#eretz yisroel
It’s no secret that I didn’t grow up frum. I’d be lying if I said I haven’t once sat at my rabbi’s Shabbos table, trying to explain the taste of bacon to his entire family. Close friends of mine who did grow up frum are comfortable enough to ask what it was like celebrating Xmas, and what’s the deal with the Easter Bunny, anyway. When I first became frum at 18, my FFB friends of the same age asked what it was like to go to a school with boys in it - something that seemed so normal to me, was such an exciting mystery to them.
I could share more stories like that, but I’ll leave that for another time. What I’m getting at is that my life, up until the age of 18, could not have been more different than what it is now. I grew up in such a different world compared to my friends now.
I have a friend in particular who is shocked and amazed at my decision to join the world of Yiddishkeit. She doesn’t understand how someone who wasn’t raised in it can find the positives and beauty in it - or how they even find such an outlandish religion to begin with. And after they did somehow stumble upon it, how did they see past the big black hats and tights to decide that it’s something they truly believe in and agree with? Without growing up with the ever-important, foundational Yiddishe home, how can someone even come to understand Yiddishkeit?
She asks these questions in amazement and wonder, of course. Not in a scornful, judgemental, you can’t sit with us way. I don’t really have an answer for her. I don’t know what it is. I like to take the easy way out and quote the Midrash that says HaShem offered every nation the Torah, but they all refused. Certainly, there must have been at least a few members belonging to the other nations that did want to accept the Torah. I must be one of them.
But, still. She has a point. There are some things, some concepts, that aren’t as deeply ingrained in me as others. I know the beauty and kedusha of Shabbos now, despite never growing up in a house that celebrated - or even knew about it. I’ve heard how more than the Jews have kept Shabbos, Shabbos has kept the Jews. I’ve learned enough about tznius, both as a middah and description of clothing, to know its importance in Jewish life. These are things I have down-pat.
And while I can intellectually see that we are currently in Galus, sometimes it doesn’t feel like that to me. I came to Orthodoxy in the comfort of the 21st century in North America, where my religious freedoms are protected (while anti-Semitism is definitely still a thing, B”H it’s nothing I’ve experienced here). I’ve never had someone tell me I can’t study Torah or attend a bris. Nobody in my family experienced that, either. So I’ve never heard stories about it other than in the books I read.
I grew up here in Canada, and while my family’s background is Spanish and Greek, I was always told that first and foremost I am a Canadian. This is my homeland. Now this is another example of how differently I grew up from my FFB friends. I have a distinct memory of overhearing my rabbi telling his daughter something about how Eretz Yisroel is always our true home. We live in Canada for the time being, but it’s by no means a permanent residence for us - and we have no roots, or future here. And as much as I have a love for Eretz Yisroel, it as my homeland is sometimes a far away concept for me.
I didn’t grow up with family telling me what my rabbi told his daughter. I was never put to bed with lullabies about Dovid HaMelech and Yerushalayim, even though now I sing them to children I babysit. And I definitely was never taught about the Beis HaMikdash in school.
So, sometimes I forget. I forget that this currently isn’t what Jewish life is supposed to be. We should be in Yerushalayim, with the Beis HaMikdash haShlishli and giving korbanos to HaShem. It takes a lot to make me remember, in an emotional way, that we’re in Galus. And sometimes it just takes a four year old girl and her seven year old sister.
A few Shabbosim ago, I was by a family for the lunch seudah. Their four year old daughter was sharing with us all that she had learned in her first year of kindergarten so far. When she started singing us the English alphabet, her mother asked if she’s able to spell her own name yet. The little girl nodded enthusiastically. “So, nu? How do you spell ‘Esther’?” her mother asked.
“Aleph, samach…”
“No, Esther!” her older sister interrupted. “That’s lashon hakodesh. Mommy meant in English. Not our language.”
It sent a jolt to my heart. Here was this seven year old girl, born in Queen’s, New York and now living in the capital of Canada, adamantly denying English as “her” language. Despite being born and raised in North America, “her” rightful language wasn’t English. It’s lashon hakodesh, Hebrew. It was important for her to recognize what the language of her people, the Yidden, truly is.
And it was important for me to hear, too. The quick, fiery passion in her voice reminded me that we’re not where we’re supposed to be. The dedication of her younger sister to the Hebrew language inspired me. It made me realize living here in Canada means I’m living in a foreign land as a Jew, and “Sair-ah” isn’t really name, but just a transliterated version of its reality. S-a-r-a-h is just how my name is spelled in English. Sin-reish-hey, שרה, is my Hebrew name, my real name as a Jew. It was a bittersweet inspiration though.
One on hand, I was happy to finally feel what it meant to be in Galus for once. Growing up here, with most of my family’s roots here, it’s an odd concept. But I finally chap it, right here right now. But it’s a sad thing to finally get, to finally understand. This isn’t how we’re supposed to be living as Yidden.
Now when I find myself davening Shemonah Esrei, I try to remember these two little girls. Their dedication to a Jewish identity is so strong, that they don’t even consider English belonging to them. It’s not theirs. They speak it, but it’s not Jewish. They’re longing for the Beis HaMikdash, they’re longing for a world where we’re totally free to live as we should be. So when I’m davening for all of us Yidden to be gathered from the four corners of the earth, for Yerushalayim to be rebuilt, for the kingdom of Dovid to return, and for the Beis HaMikdash to be rebuilt speedily in our days, it means so much more now.
I was finally shown what it means to be in Galus, and that made me realize how much I want out of it.
