The Point of Ownership

I was reading an article in my university's magazine about how the acquisition of the Lone Mountain property has transformed the university. It added more space, allowing for more classrooms, a new theater, more student housing, and who could forget a beautiful addition to the existing grounds of University of San Francisco. The university takes care of grounds so well, and they produce amazing gardens and trees for students and faculty to spend time in outside.

I know that the Lone Mountain campus was certainly central to my time at USF. I never had a single semester where I didn't have a class on that gorgeous mountain. I lived in the dorms there for an entire year. The most important performance of my life happened in the black box theater. The sweat and laughter and tears I shed on that mountain could not have watered it if it did not belong to my university. My entire college career would have been different if the Lone Mountain campus had not been purchased in the late 1970's.

Is this why land ownership is so important? Dating back to ancient times, land ownership seems to be the premier status symbol. In Numbers 36, a member of the tribe Manasseh comes to Moses worried that when women who have inherited from their fathers marry into a different tribe, the land would change tribal status. Moses rectifies this by proclaiming that women who have inherited must marry within their tribes in order to keep their land within the tribe. Land was what qualified a man as being considered free in Greek society. In American history, the concept of Manifest Destiny is all over the 1800s.

Maybe there something more to it than just the land. Maybe it what we do with the land is important. We need to take care of it, make it grow, use it to help others, and put it good use. In the Hebrew Bible, speaking about the land of Israel, it says that if we take care of the land, it will take care of us. If we don't take care of the land, then it will spit us out.

Perhaps we need to strengthen our connection to the land, go back to our roots, in order for land ownership to gain back the meaning it once had.

One Month Later

It has been exactly one month since I have come home from Israel. So far, life has been decent. I love seeing my family and friends, being in my neighborhood, enjoying the beauty that is all around me.

But in many ways, I feel like I have left a home behind. I miss my community, my school, being in a city so diverse in its Judaism that it has something for everyone. I miss the hustle and bustle of Jerusalem before Shabbat or before a holiday, getting to the grocery store right when it opens to avoid the nonexistent lines. I miss sitting in classrooms and the Beit Midrash, studying Torah, halacha, and Talmud, discussing with teachers topics that have been discussed by some of the great rabbis of the past 2000 years.

When I first arrived in Israel, I felt like I was in exile. I was cut off from my friends and family, knew no one, and even my roommate wasn't around to help me out. Eventually, I made friends, created a family, and had a wonderful life full of love and learning. Now, I feel like I am in exile once again. My family doesn't understand the new practices I have taken on and I feel like I cannot open my mouth to say anything to anyone. Everything everyone around me talks about sounds so superficial now.

Will it ever get better?