The world has not been the same the past five years. Since the pandemic in 2020, we have been living in very unusual times, moving from one catastrophe to the next to the point where lately it’s difficult to keep up with the news. Certainly, as a Jew, life has been different since Oct. 7, 2023, even in America. I no longer openly display a Magen David or any other symbol that would identify me as Jewish on public transportation in New York City. I have been fearful since Oct. 7 that I will encounter a pro-Hamas demonstration while commuting through the Port Authority or on the New York City subways to work from Northern New Jersey. Thankfully it has not happened yet.
When the pandemic hit, I started asking: Why is there so much suffering in this world? I wanted to learn more about what Judaism has to say about it. This was the religion that my grandparents handed down to me, from their grandparents to them, going all the way back for generations to Mount Sinai. I started listening to podcasts and reading whatever I could get my hands on during the lockdown. I turned towards prayer and joined WhatsApp Tehillim groups. I never realized the beauty of Tehillim; it’s like poetry. My soul was thirsting for more information. I was raised in a Modern Orthodox Jewish home and went to yeshiva through high school, but despite all of it, I did not have a firm grasp on what my religion says about so many important things.
I began looking at the English translation of the prayers in shul. We are praying for a return to Tzion, to the days of old. The Midrash says something beautiful: All our prayers are directed towards the rebuilding of the Temple. Why did this sound like such a foreign concept, though? It was like a disconnect between my formal Jewish education and practice, and the entire point of what Judaism is all about.
I started questioning: What is the ultimate end game of being Jewish in America? It is a question that has become even more pronounced for me since Oct. 7, with so much antisemitism raging on American college campuses. I am now a mother to a 3-year-old daughter. I work hard and want to give her the best life. Wouldn’t the dream be to send her one day to my alma mater, Barnard College? But look at what is going on at the Columbia and Barnard campuses lately. If she were in high school now, I wouldn’t even want her to step foot on those campuses. It’s not easy maintaining Judaism publicly anymore, certainly at age 18 in college. Do I want to work hard to send her to Barnard and just hope that she is brave enough to hold on to her Judaism?
My heart yearns so much for Israel and our Jewish homeland. I just returned from a one-week trip to Israel at the end of May. I had not been to Israel since before the pandemic. I vowed that while there, I would visit the Temple Mount. Why don’t more Jews ascend there? What is so controversial about it? Isn’t it absurd that Jews don’t have sovereignty over the holiest site in our own country? All our prayers are about rebuilding the Temple. Don’t people realize what they are saying in shul? Have we become so mechanical in our Jewish practice that we are completely missing the point, the spirituality, ruchnius, behind it all?
I have a friend, Melissa Jane Kronefeld, who made aliyah several years ago and runs a nonprofit organization called High on the Har. She regularly leads tours on Har Habayit and slowly, they have been changing the status quo and making it more mainstream. It started during the pandemic, when no one was going up there anyway. Once the pandemic finished, her group was already established and not going anywhere. A few years ago, Jews were not allowed to even drink from the water fountains on the Temple Mount. Melissa made it into the civil rights cause of our generation. What other minority group would put up with this? Now, Jews are allowed to pray quietly in a minyan and do hishtachavaya, bow down on the ground, as was done during the times of the Beit Hamikdash, although prayer books and siddurim are still not allowed.
I was accompanied by the IDF while up there the entire time. The tour guides know where you can and cannot walk, halachically, and we are not permitted to get anywhere near the Dome of the Rock, which was the site of the Kodesh HaKedoshim. While I was on the Har, sirens sounded warning of an incoming Houthi missile, but I felt perfectly safe, and that nothing would happen to me while visiting God’s house. Ironically, the IDF wanted everyone to lie on the ground and cover their heads.
When I first entered the plaza, I felt God’s presence envelope me, almost like a warm hug. God is inviting us back in. Perhaps we were not ready for it in 1967. In my opinion, Moshe Dayan returning the Temple Mount was the biggest blunder in modern-day Jewish history. We need to be ready for the next time. No one knows exactly how the Third Temple will be rebuilt, but I do believe that we must show desire, we must want it. We have been living in a 2,000-year exile, which has been so long that we’ve almost forgotten what it’s like to have a Temple and to serve God. This is the holiest site in Judaism, the site of the First and Second Temples. There are layers of history. The Dome of the Rock is built on top, but we were there first.
If the Third Temple was rebuilt tomorrow, how many American Jews would drop everything to move to Israel? We are so comfortable here, but if even half of American Jews moved to Israel, it would change the entire landscape. We are doing what we can to keep our Jewish values and transmit them to our children, but we live in the Diaspora in exile, and to me, it sometimes feels like a hamster on a wheel, with no end goal in sight.
It’s said that 80% of the Jews in Ancient Egypt did not survive the plague of darkness and leave Egypt. They were comfortable and wanted to stay. We are living in a time of spiritual darkness right now. Will we be one of the ones who decide to drop everything and leave when the time comes? Will we have the foresight and courage to make aliyah now, before it might become a state of emergency? While I was in Israel, a beautiful young couple was murdered in cold blood outside the Capital Jewish Museum in Washington, D.C,, and then a group of Jews advocating for Israeli hostages were openly attacked in Boulder, Colorado. What is going on these days? How much longer can we make excuses? Are we really safe here? At least in Israel, we know exactly who our enemies are. I hope to make aliyah one day on my own terms. Now I just need to get my loved ones on board.
