Loving Israel Again

Time for a reality check.

If I’m being honest, this past war took a toll on me.
And I’m sure it affected you too, in one way or another.

When the missile fell in Beit Shemesh, it shook me. It was so close to home. It made everything feel real in a way that’s hard to describe. The lack of routine and being stuck at home for days on end with uncertainty in the air was overwhelming in a chilling and quiet way, making its way into my nervous system.

And it got me thinking.

I’ve spent years working to move out of a powerless mindset.
And yet, lately, I’ve felt how easy it is to slip back into it.

We are surrounded by reasons to feel powerless: hatred from the world, antisemitism, missiles and threats, people in power who seem to have control over our lives. It’s real. It’s not imagined.

After I let myself feel the anger and unfairness of it all, I choose to bring my focus back to the miracle that I live with every single day, that I am living and thriving in my homeland along with millions of other Jews.

This land is filled with something that is hard to explain, a quiet holiness, a simple beauty, something real and alive. We are living inside a promise that waited 2,000 years to be fulfilled.

We often relate to ourselves through pain. Through the Holocaust. Through persecution.
Through everything we’ve been through as a people. And that pain is real. It deserves to be acknowledged and honored. But do we have to build our entire identity around it? Do we have to live inside it? I don’t think so.

There is a difference between remembering and remaining there. When we stay in a powerless mindset, something happens: We lose our sense of agency. We lose our ability to respond in a grounded way. We begin to justify things that shouldn’t be justified.

And even when we are right, even when circumstances are unfair, it’s still a painful place to live from. Personally, I don’t want to live there. I want to live in a place where I feel I can respond, choose, and move forward.

Today, we are exposed to everything. Every story. Every tragedy. Every opinion. It’s overwhelming. And it shapes how we see reality.

But if we pause for a moment, and if we look around, not at the headlines, but at our actual lives, life is often better than we think. Not perfect. Not without struggle. But deeply, quietly good. As someone in the wellness world, I see a lot of struggle. Health challenges. Emotional pain. Stress. Exhaustion. But this is part of being human.

There have always been difficulties. There have always been wars. There have always been challenges. The difference today is how much of it we carry with us, all the time.

And so I find myself returning to something simple:

Gratitude. Not as an escape. Not as denial. But as a choice.

I love that I get to watch this land being built right in front of my eyes.

I love that life here is centered around our holidays.

I love the quiet of Shabbos.

I love seeing children playing in the streets, and older people sitting on benches.

I love the sense of community, the closeness.

I love the trees, the moshavim, the simplicity.

I love that fruit is seasonal and fresh.

I love that my children speak Hebrew, the language of the Torah.

I love that Torah here feels alive, like drinking sweet water.

I love that everything is close, connected.

I love that even in moments of fear, there is a feeling that Hashem is here, close, watching, holding.

This doesn’t mean ignoring reality. There are real challenges. Real dangers. Real pain. But it does mean choosing how we relate to it. We don’t have to live in fear. We don’t have to live in victimhood. We can live with awareness, with strength, and with perspective. We are living in a time of return. Not just physically to the land. But internally, to ourselves. To something more grounded, more connected, more real. Geula is not only something that will happen one day.

In many ways, it is already unfolding.

You can feel it.
You can see it.
You can live inside it.