5 weeks to aliyah – D’var Torah

I could not pass up the opportunity of sharing a few thoughts on the parsha this week since it has such profound ramifications with respect to aliyah. The sin perpetrated by the spies who went out to explore Eretz Yisroel has reverberations that we continue to feel to this day.

As we all know, the spies who were sent out were leaders of the nation, but they were overwhelmed by how difficult they thought it would be to enter Eretz Yisroel. And we see that when Calev answered them, he did not disagree and tell them that it would not be hard. Whether or not he agreed that it is hard, he answered them by saying “But we can surely do it”.

All my life, I have heard from many people about how hard it would be for them to move to Israel. Well, at this point I can tell you that, at least for me, it is truly very hard. It is not an easy thing to move away from family and change so many things about the way you live your life. But at the same time, I keep reminding myself that whatever challenges I meet, I will have to find a way to overcome them. “We can surely do it”.

The desire and need to live in Israel is such an essential part of our neshama. I have found that the feeling that I have when I have to leave Israel after a trip there is much like the feeling that I have after Shabbat when I lose that neshama yeseira. It is where we belong. We are out of place anywhere else.

It may be hard to move to Israel, but you have to still want to do it from the very depths of your soul. You can never give up the hope that you will someday move there nor can you stop making efforts to fulfill this essential mitzva.

Rabbi Moshe Lichtman, in his book “Eretz Yisroel in the Parsha” points out that galut – our exile from Israel – is a punishment. Nowadays when there is nobody stopping us from moving there, Hashem is no longer punishing us so why should we continue to punish ourselves?

Throughout history, the nations that defeated us and expelled us from our land made it so hard for us to all come back to where we belong. We should never resign ourselves to living in galut, thereby allowing them to win.

6 weeks to aliyah – Personal Finances

In the past few months, we have had to make purchases and pay contractors in Israel, pay bills there, transfer money and convert dollars to shekalim. All of this would hardly make us experts in how to best go about doing all of this, but we have learned a bit along the way so that we know some procedures that have worked well for us and a few that have not. There are books and postings and the like that have mentioned a few of these tidbits but they are often hidden amongst a lot of other information so some of the best practices that I have learned do not really stand out. I thought that I might share some of these hints today.

I am surprised that so few people seem to know about the “World Mastercard”. Several banks offer this or versions of it (including most notably Capital One and HSBC) but it is certainly a product that you should inquire about. The World MC comes in handy for both the oleh as well as for anyone travelling anywhere outside of the US, even as a tourist. The two most notable features of this card is that it charges no foreign transaction fee and that it covers some insurance when you rent a car in Israel.

Most credit cards will charge some foreign transaction fee for any purchases made outside of the US. This fee is often around 3% which might not add up to too much when buying small items or paying for meals in restaurants. But when you make larger purchases or when you make enough purchases, perhaps in a trip to Israel, the 3% can really add up. The World MC usually charges no such fee. They will of course have to calculate a rate for money conversion from NIS to dollars, but I have generally been happy with the rates that they use.

The other feature comes in handy when renting a car. If you call your credit card companies and ask if they will cover you on your accident insurance )for example, collision damage waiver) when you rent abroad, they will usually happily tell you that they do. But if you ask them to confirm that you are covered in Israel too, they will inform you that Israel is not covered, along with Beirut, Belfast and Jamaica - strange bedfellows. But the World MC will generally cover Israel as well. It still is important to tell the rental company that you are covered since most people don’t have this card so they usually tack on the charge without a second thought.

Transferring money to Israel can get to be rather expensive. Most US banks will charge anywhere from about $25 and up for an international wire transfer and the Israeli banks will also charge a fee when they receive the money. I try to use my World MC to pay anything that I can to avoid all of this when possible. When using the card is not possible then a few other options should be considered:

There are a number of foreign exchange companies that will offer a reduced charge for converting your money. In general, you must wire your money to them and they will hold it until you tell them to convert it and how much to convert. They will then place your money into the Israeli bank of your choice, thereby allowing you to possibly save a few points on the conversion rate. Although this sounds good, I have not found that the difference in rate was beneficial enough to warrant the added complexity of passing your money through yet another set of hands and since they don’t allow you to write a check to them, you are still not avoiding those wire fees.

When you establish a relationship with a bank in Israel, you can often negotiate a preferred conversion rate that might even be capped and could prove to be quite competitive with the forex companies.

Finally, there are some banks that have a presence in Israel that maintain a connection with their US counterparts. For the most part, the Israeli banks (e.g. Bank Leumi, HaPoalim, Israel Discount Bank, etc.) will tell you that they have nothing in common with the branches in the States other than the name. But I know for example, that HSBC in the US considers the HSBC in Israel to be part of the parent company if not quite a branch of it. Therefore if you are an HSBC customer in the US then you can open an account at the HSBC in Israel and connect your online presence of those accounts. Once that is done, they will allow you to transfer money between those branches for free.

Well, this is a bit long for a blog but still short for a novel, and I hope it offers just a few pointers that you will find useful.

8 weeks to aliyah – When are you moving to Israel?

I am convinced that Pearl did not REALLY send me here this week to get a job and get the house repairs started. Don’t get me wrong – I have made pretty good strides in both those areas. I have arranged 4 job “meetings”- I would not necessarily call them all “interviews” but they were all very job oriented and productive. And I have overseen the start of the shiputzim (repairs) which have taken off somewhat haltingly, but are still moving along.

Despite all that, I think that she really sent me these thousands of miles at a cost that we can hardly afford in order to clean the oven.

Allow me to digress a moment. I have a good friend (let’s call him “Yitzchak”) who moved here several years ago, who loves living here, but whenever he hears of anyone traveling here from the States, he asks that they bring something back here for him if possible. It is usually not a problem and they tend to not be too big items, but you have to wonder why, after all of these years, he still needs Listerine and cannot adapt to the local mouthwash (Ok, you know who you are now). I cannot imagine that he could find a single dentist here who would say “Yitzchak, there is only one thing that will save your gums now – good ole USA Listerine”. The last time that he asked me to bring back something I asked him when he plans to actually move to Israel.

So when I went to the Rami Levi to buy a few household items, although they had Pledge and Easy Off, I was determined to put my money where my mouth is and get the Israeli brands. Well, as anyone can tell you, things do not work here in Israel quite the way that they do in the States, (if they work at all).  The furniture polish smelled like Lemony Fresh WD-40 and I am convinced that the oven cleaner is a placebo. The only thing that it managed to dissolve is the skin on my fingers.

When we move to Israel, we are changing so much in our lives. We are disposing of a lifetime of items that we have grown comfortable with, leaving our 110 lives behind and replacing them with a 220 existence that we are unfamiliar with. As scary as that sounds, and it is scary, it is good too. Just the choice to move here itself is part of the process of deciding that you want to make a major change in your life, to make a major stride forward in one very important mitzvah.

So, if you need to retain a few of those comfy items that you could not possibly think of living without, then so be it. Stick with the Listerine or get that $100 transformer for that $50 toaster oven because it browns the toast so nicely on both sides at once. But you should also try to learn to eat vegetables with your breakfast.