“We all long for Eden and are constantly glimpsing it: our whole nature is soaked with the sense of exile.”

—J. R. R. Tolkien

Alicia Appleman, a feisty, curly-haired teenager saw all four of her brothers and both her parents murdered by the Gestapo. She was an exile in her own country, forced to beg and hide and steal while losing her youth and her identity. Men kicked her with heavy boots and hammered her vision into stars. Cursed Jew! Filthy Jew! They worked her family to skeletons and then packed them into gas chambers smelling of death.
A million soundless screams, a million deaths in gray, dirty places, a million corpses flung into pits and covered with mud, a million shoes rotted in piles as strangers in a strange land.
Alicia stood on the deck of a ship, and saw the land appear out of the mist. Eretz Israel. She was home. No words were adequate. How could someone feel such loss? How could someone feel such betrayal? How could someone feel such belonging?

Seventy five years later, Rotem Mathias, a brown-eyed, broad-shouldered teenager found himself crawling out from under his dead mother. No teenager should have to watch his father’s leg blown off and lying on the floor. No teenager should have to hide under bloody clothes to stay alive. No teenager should have to stop breathing and listen in frozen horror to the explosions of war.
Hamas terrorists hurled a grenade, and life ended. Rotem found himself an orphan in less time than it took to say a prayer.
A million lives seething and extinguished, again, a million atrocities hidden in the clamor of gunfire, a million sore hearts and empty eyes.
Eretz Israel offered fatal false hope. Rotem was an exile in his own country. Where was home, if it wasn’t in the promised land?

Where was home? The Jews prayed, generation after generation, for a home land, a place where they could light candles and grow long side locks and be respected for their beliefs. So they fought to the last man. An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth. Through the Crusades, the ghettos, the concentration camps, the gas chambers, and the Palestine War, they never lost their goal.
A home of our own.
Then finally, they kissed the brittle ground of Jerusalem. This was where Joshua rallied the people and brought down a city. This was where King David’s palace reigned in splendor. This was where God spoke, and the very mountains trembled. And here stood the lovely temple, golden in the Eastern sun.
But then- Hamas tore the promised land to shreds. Again. Bombs caved the ground. Cannons crumbled buildings into kindling. And the weary survivors crawled out of the rubble as exiles in a strange land.

Where is home? Every morning, every soul on earth climbs out of bed with that question in their hearts. This scarred, battle-weary world offers a poor home. We all remember Eden and bitterly plow dirt and build cities.
Sometimes all we want is a light shining from an open door. Just something that says, “I haven’t forgotten you.”
No wonder this world is so unfriendly. We haven’t forgotten Eden. We’re exiles in a foreign land. This is a grinding wilderness, but the sun lights up the sand sometimes when shards of Eden filter through the darkness. And then God’s people know. This desolate wasteland is made radiant by the light from Home, and we can endure its makeshift imitation a little longer.
The loneliness of this cosmic rock is only a catalyst for hope of a beautiful perfection.