Terror of the Unknown

The road to Eretz Yisrael begins by walking headfirst into the Yam Suf.

Try to put yourself into the headspace of Nachshon Ben Aminadav for a moment. Behind him is all he ever knew. The economy, the house, the language, the culture, the streets and neighborhoods, his whole life is behind him - the comfort, the security, the KNOWN.

In front of him, the promises of a G-d he cannot see or hear, and the hopes and dreams of future better than the one he is running from. But it is a future he does not know.

And, in my opinion, the true brilliance and genius of his act of walking into the ocean is his complete giving himself over to that unknown. The one that threatens to engulf him, to swallow him whole, to completely overwhelm him and destroy him, hopes and dreams unfulfilled.


I believe our family, each of us in our own way, is standing at that precipice.

Here's to jumping in, to walking in up to our necks into the unknown. And to the future beyond it, the Land of our dreams and the Life within it that we will come to know in time.