Answer Land

Her name was Suri, Sarah Rachel to be precise. She was a good Bais Yaakov graduate, raised in a nice home. She was here for the first time, exploring Israel with yours truly. After a week of inspiration, connecting to the holy sites, meeting the holy simple people of Eretz Yisrael, and receiving brachos from some of our great leaders, she was in love. She had come home. And then she popped the question.

“How come I never really learned about Eretz Yisrael? We learned about the destruction of the Bais Hamikdash, they taught us about Mashiach and wings of eagles. But how come we never really learned about how special it is living here? My neshamah for the first time really feels in the right place. Why, Rabbi?”

His name was Yankel. Now they called him Jack. I bumped into him at Yad Vashem. He was a survivor. He had a number: 8634254. Raised in the Lodz ghetto, he saw his family killed as he was taken away. He spent a year of gehinnom in the camps. His stories still give me nightmares. When they were liberated, he remained observant. He felt it was the least he could do for his parents’ memory. His children? Not so much. Although he put on tefillin most days, kept a kosher home, and kept Shabbos, he had lost his faith. The world didn’t make sense anymore. “Why, Rabbi?”

Dan was raised without religion. His mother was Jewish, his dad wasn’t. On our tour he told me he was bar mitzvah’ed, but it was more bar than mitzvah. In his freshman year in college, he met a “really cool rabbi” who gave him his first real Shabbos experience. One taste of cholent and he was hooked. He started learning regularly and is considering yeshivah next year. But he has difficulty understanding why Hashem put him in this situation. Why would He let millions of His children abandon the faith of their forefathers? Doesn’t our Father in Heaven want His children back home? “Why, Rabbi?”