Lech Lecha: Three continents, five years and G-D’s bloody awful travel agency

Five years after making Aliyah, I’m on a world tour. My family has financed the flights, G-D appears to be handling the itinerary, and Israeli democracy has apparently left me at the boarding gate.

When G-D told Avraham to leave his country, birthplace and father’s house for a land He would show him, He was spectacularly economical with the details. No destination, itinerary or return date. Poor Sarah presumably had to pack the household, organise the livestock and smile encouragingly while her husband announced that G-D had spoken to him. I imagine her response contained several words that didn’t survive the final Torah edit.

In August 2021, I made Aliyah from South Africa to Israel, courtesy of The Jewish Agency. Unlike Avraham, I knew where I was going. Home. Nobody mentioned that learning Hebrew would mean mastering a language written backwards, without vowels, where perfectly innocent words change gender depending on who’s doing what to whom. And that’s before anybody opens their mouth, or that Israeli bureaucracy operates according to principles understood only by G-D and three pensioners in Petah Tikva. Nevertheless, Israel was home. It still is.

Five years later, Talyah’s World Tour 2026 has taken me to Australia in July, South Africa in October, with a three-day Cape Town engagement approaching. My sponsors deserve recognition: my bonus mum funded Australia, my mother funded South Africa, and The Jewish Agency financed my original relocation. Beyoncé has corporate sponsors. I have two mothers and a Zionist organisation. Frankly, my backing is considerably more personal.

Australia meant family. Dad, my bonus mum, siblings, and the discovery that people you’ve known forever have had the audacity to continue living without you. We had wonderful reunions and family recollections where several people remembered the same event so differently that you wondered whether we’d grown up on the same planet.

Distance does strange things to families. We preserve people in memory, expecting them to remain obligingly frozen until we next see them. Instead, parents age, siblings develop opinions nobody authorised, and relationships evolve. Even the returning traveller has changed. The challenge is loving the people actually sitting across the table, rather than demanding the return of their discontinued models.

October brought me back to South Africa after five years. Born in Pretoria, I have decades of history woven through Johannesburg, where my mother, brother and sister-in-law are part of this visit. Mum’s generosity means we can be together without WhatsApp, time zones, or somebody’s forehead freezing mid-conversation. We can simply inhabit the same space, sharing laughter, memories and the occasional family disagreement. A luxury you can’t measure in air miles.

South Africa also means understanding every gloriously inventive insult without translation. I can unleash sarcasm at full speed, although five years in Israel have made me even less tolerant of nonsense. Quite an achievement, considering patience was never my most conspicuous virtue.

However, one spectacularly irritating complication complicates my travels. Israel goes to the polls on 27 October, and I won’t be there to vote. Having made Aliyah, embraced Israeli citizenship, endured sirens, war, anxiety and the national pastime of arguing with complete strangers, I am now geographically disqualified from having my say. Ordinary Israeli citizens cannot vote from abroad. Apparently, one may worry oneself senseless about Israel’s future from Johannesburg, but selecting those entrusted with it requires one’s actual backside to be in Israel.

I’m furious about missing this election. Leadership matters. Accountability matters. After everything Israelis have endured, having a voice in what comes next matters enormously. I can follow every political argument, shout at the television and deliver unsolicited opinions with frightening efficiency. Unfortunately, none of this counts as a valid ballot. Democracy, it seems, has a rather limited baggage allowance.

And now Cape Town beckons. Three days, one meeting about my South African legal television drama, and an opportunity that could change my professional future. I’ve lived and worked there before, but this time I’m arriving with a screenplay, considerable ambition and enough nervous energy to illuminate Eskom’s national grid. If G-D has arranged a production deal, His communications department remains remarkably tight-lipped.

Which brings me to Lech Lecha. Rashi explains G-D’s instruction as a journey for Avraham’s benefit. Yet shortly after reaching Canaan, famine sends him to Egypt. Imagine following divine directions to the Promised Land only to discover the catering department has collapsed. Apparently, even biblical destiny comes with unforeseen complications.

Perhaps Lech Lecha isn’t about reaching a destination and declaring the job finished. Avraham kept moving. So must I. Israel remains my home, but that doesn’t mean every other relationship, possibility or ambition must expire at Ben Gurion Airport.

Australia reminded me of the daughter and sister I remain. Johannesburg reunited me with family and familiar versions of myself. Cape Town may introduce me to the professional future I’ve been chasing. And Israel, infuriatingly, will be choosing its future while I’m somewhere else.

I’m not searching for another home. I’m searching for what comes next, preferably with television credits, financial independence, and far fewer existential surprises.

Avraham had faith, a promise and no map. I have faith, a screenplay, extraordinarily generous family and an Israeli ballot I cannot cast.

G-D, I’ve followed the instructions as best I can. A production deal would be lovely.

But next time, could You please consult the election calendar before arranging my world tour?