{"id":47216,"date":"2019-01-09T11:05:00","date_gmt":"2019-01-09T09:05:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/?p=47216"},"modified":"2022-08-02T17:39:23","modified_gmt":"2022-08-02T14:39:23","slug":"the-trials-and-tribulations-of-the-promised-land","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/en\/the-trials-and-tribulations-of-the-promised-land\/","title":{"rendered":"The Trials and Tribulations of The Promised Land"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[281],"tags":[430],"acf":{"old_id":"47216","type":"no","iframe":"","writer":47016,"related_cahpter":"130","type_929":"2","show_author_image":false,"old_create_date":"","old_url":"","post_main_content":{"description":"It is different and challenging - and so far from the Old Country\u2026","content":"

Is it a land of milk and honey or is it a land that eats its inhabitants? Is it a land whose surrounding nations are giants, making us seem nothing but grasshoppers, or is it a land of good fruit, of trees, of plenty? <\/span><\/p>\n

My family and I made Aliyah four years ago and these are still my questions. It is not two different parties, arguing with each other, the faithful Caleb and Joshua against the faithless spies. It is myself, arguing with myself. <\/span><\/p>\n

It is a land of long supermarket lines and horrible driving, impossibly expensive cereal prices and unaffordable apartments. It is a distant land, so far from my sister that I have yet to meet my new nephew. It is a land where my children will be drafted to the army and where borders await resolution. It is a land where my paycheck is half what it was, where my office is half what it was, where it takes twice as long to get anything done, and often three times as long to get it done well or right. When I say to my son who is complaining about his minimal homework that he has far less reading or writing to do than I did at his age, he looks at me and says, \u201cThis is Israel. If you wanted me to do more reading and writing, we should have stayed in America.\u201d I can practically finish his sentence with the words of the children of Israel: \u201cWe remember the watermelons and the garlic.\u201d <\/span><\/p>\n

But somewhere in this litany \u2013 a litany of many sorts of fear, as much as stress and disappointment \u2013 a different note sounds. It is a good land. Of hills and trees, mountains, springs, rivers, ravines, figs, grapes, milk and honey. <\/span><\/p>\n

When it rains, my children mention the rising water level in the Kinneret. At the first rain after Sukkot, they, too, celebrate with their friends. In America, there is no \u201cfirst rain,\u201d and the change in daily prayer asking for rain in the winter bears no connection with the real life of teenagers.<\/span><\/p>\n

My youngest daughter comes home from school with a list of the Hebrew words invented early in the history of the State, laughing at how archaic they seem by comparison with the slang she knows. \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

I take the bus early in the morning on the way to work and the young Israeli woman sitting beside me lifts her phone to photograph a quiet, cloud-filtered sunrise over the Judean Hills, murmuring, \u201ckamah yafeh,\u201d how beautiful.<\/span><\/p>\n

On the way home, on the road going up to Jerusalem, I tune in to the radio. The daughter of Amos Oz is eulogizing her father, and the radio station carries the entire speech, fifteen minutes long, including the song into which the audience breaks midway through. <\/span><\/p>\n

These notes sound, too. I hear them more now than I used to. Caleb and Joshua, the spies: this tale of love and darkness inside myself.<\/span><\/p>\n

image by: \u00a0by Jan Jansson (1588-1664) that was published in Amsterdam circa 1658;
\nHorn, George, https:\/\/commons.wikimedia.org\/w\/index.php?curid=31551062<\/p>\n","image":{"ID":47280,"id":47280,"title":"A_Geographical_Rendering_of_Judaea_WDL2888","filename":"A_Geographical_Rendering_of_Judaea_WDL2888.png","filesize":0,"url":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/01\/A_Geographical_Rendering_of_Judaea_WDL2888.png","link":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/en\/the-trials-and-tribulations-of-the-promised-land\/a_geographical_rendering_of_judaea_wdl2888\/","alt":"","author":"7","description":"","caption":"","name":"a_geographical_rendering_of_judaea_wdl2888","status":"inherit","uploaded_to":47216,"date":"2019-01-09 21:04:55","modified":"2019-01-09 21:05:08","menu_order":0,"mime_type":"image\/png","type":"image","subtype":"png","icon":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/wp-includes\/images\/media\/default.png","width":1269,"height":1024,"sizes":{"thumbnail":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/01\/A_Geographical_Rendering_of_Judaea_WDL2888-150x150.png","thumbnail-width":150,"thumbnail-height":150,"medium":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/01\/A_Geographical_Rendering_of_Judaea_WDL2888-300x242.png","medium-width":300,"medium-height":242,"medium_large":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/01\/A_Geographical_Rendering_of_Judaea_WDL2888-768x620.png","medium_large-width":768,"medium_large-height":620,"large":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/01\/A_Geographical_Rendering_of_Judaea_WDL2888-1024x826.png","large-width":1024,"large-height":826,"1536x1536":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/01\/A_Geographical_Rendering_of_Judaea_WDL2888.png","1536x1536-width":1269,"1536x1536-height":1024,"2048x2048":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/01\/A_Geographical_Rendering_of_Judaea_WDL2888.png","2048x2048-width":1269,"2048x2048-height":1024,"post_full_size":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/01\/A_Geographical_Rendering_of_Judaea_WDL2888-1200x968.png","post_full_size-width":1200,"post_full_size-height":968,"home_baner":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/01\/A_Geographical_Rendering_of_Judaea_WDL2888-520x420.png","home_baner-width":520,"home_baner-height":420}},"embedded_video":"","video_duration":"","show_fb_comments":true,"credit_media":""},"tile":{"top_caption":"","main_caption":"The Trials And Tribulations Of The Promised Land","main_caption_size":"1","sub_caption":"It is different and challenging - 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