There's No Place Like Homeland

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You know how sometimes a jingle keeps playing in your head, and you just can't stop it?

Customer service at El Al, Israel's national airline, has a jingle-on-hold that quickly goes from charming to cloying. Promoting their airline as a wing of Israel, the jingle proclaims "hachi babayit baolam — the most at home in the world." Or, home away from home.

Nice idea, but after an hour and half, it was too much honey in the milk.

I called to book a flight after the war broke out on the religious festival OF Simchas Torah (October 7) 2023. Thank Heaven, our return flight had been canceled. I say thank Heaven because my wife and I really didn't want to leave.

During the too-short time when the worst brought out the best in us, there was an exhilarating feeling of unity; all for one and one for all. And even we could pitch in to help.

Sadly, it didn't take long for the perfect blamestorm to make landfall.

Recently, a ray of light broke through the darkness. You may have heard the song "Tamid Ohev Oti (The Lord Always Loves Me)." It's better known by its refrain: "Od Yoter Tov — Even Better." It was written by Rabbi Shalom Arush together with Yair Elitzur, a secular rapper who became religious through Rabbi Arush's upbeat Breslover mantra: "Hashem Yitbarach, tamid ohev oti, v'tamid yihiyeh li rak tov — Lord, blessed is He, always loves me; and things will always be only good for me."

Some find the song as syrupy as the El Al jingle. People told me they heard it so many times they can't listen to it anymore. But that reminds me of Yogi Berra's remark: "Nobody goes to that restaurant anymore. It's too crowded."

At first, Elitzur thought it was silly. But Rabbi Arush told him to sing it and so he did. It enjoyed some popularity, mainly in Orthodox circles. But things went wild when friends of Sasson Ifram Shaulov, a popular singer from Haifa, urged him to sing it. The results were od yoter tov — even better. It skyrocketed to No. 1 in the Israeli secular music world.

More significantly, it has become an anthem of sorts, even among non-religious Jews.

I think of the verse in Amos (8:11): "Behold, days are coming … that I will send a hunger in the land; not a hunger for bread, nor a thirst for water, but to hear the words of the Lord."

Think I'm exaggerating? Hey, it's only a song, right? Well, Hillel Fuld, a tech columnist, reported, "During a concert [in Tel Aviv] with 8,000 attendees … a missile alert sounded. Evacuation [or shelter] was impossible, but instead of fleeing, the performers kept the crowd calm by singing G od Almighty Always Loves Me.'"

Then the crowd joined in — singing for shelter.

Channel 14 reported that there were videos circulating after the release of some hostages showing the hostages and their families singing the song together. That's od yoter tov.

But I didn't come to tell you about the songs. I came to tell you about the country that produced them, where the sweetness often comes inside a prickly peel.

We just spent an unplanned two and a half months in the Holy Land — where miracles are the standard, and compassion is commonplace.

One day my wife and our daughter, Malkie, and I were in the Kiryat Belz neighborhood in Jerusalem. My wife went to look for a store. As I waited, I saw some Chassidic kids walking, not side by side, but with their arms linked over each other's shoulders. Then my wife came back and told me that two young girls saw her searching for the store, stopped to ask what she was looking for, then showed her where it was.

At one point, I needed some help and Malkie (who is less shy than I am) knocked on a random door, joking, "It has a Jewish name." A Chassidishe woman acted as though she was expecting us, and was apologetic that she wasn't ready yet.

OK, you say. No surprise that Chassidim are uncommonly kind. But it's in the air. Sometimes literally.

A week after this Passover, we flew back to New York on El Al. While I was walking around the plane, a flight attendant offered me a sandwich from a tray. She said they were good; then she added, "They're mehadrin (strictly kosher)."

I thanked her, but declined, explaining that I'm not allowed to eat gluten. A little later, she showed up at our seats with a tray holding two apples.

Then I told her about a flight on El Al, in August 1967. My travel agent forgot to order a special kosher meal, so I made do with whatever I could find. A flight attendant noticed that I wasn't eating, and he radioed ahead to the stopover in Amsterdam to have a glatt meal ready for me. I felt uncomfortable being a bother and said, "You didn't have to do that."

He scowled and said, "We will not allow you to go hungry!"

The apple lady wasn't surprised. She just said, "It's the Jewish way."

Rabbi Dovid Orlofsky was once riding in a taxi in Jerusalem and the driver pointed out a religious guy in the street. "You see that guy?" the driver said. "He hates me!"

Rabbi Orlofsky replied, "That guy would give his life for you!"

"And I would give my life for him!"

At that point in the story, Rabbi Orlofsky shook his head and said, "Boy, are we a dysfunctional family!"

Call me naïve. Call me sentimental. But I feel most at home in the Homeland. And even on its airline.

And yes, I do believe that the Lord loves us, and things will get better … and od yoter tov! And we can't say it or sing it enough.

OK, so one mo' time. But this time even better.
Previously:

• There's No Place Like Homeland

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Mordechai Schiller is a columnist and award-winning headline writer at Hamodia, the Daily Newspaper of Torah Jewry, where this first appeared.