So lay off

From Rabbi Phil Chernofsky, director of the OU Israel Centre, who has a parsha radio show I have listened to off and on for over 10 years:

What is the sin of the spies?

3300+ years later, people are still saying the same thing in our own time!

When somebody says in public that he is of the opinion that it’s easier to raise a child to be a good Orthodox Jew in New York than it is in Israel, this is the sin of the spies – alive and well in our time.

When someone says “it’s a nice place to visit but I wouldn’t want to live there” – THAT is cheit hameraglim, the sin of the spies.

When people say to the person who does make aliyah, “What, are you out of your mind?” – this is a perpetuation of the sin of the spies.

Listen online or download the full parsha audio as an MP3 here.

It constantly amazes me that people feel they have to POINT THINGS OUT about moving to Israel, as if we haven’t thought of them:

“What will your mother do without you?”

“What about the situation over there?”

“That’s very far away.”

“Won’t you miss your family?”

My mother is 65 years old – not exactly elderly.  I hope she can come and visit.  Maybe she can come and live.  And the SITUATION is no worse and probably much better than at most other times in the history of that little patch of land.  Yes, it is very far away.  Yes, we are moderately comfortable here.  Yes, this will be very hard.

At shul a couple of weeks ago, a woman came over who was in Ted’s Conversational Hebrew class over the winter (as usual, the ladies all loved him!).  She’s an older woman I’ve seen there but never spoken with. 

She told me she’s going in August and don’t let anything anybody says discourage us, because it’s the right thing to do.  Two sentences, maybe a bit more… but it was the very, VERY most helpful thing anybody has ever said since this plan was hatched.

If you think of something bad about moving to Israel, well, we’ve thought of it, thousands of Jews who plan to live their entire Jewish lives here in Toronto have thought of it… the meraglim have thought of it.  Those thoughts are old news.

Try thinking something new and wonderful, and then tell me all about it.