Challenge of Many Deserving Friends

Did I say that the choices are difficult? I have another Israel-minded friend, another yearner. I'll stick with her blogger name: Lady Light. Her blog is Tikkun Olam.

Somehow, back in the mists of time, we became friends. At the first annual Jewish blogger convention I was really excited to say "hi" to her on the live feed, even though we've never met face-to-face.

Lady Light is another one of those committed, idealistic, determined people whose heart lives in Israel, if not her physical body. In fact, she has FOUR children who live here, including a daughter in the army. She has a grandchild here and another on the way. While two of her sons were in the IDF she was unable to attend a single ceremony they had - their teksei kumta (completing training and getting their brigade berets) or any other completion or award ceremony. Her sons and now her daughter were and are "chayalim bodedim". These are the amazing young men and women who come to Israel to serve in the army, to dedicate their lives to their land and people, without their families and all the support that implies. If you have ever read A Soldier's Mother you can begin to understand what Lady Light's kids don't get. Just think about Eli without his mom's care packages!

And Lady Light's blog, well, it's got a good readership and it's amazingly pro-Israel. LL finds the best stuff out there and brings it to our attention. She keeps us thinking. She keeps us striving to do better. If she isn't (back) in Israel, yet, she wants to make darned sure that everyone else is at least thinking seriously about the importance of Israel in our lives.

Lady Light loves her children, loves her People, loves the Hebrew language and shares it all with us. I think that she'd do an amazing job at presenting the Aliyah experience of another family and I'd love to give her the opportunity.

C'mon NBN. You can't go wrong! I know. Take BOTH of them - Bat Aliyah AND Lady Light!

Challenge of Hard Choices

My dear friend Rivkah of the Bat Aliyah blog, we think alike. It's nice to have a friend who is so much on the same wavelength on so many issues. However my beloved friend has a problem. She firmly knows, in her mind and in her heart, that her place is in Israel. So I really ache for her because she is making the hard choice that I was never faced with. She isn't living in Israel. Yet.

But that's not exactly accurate because a few weeks a year she IS home. The rest of the year she's ... travelling. Yeah. That's it. Travelling.

Just because her travels involve a home in Baltimore, family, friends, community, livelihood and all that goes with being 'settled' does not make her any less a traveller. Rivkah's roots are here, in Israel, and that's where her energy comes from.

But where does her energy go? That's easy! Rivkah uses her tremendous energy, brain and heart to share her passion for Israel and to help others become just as passionate until they can't take it any more. Then they make aliyah! Rivkah is the driving force behind the Baltimore Chug Aliyah and she has the tremendous merit to be the one who pushed many, many families and individuals to take that step and to commit to the land of Israel with everything they have.

So Rivkah is travelling on a spiritual journey. She's taking the long way home. I want to help her.

Rivkah's daughter is coming on the next Nefesh b'Nefesh flight. Even though Rivkah herself has just wound up a visit home, she'll be back to greet her daughter when she arrives at Ben Gurion airport as a New Immigrant. (Rivkah and hundreds of others, including senior government officials, who want to personally welcome those wonderful people filling that charter flight.) But we can do better than that!

Rivkah's turn to arrive as a New Immigrant may not have come, but she can get a seat on that flight to arrive WITH her daughter. She just has to be chosen as THE blogger to blog that flight and the subsequent initial days afterwards. I think Rivkah is the one to do it. Her blog, her whole passion, her life's purpose is Aliyah to Israel. How can she NOT be the one Nefesh b'Nefesh chooses to represent the Jewish Blogosphere on the flight?

So NBN, make the hard choice (and I'm sure it's hard. There are so MANY excellent and worthy bloggers out there). Choose Bat Aliyah, Rivkah Lambert Adler, to blog this flight!