When we arrived in Israel, we bought a used fridge from a young couple that was making "yeridah" as it is derogatively called. I see what they did as aliyah. The fridge worked for a few years, but the siding, that cushiony stuff that seals the door to the frame started to wear out. None of the repair men could fix it. Actually, none ever tried but on the phone, when we could get them on the phone, they said they couldn't.
So the wife bought a brand new expensive computerized fridge. The old one was simpler. You just unscrew the bulb for Shabbos. This new fridge has a computer with a Shabbos mode. Sounds like all the modern conveniences that the shameful aliyah propagandist Hershel Schachter promises you every time he speaks in public.
Well our new fridge doesn't work. It's warm most of the time. Food goes bad. Cheese I bought a week ago, that I know from experience will last a month, is moldy in a week. Same with cold cuts. The fridge omits the odor of rotting food. The situation has become much worse since the blazing summer heat has set in. The fridge people claim that the problem is caused by the Shabbos mode device. (It's a separate device that attaches.) The Shabbos mode people are pains in the neck. They don't answer the phone. If you do get them on the phone, they shout at you for not understanding their Hebrew. We finally got a repairman out here, but if he fixed it at all, within a month it all went bad again. We can't get them on the phone. That's called Israeli customer disservice.
What we have now, for the past six months, is an ice box. The freezer still works, so we freeze bottles of water, and rotate them in the fridge. This was the 'technology' that was used in the 1920s, when the ice man would bring ice blocks to your tenement and put the ice in the box. That's why it's called an ice box.
RHS promises all the modern conveniences. He should not pretend to understand the details of a country in which he does not live.
People hear of Israeli technology, but don't realize that most of whatever there is, is invested in the military. Israelis invent spying software and drones that shoot to kill. What's the most famous Israeli invention? It's the Uzi, which is a machine gun. And they developed Krav Maga, which is a street fighting technique. It's not a martial art as Asian martial arts are arts as much as they are fighting styles. They involve Zen philosophy. The philosophy of Krav Maga is how to hurt people efficiently. So it goes with Israeli technology.
If you buy a fridge in Israel, it's made in Turkey. Nearly every electronic device that you will purchase here is made somewhere else. And it's mostly junk. Even the Shabbos lamps purchased here don't work. We just tossed away another one that, even though recently purchased, gave off the odor of something burning.
The best products are not sold here. Nearly everything I buy here breaks. I have a book case that is loaded with books, doubled on the shelves because there is no room in my tiny apartment for more bookshelves. I marvel at how the bookcase doesn't break because we bought it in America. All the bookcases we bought here are broken.
Everything I buy here breaks. Even the pants rip after six months. No, you will not find all the modern conveniences in Israel. You won't even find the conveniences that were available in normal countries forty years ago.
Does it matter? Oh yeah. If it doesn't then why do you have a fridge at all? Are you so materialistic? Can't you just live on spirituality as if they have that here? If I were living around tzadickim, humble people who were endlessly engaged in chesed, people who if their leak ruined your ceiling would come and fix it (as my neighbor didn't) then maybe the daily inconveniences would be worth the tradeoff. I doubt that it would be worth the stomach pains that we have been getting lately because of the spoiled food because that leads to bitul Torah and poor concentration in davening and school. But when you are surrounded by people who are even less spiritual than the ones in chutz, what then? You hear that RHS, who benefits from living in the wonderful organized Breuer's community in Manhattan, earning hundreds of thousands of dollars a year from his YU salary and speaking engagements in affluent Modern Orthodox communities, and receives the best health care in the world in Manhattan medical centers? And he pushes everyone to move to Israel where food is cooled to room temperature in an ice box.
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