Why I live in Israel

I thought about writing pretty much as soon as ICJA asked Alumni for thoughts on the מצב. At that point, I couldn’t even put words down on paper. All my energy was expended helping my family and myself just get though the day. But people are resilient.

Every four steps in Eretz Yisroel is a mitzvah. Nice concept- but why? and really?

Last night I watched Rabbi Sacks on “Why I am a Jew?

“… I am proud to be part of a people who, though scarred and traumatized, never lost their humor or their faith, their ability to laugh at present troubles and still believe in ultimate redemption; who saw human history as a journey, and never stopped traveling and searching.”

“I am proud to be part of an age in which my people, ravaged by the worst crime ever to be committed against a people, responded by reviving a land, recovering their sovereignty rescuing threatened Jews throughout the world, rebuilding Jerusalem, and proving themselves to be as courageous in the pursuit of peace as in defending themselves in war…”

“I am proud to belong to the people Israel, whose name means “one who wrestles with God and with man and prevails.” For though we have loved humanity, we have never stopped wrestling with it, challenging the idols of every age. And though we have loved God with an everlasting love, we have never stopped wrestling with Him nor He with us. (Indeed!)

This is my people, my heritage, my faith. In our uniqueness lies our universality. Through being what we alone are, we give to humanity what only we can give.

“This, then, is our story, our gift to the next generation. I received it from my parents and they from theirs across great expanses of space and time. There is nothing quite like it. It changed and still challenges the moral imagination of mankind.”
I suppose when we live in Israel we subsist on these lofty heights and leave the mundane for galut. Isn’t it obvious, then, why each action we do here is meritorious?