"Yes, I made Aliyah," I can say, and I know that sentence is loaded with whatever religious, historical, imperialistic, and political weight we put on it. I have heard that word, "aliyah," used in a reverent tone, an excited one, a loathsome one, a bitter one. I can translate it: "I ascended"--to this place so full of contradictions it makes my mind reel.
But there is a Midrash that asks: "Why is the Torah compared to water?" The answer is a simple one: "Because water flows to the lowest places. The Torah finds those who are the most humble and the most downtrodden and reaches out to them. Those at the top are left without the sustenance of life." So perhaps we have all ascended merely to to go down again. Perhaps I must follow the water down to its sources and pool there, create subterranean oceans with it, feed the land above, because not everything that exists meets the eye. Remember that beauty is rooted in something unseen. Try to find it and rest there with it.
However you feel about "aliyah," I did it. I ask myself everyday if I am insane. The answer is always, irrevocably, "Yes". But I would never live anywhere else. The thought of that scares me half to death.
Over the next week or so, I will be moving from this City on the Hill, where I can't find gold anywhere other than the cheap kind that gilds. I am very tired of holiness these days. It just doesn't turn me on. Maybe a day trip here and there. Man-manufactured holiness beats me down, stifles me. I need open spaces, freer thinking, less judgement. That is holy. But I don't want to think about it. Just let me be.
I found an apartment in Yafo, very near the sea, and very near central Tel Aviv. I found an amazing roommate and an amazing location. I get mixed reactions:
"Yafo! That's amazing! Yafo is awesome! Really suits you! Really artsy. Lots of music. Lots of art," etcetera. And "Yafo! Why would you move there? Aren't there lots of Arabs there?"
My first reaction is to ask, "Aren't there lots of Arabs in Jerusalem?" I asked that yesterday and was answered with "But Jerusalem is Jerusalem." I held my tongue but wanted to say "But Israel is Israel and the Middle East is the Middle East."
Maybe I'm pretty much on my own on this one, but I don't tend to judge people by what they are.I don't tend to condemn people because of where they come from or what they look like. I judge people by who they are and go from there. I never knew how to see what people looked like on the surface. I had to be taught that this was important in society when I was young. I learned to force myself to look at something I always thought was inconsequential.
I still force myself to look and I still don't understand it. But I am almost 24 years old and I still struggle to see the point the crowds are screaming at me, insisting that it's important that I notice whether you're black or white, Arab or Jewish, etc. etc. Talk to me and then I'll see you. Walk up to me with your masks and I won't.
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