Nefesh B’Nefesh

I grew up in Jerusalem, Israel, and have flown there countless times since. Yet, somehow, this time when we landed it felt like it was the first time.

I joined the aliyah organization Nefesh B’Nefesh on one of its chartered flights to Israel.

Established in 2002, this was the organization’s 36th flight to Israel and the eighth one this summer.

The youngest new immigrant on board was three-months old and the oldest was 86!

The new immigrants — olim — spanned generations, professions and geographic locations from all over America. And yet. There was an unbelievably powerful feeling of singularity. Everyone on this plane came to fulfill the dream of immigrating to Israel.

Have you ever been somewhere, where no matter how similar or different everyone was, everyone was focused on the same goal? Indeed, this flight was powerful stuff.

I have never been on Air Force One, but traveling through the sky on this special jet was exciting enough for me. Once airborne, with the fasten-seatbelt sign turned off, the entire business class section of the plane was transformed into an airborne Nefesh B’Nefesh office.

Quickly, sophisticated technology was set up with a buzz all around. There is a lot of work to be done while in flight! Upon entering the plane all passengers are American citizens, but by the time they disembark they will officially be Israeli citizens. All the passport processing and other paperwork is done right on board!

So this was not just any ride through the sky. It’s literally a transformational trip.

Even before we boarded the plane back at JFK, there was a special feeling of something momentous about to take place.

Aside from the Nefesh B’Nefesh-hosted farewell reception with co-founders Rabbi Josh Fass and Tony Gelbart speaking encouragingly to the olim, and to the families they were leaving behind, there were other indicators. I wasn’t there when the Jews left Egypt, but the hum this time was palpable!

There was also the sad and difficult feeling of a life being left behind by all these travelers, united in their one purpose of journeying from the life they love in America to a precious dream fulfilled — moving to the land of Israel.

Tears and hugs were everywhere. I felt I couldn’t watch. The goodbyes were the hardest part. Except for a young girl Shoshi Cohen — nicknamed “Shoko,” meaning chocolate milk in Hebrew, who had a group of 50 B’nei Akiva friends come to send her off with a flourish, it was mostly intimate, emotional partings between families.

Each and every oleh is a story by itself. Everyone on board, for 12 hours, united in one mission, formed a patchwork of people. Everyone was seeking a new life, a life of deeper purpose, to a place that moves and stirs us — and each brought with his or her personal story.On board this flight was a man carrying a huge Torah scroll, wrapped in a tallis, squeezed protectively to his chest the whole time. It was as if he were carrying a child with him. Once on the ground in Israel, he told me it was a 300-year-old sefer Torah.

The road ahead will be challenging. Twelve hours after takeoff, leaving behind an old, familiar life, the unknown lay ahead for everyone. Soaring through the clouds, this was a flight of the body as well as of the heart. Fears, doubts and hopes in navigating one’s way around a new country, culture and life abounded.

Will the reality be as great as the dream? Only time will tell, but the only way to know about dreams is by taking the first step — the tangible and perhaps tentative first step of realizing the dream.

The flight itself is the final step in becoming an Israeli citizen, but it’s the first step in turning a dream of making a life in Israel into reality.

On this flight, everyone is on a one way ticket, standing at the threshold of a life-altering experience. The plane was permeated with a sense of renewal. Rabbi Josh Fass consistently congratulated the passengers, encouraged them, cheering them on and inspiring them. After all, returning to the land of Israel is a spiritual flight.

As someone raised in Israel in the 1970s I grew up hearing my parents and their friends tell over “war stories” of their aliyah process. It was not easy. Between the nightmares and many other adjustments needed to deal with the Israeli bureaucracy, it was almost a rite of passage.

The passengers on this flight will not need to deal with much of the red tape reality of Israeli life, at least not at first. In some twisted way I think something is lost in the contact between Israelis and Nefesh B’Nefesh’s immigrants in the process of their absorption into the country. Getting on the plane with one national identity and, by the time of descent, being of anther national identity — well, maybe there is something sterile about everything being processed on board, in flight.

Still, there is something amazing about it. It’s true that many Americans moving to Israel today do not integrate within Israeli society as much as the veteran olim did in the past. Often, American enclaves are established, and there is a feeling of living apart from Israel or Israelis. What struck me, however, is that many of these Nefesh B’Nefesh olim are riding the crest of the wave professionally, building successful lives, choosing to bring their skills and contributions in order to build Israel.

These are hardworking idealists whose choice we should applaud, support and celebrate. That is precisely what Nefesh B’Nefesh does.

This flight was aliyah history. So many Jews through the ages have yearned to come to the land of Israel, and here we are — on a chartered flight.

“Wherever I go, I go to the land of Israel,” said Rebbe Nachman of Breslov. For many Jews through the generations, the holiness of the land was a state of mind. We know the yearning in Rabbi Judah Halevi’s famous poem, “Zion, ha-lo tishali,” and we know the tragedy of Moses unable to enter the Promised Land.

And here we are, just like that.

Like Ezra and Nechemia, Baron Edmond de Rothschild and Moses Monifiore before them, Rabbi Fass and Tony Gelbart are doing their part in changing, building and renewing life the land of Israel in a revolutionary way. They have done more to bring Jews to Israel from the West on the wings of a modern day eagle than anyone else in recent history.

This flight was no flight of fancy. Despite what seemed like a crazy dream of Rabbi Fass and Tony Gelbart just a few short years ago — these two men made their dream of bringing Jews back to Israel a reality.

The joy, fulfillment and happiness by the passengers were barely containable. People were roaming up and down the aisles, connecting with each other, sewing the beginnings of lifelong friendships.

And the davening aboard? Have you ever been on a flight during the month of Elul complete with a shofar blowing?

As Israel’s skyline came into view, glimpsed for the first time, no one could contain the excitement anymore. As if on que everyone began to sing. Cheers and shouts went up that naturally morphed into the song, “Ve-shavu vanim li-gevulam.”

My first thought when I heard these words were their echo from just a short time ago. It was this very verse that was invoked for sadness, when Israel received her soldiers home from Hezbollah, for burial. Now these same words were being sung — only this time by a plane load of dreamers who picked up and left the good life in America to live in Israel.

As the roar of the crowd crescendoed, the plane began its descent and Rabbi Fass began the final countdown, ten, nine . . . and, as if choreographed, the plane touched the ground exactly when the shout went up for one. The applause were thunderous.

Now the real excitement began. The plane’s door opened and the steps were lowered, blasting the warm Israeli air and sunshine inside. We were officially in the land of milk and honey.

As we descended, the red carpet reception began.

We were treated like celebrities with all the hoopla, pomp and circumstance, bells and whistles, usually accorded dignitaries.

As I said, it was as if we were arriving for the first time.

One of the guys coming down paused on one of the steps, raised his fingers in a V for victory. I’ll never forget the words of one of these newest citizens of Israel as he gave a hearty and drawn shout out, “It’s good to be home!”