The past few months...a reflection

As I sit in my room now, with only weeks separating me from my return to the US, I can't help but reflect on the good times and the bad times that I have had in Israel. It's been 4 months since I said a tearful, but excited good bye to my family at Logan Airport as I departed on my journey from Boston, to Madrid, to Tel Aviv. I reread the not my mom slipped into my backpack just as I was leaving, which she always does, with the words written on the envelop "open on the plane". I most often times forget and read these letters weeks, sometimes months after I have already departed the plan, but this time was different. On my way to Madrid, I turned off my Ipod, placed my book into the seat pocket in front of me, and placed the sudoku back into my bag. I read the note slowly, carefully, savoring each word and its meaning. I have read this letter 3 times since I have been here, once when I came, once when I was in the middle of my stay, and now towards the end of my stay and I am sure I will read it one more time before I land in Boston.

Looking at the letter now, I find the words are the same, but the meaning is different. When I left for Israel I was unhappy about where I was in life. Nothing seemed to fit, nothing seemed to make me happy anymore. These words were meant as encouragement and they still are, but now, as I read, its all different: "By the time you read this card you will be up in the air, well on your way to another wonderful adventure...I know you will gain so much from this experience. Remember life is not smooth. It is the roller coaster effect that makes life challenging, keeps us on our toes, and keeps life interesting--a life-long learning process. Remember this when challenges arise in Israel--and they will--but you love this place and want to be there".

There have been tons of challenges here. Re-familiarizing myself with the culture in Israel, making friends, trying endlessly to work for MDA (still in the works), figuring out how to use the buses and which stations to go to, all of these things and more have been challenges. I remember the first two weeks here when I stayed with my friend Shai, I was too scared to use the buses because I didn't know which bus went where or what station was what. Jerusalem was even scarier when I went to meet with the MDA people, I ended up getting lost and arrived a few hours late for my interview. I couldn't speak a lot of Hebrew, let alone understand it, and I was frustrated. The first few weeks...no, I would go as far as the first month...in Israel were angering, frustrating, depressing, and I wanted nothing more than to return home. However, just like what my mom wrote to me in this letter (which I re-read around this time), she repeated to me in Jerusalem during my family's visit, "once you accept Israel as just another country in the world, a place like any other, if you still love it after that, then you know you can live here". That is more or less what she told me that day and it has stuck with me ever since.

Israel is not a place where grand miracles happen or where the Messiah comes flying down to your rescue, it is not a place where everything is perfect (far from it), nor is it a place where everything is bad, it is not a place where all people are treated equally, nor is it a place where people are repressed. Israel is Israel. I love this country for the simple fact that every morning when I wake up and look out my window, I see a world of possibilities, a place that needs help, that needs molding. I look out at night from this same window and see the mist coming off the water and settling over the dark city, with the lights reflecting off of these clouds displaying an almost heavenly world. I love Israel for the simple fact that I feel connected here, with the people and the nature. I love Israel for its nature, its beauty, its unique contrast between desert and forest. I love Israel for all of the people I have met and become friends with, this most importantly. If it were not for the people that I have met these past four months, I don't think I would have wanted to come back, they are the primary reason now, that I wish to return next year. Ideology is only a small piece of the bigger picture for me. Most of my ideological thinking has vanished with my current stay here. I wish to come back and live in Israel because of my friends...my new family.

Coming back from Italy at the beginning of April, I walked from the terminal to the passport control booth. As soon as I reach the ramp just before the booths a sensation filled within me...I am home. It must have repeated in my head many more times as I waited in line to have my passport checked, thinking next year I won't be in the line with foreign passport holders, next year I will be in the line for Israeli passports. As I arrived in the Sherut into Haifa, I said aloud to myself for the first time..."I am home". This sensation will stay with me for as long as I live, through the roller coaster that is life. My mom was right, this roller coaster keeps us on our toes and keeps life interesting, without it, I would not be returning to Israel. אני אוהב את ישראל מכל הלב! ברוכים הבאים לחיים!