Page 6 - Hamizrachi #30 USA 2021 Yom Yerushalayim - Shavuot

TORAT MIZRACHI

Rabbi Ari Rockoff

The Journey Home

ררועתהל ןמזה עיגה
רבגתהל לכה בוזעל
רחא םוקמ שפחל אל התיבה בושל

It’s time to wake up,
To leave everything and
strengthen ourselves,
To return home, not look
for another place
(Ishay Ribo)

or most of us, our lives have
been home-focused over
the last year. We have spent
far less time in public places
Fthan before the pandemic and
barely left our homes.
Yet there is one home the pandemic
has detached us from – our national
home, Israel. Since March 2020, The Gemara in Ketubot (75a)
members of our community have not expounds on the pasuk from Tehillim
been able to jump on a plane and go הב דלוי שיאו שיא רמאי ןויצלו , “But of Zion
to Israel, as we have become so used There is one it can be said, ‘Man after man was born
to. Parents and grandparents have home the in her’.” noting the repetition of the
been separated from their children and word שיא. The Gemara explains, דחא
grandchildren in Israel. Rabbi Aryeh pandemic התוארל הפצמה דחאו הב דלונה, “One who
Lebowitz, Director of Semicha at longs to see Yerushalayim is equal to
RIETS, captured what many of us felt has detached one who was born there.” Many Jews
this past Yom HaAtzmaut: “When the us from– have indeed merited to be born in
doors close, we should be inside, not Yerushalayim. They will dance through
outside.” our national its streets on Yom Yerushalayim,
To address this separation from our celebrating the reunification of the
home in Israel, we began seriously home, Israel Holy City 54 years ago. But even those
planning the RZA-Mizrachi Journey of us born and living elsewhere are
Home Mission, to bring our community obligated to be among those who are
back to Israel as soon as possible. התוארל םיפצמ, who long to see it, to wait,
Because being away from home is yearn and prepare, so that we are ready,
painful, we want to take the first world-leading vaccination campaign. at the first opportunity, to make the
chance to go back, as soon as the doors Traveling home to Israel is our way of journey home.
open. So much has inspired us about showing that even if the whole world
Israel in the last year, from the signing has changed, our connection to Israel Rabbi Ari Rockoff is Executive Vice-President
of the Abraham Accords to Israel’s remains as strong as ever. of Religious Zionists of America–Mizrachi.

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