Moving to Israel

We here at the moving to Israel blog always like to acknowledge the Jewish holidays as they come and this week is one of the most special as the holiday of Shavu’ot arrives. Shavu’ot (over here is a fantastic summary and explanation of the holiday) marks the end of the time of The Counting of the Omer (another great link over here), the period from Passover to Shavu’ot and a time of great anticipation. We count each of the days from the second day of Passover to the day before Shavu’ot, 49 days or 7 full weeks, hence the name of the festival. As is expained in http://www.jewfaq.org/:

“The counting reminds us of the important connection between Passover and Shavu’ot: Passover freed us physically from bondage, but the giving of the Torah on Shavu’ot redeemed us spiritually from our bondage to idolatry and immorality. Shavu’ot is also known as Pentecost, because it falls on the 50th day; however, Shavu’ot has no particular similarity to the Christian holiday of Pentecost, which occurs 50 days after their Spring holiday.

“It is noteworthy that the holiday is called the time of the giving of the Torah, rather than the time of the receiving of the Torah. The sages point out that we are constantly in the process of receiving the Torah, that we receive it every day, but it was first given at this time. Thus it is the giving, not the receiving, that makes this holiday significant.”

While Shavu’ot is perhaps not as “well known” as some of the other Jewish holidays throughout the year, it is imperative that we understand its complete significance and how being given the Torah truly turned us into Hashem’s chosen people.

Let’s try and take this year to especially reflect and appreciate our lot as Jewish people who have been given the privilege to serve Hashem and to be worthy of the magnificent gift he has blessed us with, the gift of the Torah.

Ari

As this is a moving to Israel blog, the vast majority of posts are, obviously, related to coming to Israel, Aliyah, and subjects related to the country. That being said, I’m hoping my readers won’t mind a little shameless plug today. As many of you know, this blog was born out of our shipping to Israel site, www.shippingconsolidators.com, which finds people the best price when shipping to or from Israel. The idea of the site was (and is) to make the Aliyah and moving to Israel process as easy as possible and remove one of the common headaches associated with the move.

Well, we are proud to announce that, due to the success of the site thank G-d and by popular demand, we have now broadened our horizons and have begun working with people on a new site, www.shipping2australia.com. Similar to the concept of our original site and, as you may have guessed by its name, the new site helps people with another move, finding the best price when shipping to Australia. Shipping from Australia, as well as within, are covered as well.

While moving to Australia obviously does not carry the spiritual or halachic (law according to the Torah) significance of moving to Israel, we wanted to let the word out about the site to our readers here in the hope that they will be able to spread the word about the service to anyone who may find it useful and helping our friends out over at www.shipping2australia.com that they may find the same loyal readership that we’ve found over here from our fantastic readers.

Thank you for listening to the plug and may Hashem continue to watch over Jews everywhere they are in the world.

Ari

Today I wanted to take you inside to a great translation of this weeks Torah portion (Chayei Sarah) by Rabbi Dr. Shlomo Riskin as it directly relates to many of todays issues in Israel.

Rabbi Riskin talks about the very unique relationship shared between Abraham/Sarah/Hagar/Yitzchak/Yishmael. Read the article for full value but, to summarize, he talks about how, through all the harships, Yishmael ends up repenting and gaining favor in the eyes of G-d/Abraham/justice. I wanted to bring this to the attention of my moving to Israel blog readers to relate to todays circumstances and difficulties we face here in the holy land. Rabbi Riskin sums it up best:

“I believe that once Yishmael again repents - and is ready to share, truly share, this land with us - we will indeed be able to dwell together in the Middle East, to fill our homes with blessings, and the historical circle will truly be complete.”

May this idea come to fruition and may all of Israel’s enemies repent so that we can ultimately live in peace and serve G-d for eternity in our land.

Ari