Things Are Looking UP!

Chicago By Boat

The city of Chicago is truly beautiful, but when you have the opportunity to review the architecture from the river . . . it is even more amazing. Just take a quick peek from the eye of the camera . . .

Davka Dan

Guess who is in the army now . . . after a year of working and studying at Gan Michael Daniel was inducted into Nachal in Israel. Yes, this is the same Daniel whose hair was down to his shoulders, and yes, those are the hands that can make a guitar sing. But today this is a soldier preparing to defend the land he now calls HOME.

The following is a copy of the article Daniel wrote for August 1st edition of the Jewish Post and Opinion:

Home Alone
By Daniel Lande

I’m not sure when the obsession began. Maybe it was when I was six and had two posters on my wall – one of the Statue of Liberty and the other of the Western Wall. I don’t know how or why they came to be on my wall, but I spent a good portion of my childhood nights staring them before I fell asleep. Maybe they were put there by my grandfather, Alex Lande, a Holocaust survivor who had not only managed to escape and survive the Holocaust, but become a successful American, businessman, and family man.
To be candid, I wasn’t really interested in much when I was young, not the Statue of Liberty or the Western Wall. I even found TV boring. But one thing that did interest me was the fact that I was a product of not only my grandfather, but the Holocaust. Now this is some pretty deep stuff for a child, especially one that didn’t invest much time in anything scholastic. But, these were my thoughts and ones that only grew stronger as I grew older.
My grandfather died when I was in fifth grade and I suppose that was a tipping point in my life. The first time I had ever really met death was when I saw my grandfather lying in his hospice bed, eyes wide open as if he wanted to take one last look at what he had created, a Jewish family.
Gabby, a friend of the family came over to my grandfather’s bedside shortly after he passed and put her hands over his face to shut his eyes. This is the last image I have of my grandfather and the first memory I have of understanding that there was something greater than myself – purpose, meaning, life, and death.
However, I feel guilty to this day because in that same thought, I also wanted to go back home so I could play my new Super Nintendo that my brother and I just bought with money we saved up. That’s right, it’s hard to admit, but just minutes after seeing my grandfather pass, I was thinking about playing video games.
Little did I know, as I grew up, that way of thinking would follow me my whole life. That is to say, that once our eyes have been opened to something greater than ourselves, we become scared. I didn’t know it at the time, but I guess you could say it was a sort of self-defense mechanism. I didn’t want to think, I wanted to escape.
This way of thinking would get me in trouble again in my teenage years. When I was in eighth grade math class, the teacher called on me. But I was far off in another place. She didn’t like my answer much either, because when she asked me to find X, all I did was walk up to the board and circle it…”It’s right there Mrs. McDaniels.”
This was about the same time in my life when I found music. Or rather, music found me. I once again found an escape and found salvation in playing and creating music. For the first time in my life, I was able to do something without being shown how to do it, and I didn’t have to think about it either, it just came to me. I never had to practice; I just played. This connection led me to Jewish summer camp, where I was already involved but discovered I was able to grow as a musician by playing with others.
This was another tipping point in my life. At the end of my “camper” career, I and the other campers of GUCI [Goldman Union Camp Institute in Zionsville, Ind.] with whom I had spent my summers took our first trip to Israel in the summer of ‘98.
Now…this is where the weird part starts. After growing up with a “romantic view” of Israel and images of the Western Wall burnt in to my brain, I was sure Israel was going to be a mystical, magical and spiritual experience. So, you can only imagine what I felt when I spent my first 6 weeks in Israel…right? Wrong.
I remember seeing the Kotel for the first time. Walking down the Jerusalem stone steps of the old city as an old man played Hatikvah on his 1982 Casio keyboard, I turned the corner and…there it was…the Western Wall. Wow, I thought to myself, it still has that green leafy foliage growing out of the cracks….But that was about as far as my feelings went. I mean, I tried so hard to feel something, to shed a tear, to feel something else other than the hot sun beating on my neck and the harsh notes on my ears from the old, out-of-tune Casio keyboard. But there was nothing. I didn’t understand… This place was supposed to change my life, or give me some type of spiritual experience but….there was nothing but disappointment and an old man humming out of tune with his keyboard. I didn’t get it. I didn’t understand.
I did manage to have an amazing summer that year and had a great time in Israel. Yet the feelings I was expecting just never came. But when I got back to America, something else happened. My junior year of high school in history class, I opened my book and the first chapter was on the history of the Middle East. Wow, well. I’ve been there and…I might even have a thing or two to say about this other than “can I have an extension on the paper that’s due tomorrow?” I ended up finally enjoying something in school that didn’t involve food.
I also started to read the newspaper and watch the news. My world around me started to change little by little. My trip to Israel had given me a spark that started to rage into a fire. I started to read books about the Middle East. I took interest in Hebrew School, and when I graduated High School, ended up going to Israel for a year to learn and volunteer. This was the third tipping point in my life.
After the first 3 weeks I was in Israel, the “Intifadah” (Palestinian Uprising) started. I was faced with a decision that would alter the course of my life. My parents being the Jewish parents they are, were worried about my safety and wanted me to come home. However, I chose to stay in Israel that year, and for every day I stayed, a connection to the land and people formed, a connection that was already there but grew and manifested itself in actions.
When I finished my year in Israel, I came back to Indiana and unwittingly became an ambassador for the state of Israel. That is to say, everyone who knew me or knew where I had been the past year asked me questions about Israel, what it was, what was happening, and what it meant. Even my professors wanted to know about my experiences. I started to write small articles for the Indiana Daily Student at Indiana University in Bloomington, Ind., and became very active politically on campus. I made many trips to Israel my senior year of college and had them all covered by the press so as to humanize and put a face to the state of Israel.
It became my goal to have people understand that Israel is not simply a place where busses blow up, rocks are thrown and dirt paths lead to dirt paths, but Israel is a place where busses take kids and moms to soccer games, Israel is a place where you can yell at the man in the falafel stand for not washing his hands when touching your pita, and then laugh with him when you’re done eating it.
I finished college and like most people started what I thought would be the rest of my life. I got a “good” job where I sat in a cube and stared at a computer screen all day. But I felt anything but satisfied with what I was doing. Not only was it boring, unfulfilling and trivial, but it was, in my eyes, meaningless.
I thought about the things I had done in college, the things I had done in summer camp and the trips I had taken to Israel. I thought about my grandfather’s flight to America and the years that were taken from him (not to mention his family) during the Holocaust. I started to feel as if I was merely existing and not living. I wanted to stand for something, I wanted to be a part of something that was greater than myself and I wanted to be able to feel a sense of accomplishment at the end of the day.
Although, my cube was a pretty light blue, it just wasn’t cutting it for me. That’s when I quit my job, sold and gave away most of my things, and moved to Israel. That’s right, I made aliyah in the summer of 2006, alone. But, I was finally home. I was in a place that had meaning, in a place that was fulfilling and in a place that reminded me of what and who I am everyday.
I am now a solider in Israel. I am a combat soldier in a unit called Nahal and I wear my uniform with pride. I am not a violent person, and I think of war as anything but romantic. But I am a soldier in the army of my people for the existence of the Jewish state.
I’m not trying to be a hero, nor am I trying to live some romantic tale while my parents on the other side of the world worry about me. But instead, I have been chasing the feeling that I first felt in my grandpa’s hospice room – searching for purpose and meaning of life and death. I realize now that we are faced everyday with what I felt in that hospice room at age 10. We can either except our feelings and follow them, or we can ignore them and play Nintendo instead. At the end of the day, what is important is the sense of accomplishment.
I like to think that as my grandpa passed away, he took one last look at what had been taken from him and what he had built. His family was taken from him, yet he created another. My grandfather did not volunteer to be in the Holocaust. On the other hand, I as a 25-year-old have the choice to make sure that something like the Holocaust never happens again and I have taken the opportunity to do something greater than myself. That opportunity is being an Israeli citizen and being a soldier to protect the rights that my grandfather had taken away from him.
My name is Daniel Lande and I am a Jew. My mother is a Jew and my father is a Jew and in this, I have found meaning. This isn’t the end of my story, but the very beginning, to the first day of the rest of my life.

Yes, Daniel is growing up, and I must say, that I am very proud of how he is doing, and what he is doing. Most of us defend our beliefs with strong words, big dollars, and maybe a demonstration or two. Daniel is not only walking the walk, but standing strong on the front line. Some REAL ESTATE is truly worth more then words can express.

Daniel [aka "DAN"] is also investigating another aspect of Jewish life. He has not only learned how to aim his gun, and hit the target, but he has and continues to add other dimensions to his newly aquired skills.



"May G-d cause his face to shine upon my son, and all those who stand with him, and may he be gracious unto them. May he grant them a long life of health, happiness, and SHALOM."