The Courage to Enter the Land – Rabbi Rakefett’s Lesson on Aliyah |
Making aliyah is hard, no matter when or how you come to Israel. You leave behind everything familiar to live in what is, at first, a “strange land.” This week we read Parshat Shelach, the story of the meraglim—the spies—whose report changed the trajectory of Bnei Yisrael and led to forty years of wandering in the desert. I imagine this is how the meraglim felt when they were sent to explore Eretz Yisrael. Even with the challenges they had faced in Egypt and in the desert, that life had become their new normal—their comfort zone. So why rock the boat and embark on yet........