Beauty: The Rockies or Harei Yehuda?

About a month ago, we had a discussion on Areivim about the value of appreciating nature. It started with discussion of the famous quote by Rav Hirsch. At one point, Rav Hirsch decided to go on a trip to visit the Alps. He explained that he needed to go on the trip because one day when he reaches the next world God was going to ask Him, "Did you see my Alps?" and he wanted to have a satisfactory response. Danny Schoeman, a South African turned Israeli who spent a week skiing on the Alps as a teenager, claimed that the mountains in Eretz Yisroel (EY) are just as beautiful if not more so. That claim was debated, and some people questioned whether one even may leave EY to visit the Alps, basing themselves on the Gemara in Moed Katan 14a and the Shulchan Aruch in OC 531:4. Here's my take on the question.

As someone who grew up in Colorado, I must say that the mountains in EY are simply not the same. Much as I try, I can not honestly say that the mountains in EY are as beautiful as in Colorado.

But do they need to be? Must one have the ultimate physical experience to have the spiritual experience? I am perfectly happy having chicken served in my college dining hall on shabbos, and don't think my oneg shabbos suffers at all because I'm not having beef. One must experience beauty, but the height of the spiritual experience is limited not by the physical limitations of the beauty but by one's appreciation.

This also relates to the thread on ugly kallahs - everyone has some natural beauty, and if it's not immediately apparent, the chassan has to discover it. We help him by pointing out that she is a "kallah na'ah", and if not, then at least she's "chasudah". I never thought of it in this way before, but Moshe Feldman prompted me to think that maybe looking at mountains outside EY is like looking at other women - you can appreciate the beauty, but who says the appreciation is necessarily what God wants? While I don't know how far I would extend this comparison, I think it's very easy to apply to someone for whom the halacha states that it's assur for him to leave EY. Violating G-d's wishes so that you can have what you feel is a greater appreciation for His beauty seems quite off. (And brings to mind, "Mi shedar bechutz la'aretz harei hu c'mi she'ein lo eloka.")

EY has a wide variety of climates, terrains, and areas to experience God's beauty in different ways. While I grew up with a mountain view from my bed room window, it was not until I was 18 that I got to say the bracha of "She'asa es hayam hagadol." EY affords opportunities to experience every aspect, in a way that doesn't exist anywhere else. True, harei Yehuda aren't the rockies, and it seems silly to call the Mediterranean the Yam Hagadol next to the majestic Atlantic and Pacific, but it has everything we need to experience God's greatness. Yaakov's attitude, and this is expressed in EY as well, is "Yesh li kol." The Rockies can have the "Yesh li rav," we can be perfectly happy with the "everything" that we have.