Just Got that Galus Feeling

I'm interested in traveling to Spain, so I called up the local Chabad rabbi for a word on the Ortho situation in the land of piyyut and exile.

He: Oh yes, you. Sorry I didn't respond to your email. I just have one question: why do you want to visit Galus?
Me: um, Er, what?
He: Go somewhere else. They kicked us out five centuries ago and believe me, the place hasn't recovered. It's Galus sh'b'Galus.

Pretty heavy, eh? Then I spoke with someone at the Bet Jacab shul:

Me: English?
He: um, Er, . . . Espanol? No? . . .um, Ivrit?
Me: Ivrit!

We proceeded to have a lovely convo in the most eloquent of pidgin Hebrew. With those Ivrit words, I felt a connection with the entirety of Exile Jewry. I became a merchant in Fez, a sermonist in Cordoba, and a sailor in Gibraltar. Spread out across the Earth's great expanse, diverse in land, culture, and social mores, we communicated past our exotic differences with the language, law, and land that unites us. I felt as if I had reaffirmed a secret covenant, not between man and God, but between a nation, its communal history, and the tiring beauty of wander. Indeed, a brit between man and the Shkhina That Went Out In Exile.

Is this a uniquely Jewish (actually: Galus Jewish) sensation? Granted, plenty of people find themselves relying on a secondary, somewhat shaky shared tongue. But its a completely different experience when the second language is actually the first- when each word is a prayer, a memory, a deceased relative, an undying tradition. No, no I say - I don't think any other people can glean the same sensation from something as simple, and so poorly conjugated, as "o.k., efshar l'chayot k'yehudi ortodoxi b'sfarad shel hayom?"