ALIYAH EXPECTATION HANGOVER

Essential For Bnei Menashe in India.

  

The road to aliyah for Bnei Menashe will not be long. However we don’t know when. But there has to be answer for every question. Forget the “Hows” and “Whys” question, most Bnei-Menashe asked “When” will there be aliyah, will I be included? For the past 3 years (post aliyah of 2007) this question keeps every young and old with anxiety and self-doubt. This may be because we are too compulsive and in desperate need of physical and mental well being. It keeps our mind perplexed, a pathetically cool diseases seems to be affecting young people, which sometimes results in our life to engage in a unique social experiment.

Everyone seeks answers to this Aliyah Expectation Hangover. I know many of them over the phones, blog, tweets and facebook, to share their aliyah speculation anxiety with others who has the same crisis.

We youngsters are over-exposed to all these aliyah expectation stuffs and never ask ourselves How or Why questions. We must never forget that concern persons are working on it. They want to expedite the Aliyah process more than we want it to be. I do know many roads to Israel, which I believe anyone knows too, however the roads which Shavei Israel Organization is searching for all of us is ‘A Roadmap in Life’ as well.

Levels of expectation to be on board aliyah each year is on higher side every year. This keeps us in neglecting our normal ways of life in Manipur, surviving on a modest budget to keep us alive merely waiting for aliyah and not knowing whether we will be on board or not. Not knowing the answer to those questions leads to feeling of panic, confusion and lack of motivation to keep our live goes on. We must know that aliyah is not a way out from problem in life. We need to learn to accept the way things are. Why make ourselves victim of this diseases and allow our self to suffer when we can recognize ourselves that we are a slave of our own mind. Release those feelings and start a new life; a life of accepting the things that we cannot change. Else, I may termed our disease as a “Crossroad in Life” or that we are within an area or a time when a real world hits and we feel like we were forced with decision that we do not know how to make, Or say an ‘extraordinary depressing life’ ?

We are not concern about the determination of some people to silence the subject regarding the struggle of Bnei-Menashe to return. After 5 years of misunderstanding within Bnei-Menashe, decision makers of Shavei Israel acknowledge the problem faced by us. So in Aug 2007 (after suspension of Aliyah for nearly a decade), Shavei Orgn bring home about 300 strong Bnei-Menashe families. After 3 years passed no one but Shavei Israel still is the only one who denied ignoring the affliction of the people who are left behind.

We who are left behind can be awarded for our long ‘struggle and patience’ to return to the Promised Land. Everyone set his/her own expectation for the next aliyah. No one knows who will be on board. The whistle blow harder as time passed by. Increasing numbers of youngster get married to be entitled to get the benefit of aliyah, as no youngster without families are allow, for some reason. In some respect this relationship offers both young couples a perfect way to coup up with the life and present situation. But there is a gloomier side to choosing marriage as an option to get on board aliyah. What if things go wrong and they are excluded? Overall of my experience taught me that things like this go wrong when couples did not live up to the mark that they have been expected of.

I sometime wondered why G-d wants us to wait for more than 20 years in India. There are many people asking the same question. How long do we wait? May be the time for us is not ripe yet. May be G-d wants us to do something more or to accomplish certain task for the benefit of Bnei-Menashe. G-d has His own reason we cannot comprehend. May be G-d long for our prayer even more or reform our life better? With this in mind we comfort ourselves and keep calm. However, sometimes these product of thoughts did nothing to lessen the severity or duration of longing for the Holy land, which overtime leads to frustration and the thought of going astray; especially vulnerable to the youngster whose minds readily coup with anti-social elements.

So marriage is next to a “good thing” to deal with longing-for-aliyah situation among Bnei-Menashe. In one hand those married at least have opportunity to go to Israel compare with other parties whose fiancée or betrothed are in Israel, who are waiting for all these years, hoping for aliyah each year by saying “Leshana Ha zoth be Yisrael”.

May G-d bless us and hasten the redemption of the exiled.