So, if I had the chance...Would I go?

Aliyah - the Hebrew word for Jewish immigration to Israel - comes from the verb la'alot - "to go up".

Sometimes - as I assume most committed Jews do - I play with the concept of "Making Aliyah" as we Anglos put it. It is a sweet temptress.

She beckons with smiles and warm promise, and she will - given time - come true to her smile and alluring looks. But she is also a tough and demanding mistress.

Israel offers a life that demands you step up to the edge and lean in to the swiftly spinning blade that is life ba'aretz ("in the land"). She woos with the tender kisses of new love, and the comfort of a spouse.

We are - in truth - married to her. She has those annoying habits, but we love her all the more because of them.

Linguistically, we call to the act of immigration with the tenderness of a lover long remembered. By "going up" to her (the land of Israel - Eretz Yis'ra'el - is in the feminine), we are the lover approaching the virgin bride in the wedding bed.

Okay, a tad O.T.T. - but she is what she is.

Immigration takes you up to a new and amazingly different plane. And for Jews, the act of becoming an Israeli is - essentially - one that transforms the acquaintance to the spouse. We "think" we know what it is to "be a Jew" in the ga'lut - the non-Israeli experience/existence - but b'emet (in reality) I believe there is a big degree of imitation.

We'll never know what it is like to take the bus to work one sunny morning only to have it explode - or, perhaps more demoralizing - to fear that it might, explode - into flames.

Yet, I envy them. They live in a world that is who they are - 100% - 24:7.

The headlines of Ha'Aretz and the J'lem Post paint the extreme, as do all newspapers etc.

The day-to-day is as dull and exciting in Ramat Gan as it is in West Hollywood.

Tahat ha'shemesh, ayin shum d'var hadash

beneath the sun, there is nothing new.