Crossing the Yarden

By Yarden Frankl

Who Says That?

There is a great video clip of seven time Tour De France Winner Lance Armstrong on the Internet (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GHJErrp4eOw). He is riding a bicycle up a steep mountain in pouring, freezing rain. His coach drives up next to him and yells through the car window, “You can’t ride. 3 meters of snow. It’s too hard. It’s not possible.” Lance turns his head and just yells back “who says that?”

In my parent’s generation it was Don Quixote dreaming the impossible dream. The idea is the same. Too often we limit ourselves artificially. We say that things are not possible only because we are terrified of attempting them. So we justify our own positions by claiming that what we really want is simply out of reach. It’s not possible.

If you think about it, the concept of Aliyah is just not possible. Take a family that is perfectly happy in America. The parents have good jobs and close friends. They have a house and are able to afford their mortgage. The kids go to school where they know their teachers and play kickball every day. They never have to explain the game of baseball to anyone. Humus is a once/month treat, not something more common than butter.

Now suggest to most people in the above situation that they quit their jobs, sell their house, and move to a foreign country where at first, they will not even know how to pay for gas or find good Chinese food. Some may just look at you as if you were crazy and not even consider the concept.

Yet many others will consider the idea and then decide that it’s just not possible. Where would you live? How will you find a job? How can your children go to school where they don’t know the language? How do you deal with little things that you don’t have too often in America like terrorism and war? No, I think for most rational, intelligent people, the idea of leaving America for Israel is like attempting to win the Tour De France a year after recovering from cancer.

And to be honest, occasionally it does get to us. Those are the times when we really need to make our own reality. To ignore that little voice inside our heads saying “You can’t. It's not possible.”

Luckily, we live in a nation whose history is dreaming the impossible dream. 1948, 1967, 1973: survival, let alone victory, should not have been possible. A country of five million absorbing one million immigrants from the Soviet Union – that’s just not possible. Entebbe, Osirik – too hard.

The other day, the President of Iran gave a speech before that august assembly of diplomats representing so many tin pot dictatorships and banana republics called the United Nations. From this podium he spoke about how he hoped in the near future, the world would wake up without an Israel.

Iran is building nuclear weapons, Hamas calls it a victory from G-d when an IDF soldier is killed, Hizbollah has re-supplied their rocket arsenal, Gilad Shalit remains prisoner in Gaza, the Israeli government has many plans for destroying Jewish communities but very few ideas for how to defend the nation from daily attacks.

The list goes on, and on, and on. Living here is like trying to ride a bicycle up the side of a mountain in freezing rain. It’s just not possible. Right? You just can’t do it….

Who says that?

Shabbat Shalom and Chag Sameach from our blessed nation.

© 2007 Yarden Frankl