Aliyah: The Song of Going Up

The following was posted by Daniel Nakonechny to the Reb Shlomo List.

Dear Chevre,

Aliyah - literally: ascending - is used as the verb to express one's going to Israel. Is it ALIYAH or aliyah or both or neither? Or something else? What becomes of all the most exhalted dreams and deepest fears, heart-bursting hope and gut wrenching anxieties when one's feet reach Eretz Yisrael? Will I merely be doing there what I am already doing here? Will, when all the dust settles and I have a niche, will I still be me five or ten or twenty-five years down the road. Or will I be.......

I want to share with you words that I wrote in honor of Noa Shor, z"l, two years ago when her family was sitting shiva (the week of mourning). They are words of pure Torat Eretz Yisrael, and as Rav Kook said, "I never learned Torah until I came to Eretz Yisrael. (And he was already one of his generation's Torah giants before he arrived.) In doing so he gave voice to the realization the even Torah achieves new elevation, new light in Eretz Yisrael.

I am not sharing them to honor Noa, z"l, although she deserves it, but to share with you what making aliyah really is; what it is for every Jew and what it means for Am Yisrael. (These words appeared in the last edition of "Kol Chevre", the Eighth Yahrzeit Edition 2002, but they were written in Hebrew because that's the language we shared in common.)

Even though I wrote the original [in Hebrew], I ask God to help me in translating them so that I can express in English, also, that which Hebrew expresses so purely - her essence and sanctity. I will introduce her with the notice of her passing that appeared on these pages. "Noa Shor, z"l, formerly of the Moshav, returned her sweet neshama to the Holy One this morning. Those who know her know that Heaven has gathered a precious flower indeed. Those who weren't blessed to know her truly missed a special blessing.

Her husband's eulogy closed with everyone singing Eishes Chayil to Rabbainu's niggun, and Eishes Chayil, Woman of Valor, are the words that most accurately describe her. Despite several years of consistently deteriorating health, she never lost her chen, her special grace. Even in some of her most agonizing moments she possessed a serenity that indicated she was connected to other and better things. Netanel (her husband) relates that regardless of how difficult a week might have been, on Shabbos she was always relaxed and calm and deeply into the realm of Shabbos."

To the Shor family,

I remember about a year ago when I had returned home Eruv Shabbos after saying the whole of Sefer Tehilim for Noa at the Kotel. As I slid into my seat in shule, suddenly the whole weight of the battle for her neshama struck me, and I realized how relentless the struggle was going to be.

Somehow, against seemingly overwhelming odds, we managed to keep her with us for a long time, but in the end Heaven emerged victorious.

Shir HaMa'alot

In Sefer Tehilim [11:5] David HaMelech, a"h, says, "[A] Tzadik is tested, but a rasha and a lover of perversion his soul is hated." The Midrash says that specifically it is the Tzadik who is tested not the rasha. Why?! Answers the Midrash: "Because it is only the Tzadikim who can absorb the blows and not break; because it is only the Tzadikim who can endure all the suffering and still come out shining afterwards; because it is only the Tzadikim who have the strength to carry the burden of the whole world.

Thank God, Am Yisrael has beautiful and pure Tzadikim whom the Holy One has blessed to be repositories for his Divine presence and whom He has chosen to be the Pillars of the world. These precious Tzadikim are truly rare, but Am Yisrael has other kinds of Tzadikim, too. In his sefer Chesed L'Avraham, the holy and saintly Rav Avraham Azouly, zt"l, says that every Jew who lives in Eretz Yisrael is a Tzadik. He explains that on the first night that a Jew comes to Israel, his soul ascends to Heaven and in the morning he receives a new soul, a soul that is fit for the Holiness of Eretz Yisrael. Tzadik Gadol [Giant] and Tzadik Katan [Little], precious stones hewn from the same source.

Noa, z"l was a Tzadik of the kind described by Rav Azouly, zt"l. The grace that radiated from her gave witness to just how sweet her soul was, how pure her heart, and how much of an Eishet Chayil [Woman of Valor]: an Eishet Chayil who in the midst of tremendous suffering still continued to absorb and disseminate so much of life's blessings; a Jewish mother who provided completeness to all her surroundings. It is so obvious that the sweetness of her fragrance reached Heaven because Heaven clearly declared war in order to prove her sweetness and in order to obtain this precious flower.

Noa stood in the midst of this battle literally. Her suffering and its increasing intensity testify just how much each side wanted her and how much neither was willing to succumb to the other. Countless are those who prayed for her, even though we know that suffering comes to cleanse the souls of the truly righteous, but such was her stature that it was not just she but, also, those who prayed for her who were cleansed and purified. This, itself, is testimony of how much she brought purity into the world.

Noa made aliyah in order to fulfill the Jewish dream that was hidden within her. She was a young woman when she came to live her dream, yet who in her youth can really assess what she is capable of? Who can foresee what she will achieve? How she'll achieve it? Who even begins to comprehend the strength of spirit that will be demanded in pursuing the goal?

The answer is that one who makes aliyah - one who "goes up" to Eretz Yisrael - understands that deep, deep inside one doesn't ask these questions. One who "goes up" to Eretz Yisrael understands that she is "ascending", and when one is "ascending" then reality is different. As the saintly Rav Azouly, zt"l, teaches us, from the very first footsteps in Eretz Yisrael one begins ascending, and I, personally, add that if this is so it is not a harbinger of what will come?

There is a tremendous secret to aliyah and it is that in order to truly ascend one must do the opposite - descend. Every single person who wants and desires and succeeds in ascending is obligated to descend. Everyone who wants to keep ascending and ascending must continue to descend and descend deeper and deeper. Noa reached the greatest of heights and deepest of depths, those depths where there exist the purest waters of life - those still and calming and restoring waters. From these waters she drew to build her surroundings.

She didn't build just a house with a garden; she built a palace - a palace of sanctity and purity, a palace of tranquility and harmony, a palace of glory and honor. Chazal tell us that when a man's first wife dies that her death is equivalent to the destruction of the Beit HaMikdash. It this really possible? Is it really true? But she is his glory! She is his honor! She is his palace! She is his world! When she dies his world is destroyed. Who will comfort him? Only He whose world, too, has been destroyed, the Holy One, Blessed be He, can comfort him.

It was our great merit that we were blessed to see the light, the light of the soul that is called Noa. Part of that light we continue to see in her husband, Netanel, and in their children, Elisha, Milcah, N'gilah, Ya'akov, and Ohrah, and many traces of it are found in whoever met or knew her. The rest of that light that one brings into this world, says the Holy Rebbe Aaron from Karlin, zt"l, is absorbed in the hiddenness of the body, much in the same fashion in which God hid the original light of creation in this world.

In order for this light to be released, the body must decay in the ground (like a seed) in order to make from it new light. This light, says the Holy Rebbe Aaron, zt"l, God, in His great compassion, gives to the Holy Tzadikim for them to use in this world so that we can continue to live lives of sanctity and purity. As such, we are promised and blessed that her light will be returned to us, and that she will continue to provide for us.

As her name reveals so she was - pleasantness and sweetness to her creator and pleasantness and sweetness to His creations. "All the glory of the King's daughter is [deep] within her." May her memory be a blessing. B'Shalom.

As Shlomo loved to say, "she was the sweetest of the sweet".

B'Shalom,

Daniel Nakonechny

Beit El

19 Sivan 5764