variety of restaurants and cuisines (I won't even mention the ice cream).

We don't live in Israel because of the beaches, even though it has some of the most beautiful beaches in the world. 

We don't live in Israel because it's a good place to live, even though it is a good place to live (despite everything). 

We live in Israel because, in the words of former Prime Minister Stephen Harper,

it is right to do so. 

For millennia, Jews have dreamed of returning to our Land. 

For millennia, Jews have prayed to return.

And here we are. 

We have nowhere else to be.