Dear Daily Minyan readers, I have not posted in quite a bit, chiefly because I was very busy with life and work lately. I will attempt to resume regularly scheduled posts. In the meantime, here are some thoughts that have accumulated.
1. I have started preparations to make aliyah (immigrate) to Israel within a year, G-d willing. Lots of details still need to be worked out. I have also started studying Hebrew in earnest; thankfully, learning a new language is something I have quite a bit of experience with, so I know what it takes to get there – a lot of work. My kids are still very young (and we have one more on the way), so I am also thinking that this would be an opportune time to bring my family to the Land. I do have quite a bit of family already living in Israel, both close and more distant, as well as many family friends, and have visited them in the past a number of times. That said, as someone who had already immigrated from one country to another, I am fully aware of the great difficulties that come with uprooting oneself and starting from scratch. I left USSR for the United States, the land of freedom and prosperity, so then we knew that we would be upgrading our material well-being. Coming to Israel, however, I fully expect our material well-being to be downgraded. However, growing up in the former Soviet Union, I know what it’s like to live with less, much less, so I have no problem with that. More importantly, I know that the spiritual benefits of living in Eretz Yisrael with my family can’t be matched by living anywhere else. P.S. If you are one of my readers who lives in Israel, you are welcome to send me an email about my plans.
2. I have recently contemplated on what’s going on in the messianic blogosphere as of late. Virtually no ethnically Jewish messianics are actively involved online, except a few old folks commenting on blogs written by Gentile messianics. I have also come to realize the following, 1) the number of the halachically Jewish messianics is rapidly dwindling; their population, especially leadership, is aging and is not technically savvy. The older Jewish messianics have not replaced themselves due to wholesale assimilation and intermarriage – they are the last in their families to be Jewish, 2) many if not most of the younger “Jewish messianics”, almost all of the current younger leadership, are not Jewish halachically, since many of them were born to Gentile mothers, 3) the “messianic movement”, in its many expressions, has already become just another Christian “Hebrew roots” denomination. In line with that, it also appears that “mainstream” messianics (e.g. Mark Kinzer) are now taking steps to grow closer to the Catholic Church and mainline Protestant churches, seeking unity and reconciliation with their “brothers in messiah”.
Daily Minyan 
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