Moving to Eretz Yisrael

Compiled and edited by Ziv Ritchie
 
 
Have you ever seen, when anybody wants to move from New York to Chicago, how hard is it? So he moves to Chicago, it is not hard. Ahh, but when you want to move to Eretz Yisrael, hey, this is already heavy. 
 
Have you ever seen, even just the checking in is so hard, you are just checking in to the airport, you just want to go there, and they drive you crazy. You know, I have flown every airline in the world. You check in, and nobody bothers you. You go in, you mind your own business, you sit down, and that’s it. El Al airline mamish… everything comes so hard; Either you are too early, or you are too late, or someone sits in your seat. Gevalt.
 
Do you know what a Trans World Airline stewardess told me? “We don’t know what it is. We are flying all over the world and everything is peaceful, but when we fly from New York to Tel Aviv, there is something in the air, everybody is… it drives us crazy.” One stewardess said, “I am not an anti-Semite, but I can’t take it.” I told her, it has nothing to do with being an anti-Semite, I understand, I see it with my own eyes, it is because there is something… it is so hard to get to the Holy Land. It is so hard to get to the Holy Land.
 
Higher Than Paradise
I want you to know something awesome. Rav Kook says, everyone knows that on Shabbat you have to be in a higher place than during the week. Imagine if we would not have been driven out from paradise. If Adam and Eve would not have eaten from the tree of knowledge, and they would not have been driven out from Gan Eden [paradise], where would they be Shabbat? You see, now that we were driven out from paradise, so the highest we can hope for is to be back in paradise on Shabbat, but if we would not have been driven out from paradise, where would we be on Shabbat? And only Rav Kook can say such holy torah. He says, if they would not have been driven out from paradise, they would have been in Eretz Yisrael. But not Eretz Yisrael we know now, the real Eretz Yisrael after Mashiach. Gevalt. Yerushalayim Ir Hakodesh [Jerusalem the Holy City].
 
Why was the snake so eager that they should eat from the Tree of Knowledge? According to Rebbe Nachman, it is not just the averah [sin], that G-d told them, “Don’t eat from the Tree of Knowledge.” and they ate it. Do you know what was at stake? Going to Eretz Yisrael. Gevalt. It was Friday afternoon, right. The snake knew; “In a few minutes, gevalt, they are going to Eretz Yisrael. No, I won’t let them.”
  
Everybody knows, Lavan [Laban the Aramite] is not the Nachash Kadmoni [primordial snake], Lavan is not really the snake. Lavan is just the Yetzer Hara [evil inclination] who wants to drive us crazy. But Esav… Esav [Esau] knew that Yaakov [Jacob] was sitting by Lavan for twenty years, why didn’t he come to kill him? Esav doesn’t mind if Yaakov is sitting in Padan Aram (outside of Israel), “So let him sit there.” He doesn’t mind if a Jew sits in Dallas Texas, even with fifteen Shtreimelach [traditional fur hat] and one hundred tzitzis [Jewish garment with fringes] hanging around. Ahh, Yaakov wants to go back to Eretz Yisrael – Esav doesn’t let you. Everybody knows, Esav is Amalek. When did Haman come? For seventy years we were sitting in Babel, and nobody wanted to kill all the Jews. When it was the end of the seventy years, and it is time to go back to Eretz Yisrael – hey hey hey, then Haman comes, Esav comes, Amalek comes the Nachash Kadmoni comes, “I won’t let you go to Eretz Yisrael.”
 
The Spies
Can you imagine how much the menios [obstacles] are, that even though the meraglim (spies) had clear ruach hakodesh and they were mamish the holiest people beforehand, but then they come back and they can’t help it, they say something bad about Eretz Yisrael. It was the same mistake, it was still the fixing of the Nachash, it was the fixing that mamish does not let you go into Eretz Yisrael. The most heartbreaking thing in the world, we see it all the time. I want to tell you something awesome. Basically the spies were Rebbes, they were all Rebbes, and you know, according to the Torah, acharei rabim lehatos [the majority decides]. Imagine there are twelve people in the Sanhedrin [Rabbinic high court], ten say he is guilty, G-d forbid, and two say that he is not. What is the halacha [law]? The halacha is like the ten. Right? OK, here were twelve spies; ten spies say Eretz Yisrael is bad…. This is an awesome torah. Do you know that Moshe Rabbenu gave Yehoshua a special bracha [blessing] that he should not listen to the meraglim. Do you know something? It was mamish against the Torah, because the Torah says, acharei rabim lehatos, if the ten meraglim come back and they say, “Let’s not go to Eretz Yisrael.” and two say, “We should go”, who are they not to listen? So you know what it is, I have a very strong feeling that the deepest, deepest fixing is that Israel was mamish built by non-religious people. Let’s face it, right, because sadly enough, the religious people have so much trouble even with the Rebbes. It is so true. And I want you to know, all the so-called Rebbelach in Eretz Yisrael, I mean some are good, but they still smell from the meraglim sometimes.
 
 
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Excerpt from “Rebbe Nachman Says”, The Teachings of Rabbi Nachman of Breslev as Taught by Rabbi Shlomo Carlebach z”tl
Rabbi Shlomo Carlebach’s books are available online at the Breslev Israel Store.