In The Blink of an Eye

B”H

22 Nissan 5768
Isru Chag shel Pesach
April 27, 2008


Dear Friends and Family,

As the first year anniversary date of our aliya approaches we want to acknowledge our gratitude to Hashem for all He did to bring us here. For ten years we talked of living in Eretz Yisrael. It was our dream. Until the day David said that if we did not set a date to work towards, it would remain just a dream. So we looked at our life and set our date for three years into the future: May 7, 2007. We started to plan. Of course, G-d laughed.

Our aliya story is a megilla of hidden and revealed miracles.

December 2006. Five months before our projected aliya date, things were not coming into focus. David felt he could not responsibly leave his position until the company he worked with, could hire medical sales professionals. He was trapped. They had no present plan to make this hire and we had no parnassa plan for Israel. However, David said things could change in the blink of an eye, so we started filling out the Nefesh b’Nefesh paperwork.

By February it was time for us to renew our lease at the apartment we’d rented as part of our aliya plan, which had included selling our house. We had a decision to make. Renew for a year, six months or three? We calculated the costs to sign at a lower rent for year and break it when things hopefully fell into place. Would it be wiser to commit to staying 6 months at a bit higher rent? It was quite pricey to sign for three months, yet that would bring us almost exactly to May 7, the date we’d chosen three years earlier. It had seemed so, so far away then. Now May 7, 2007 would be here in the blink of an eye. We decided to show Hashem that we wanted to come and we meant it. We signed for three. If He wanted us, we’d be ready.

The next week, David was somewhere he’d not been in 3 years: home in the middle of the day during the workweek. He was between appointments and decided since he was closeby, that eating his packed lunch on a table at home was nicer than eating in his car. On that day at that time, his cellphone rang. It was Rabbi Solomon who wanted to know if he’d be interested in working for HaRosh Yeshiva Noach Weinberg, may he have a refuah sheleima. This amazing opportunity came in the blink of an eye-after 10 years of prayer and effort.

An interview in Jerusalem was arranged for mid-March. David and I both felt that this position with Aish was a long shot, besides he still had that commitment to the company he was with. But the chance to spend a week with Rav Noach, shlita, was worth the trip alone and if that was not working out, then maybe another opportunity would arise while he was there. Just a few days after he booked his flight, David came home in the middle of the day again. This time he had news: management had finally decided to put on a medical sales team! In the blink of an eye, he was free...and we were jobless as well as homeless.

The interview in Jerusalem at Aish headquarters lasted a week and after a few days, all thought it was a match made in heaven. The compensation they offered was considerably less than a US salary but plenty to live on here, and the position was irresistible because it would, number one: be an exciting employment of David’s talents and energies on behalf on k’lal Yisrael and number two: get us to Israel: start date may 20.

I began a serious apartment search. Before David left, I had posted our desire for a 3BR 2 BA apartment with A/C on yahoogroups, luach, and flathunting. David was going to work in just 8 weeks, we needed a place soon and we preferred to live in, or at least near the Old City. I spent hours combing real estate listings, emailing agents and calling potential landlords. Nothing. Then, in the blink of an eye, that very week David was in Jerusalem, an apartment suddenly appeared on luach.com. David looked at it immediately. It was the apartment of our dreams, and still is...less one bathroom.

After a gracious outpouring of kindness and well wishes from our Atlanta community and mesiras nefesh, self sacrifice by our family who had to say good bye, we flew New York to catch our free El Al flight on May 7, 2007. But without David’s passport. It had vanished, and we weren’t going over the ocean without it! It was a tense, trying two days in New York to obtain another passport and aliya visa. The overnight passport agent charged $500 for his services, miraculously, I had stashed exactly five $100 bills –for emergency-in the same envelope that I thought held both our passports. On the afternoon of May 9, we stood in the consulate lobby with the Israeli guard who cried with us when our aliya shaliach exited the elevator, brand new passport and visa in hand.

David’s tenure at Aish HaTorah lasted about as long as the blink of an eye: only 6 weeks—it was a wonderful experience but not a good fit. However, that job gave our aliya a practical basis and was very meaningful work, exactly what he needed at the time. A month ago, David began working for Rabbi Berel Wein-also great lover of k’lal Yisrael who has dedicated his life to teaching all Jews about their heritage. This position promises to be an exciting challenge, too. Those nine months between jobs afforded David the once in a lifetime opportunity to learn Torah full time. He loves learning at Yeshiva Rabbi Akiva, it is tailor made for him. Rabbi Gold is kind and serious, and understands both the limitations and aspirations of his talmidim. They work hard to earn their share in Torah.

Now it is bein hazmanim. Yeshivas have been on vacation since Rosh Chodesh Nisan, and this week the whole country is on vacation from work. Everyone is free. Free to be with family, free to travel this outrageously beautiful Land. But first, we cleaned and planned, purchased and prepared. We made our one, pure Seder.

In the Hagaddah, we said “...He took us out from there in order to bring us to Eretz Yisrael and to give us the land that He promised to our ancestors.” The ultimate purpose for which Hashem took us out of Egypt was to make us a nation, to give us His Torah and to bring us to the Land so that we can serve Him here. He did it in the blink of an eye-after centuries of suffering and yearning.

And miraculously, here we are. Our aliya anniversary lands squarely between Yom Ha’atzmaut, the day commemorating the miracle of the modern state of Israel and Yom Yerushalyim, the day of the miracle of a unified Jerusalem. Since we know that there are no coincidences, we’ve wondered about the message in this juxtaposition.

Jews began coming home en masse just 60 years ago. Untrained farmers and poorly armed fighters, with help from Above, built this country into a world economic power on a foundation of hope. It happened in the blink of an eye- after a long, dark disastrous decade...and Hashem’s promise to our forebears over 3,600 years ago. Then Jerusalem was given into our hands in 1967- in the blink of an eye-after 6 miraculous days and 2000 years of our longing.

Salvation comes in the blink of an eye. I thought of this over Chol haMoed when crowds came to pray at the Kotel at sunrise. While the night sky still hovered, we covered our eyes and said Shema, thousands of Jews together. Suddenly the black peeled away and revealed a sky turned that true Jerusalem blue. The Shema left us with clarity that, G-d who is merciful, is the true Judge, the same One who loves us.

Here we stand again –arab armies and world opinion a wall of ill will surrounding us. The only place to look is up. It may seem that we are alone in the black night, but dawn will soon break and we’ll then see that Hashem’s love and mercy have been surrounding us the whole time.

The great Chassidic rabbi, Rabbi Elimelech of Lizhensk says that in times of trouble we should talk of the miracles that Hashem performed in Egypt, and through this, He will continue to perform great miracles of salvation. At our Seder we talked about how the miracles of Pesach story are the paradigm for the future salvation. Those miracles will be even greater than we can imagine! We also said that even though it is a miracle that we are a distinct nation with the living Torah and our home is Israel, without the Bais haMikdash, the ultimate purpose of our nationhood and Torah are not realized. And so, our Seder here in the Old City of Jerusalem ended just like yours did: “l’shana haba b’Yerushalyim.”

May we merit to see the Almighty’s miracles. May we speak about them throughout the year, and may all of His children-in the blink of an eye- come home soon.

Love,
Renee and David ...

A Mundane Day

B”H

Cheshvan 18, 5768
October 20, 2007

Dear Friends and Family,

The chaggim are over, we have reclaimed the routine of a six day work week and life is beginning to feel somewhat “normal,” whatever that means. Weeks without holidays to prepare for (and recover from) spread into a stream of days, one after the next filled with getting things done. I have time to finally unpack the last remaining boxes of books, winter clothing and rain gear. Where I will put them, I have no idea. I have time to plan a week of menus and shop more frugally. The laundry will all be done and now I have no excuse for a full ironing basket. With that in mind, I thought that in this letter I would answer a friend when she told me she really wanted to know what a mundane day in Jerusalem was like for me.

This letter will most likely appeal to the women among you. I can’t imagine men being interested in my lists and learning or my adventures procuring needed food items, etc. Hopefully, David will write the next letter, one that should interest the men: “How I Got My Israeli Driver’s License in 9 Easy Steps (give or take a few).” And we don’t even have a car.

As for me, on a mundane day I wake at about 6 in the morning. Above me there is the stone lintel from a Byznatine era column that was uncovered with much excitement in the renovation of this apartment. The column was probably built here before the 7th century, making the home we live in over 1400 years old!

By the time I am having my coffee in our 1400 year-old living room (usually Starbucks, one of the few things I ask people to bring me from America), I hear David coming up the stairs with his Rosh Yeshiva, Rabbi Shalom Gold. They are returning from neitz, sunrise, davening at the Kotel. David has been learning the Gemara in Brachos about how one should do no mundane activity before greeting the One who fashioned us. As a very early riser, he enjoyed his lone routine of exercise, reading the news and doing some office work before his 7 a.m. minyan. However, the more one learns, the more one does-and he just did not feel it was right to begin davening after immersing himself in those mundane activities. So, Rav Gold had the answer; although not the one my husband really wanted. However, now in to his second week of neitz, he says it enhances his entire day to begin by walking through the dark empty streets, dry off his shtender, moist with morning dew and say Shema just as the light permeates the Jerusalem sky with pinks and greys and golds.

He comes home quite hungry, so I make him breakfast, dress and now it’s my turn. The Kotel calls me, too. The streets are still quiet as I move down Misgav Ladach Street past a view of the Mount of Olives. Last month, we watched one afternoon from a distance as former Chief Rabbi Avraham Shapira. zt’l, escorted by tens of thousands of mourners just hours before Simchat Torah, was laid to rest there. I whisper a prayer asking the holy rabbis buried on this mountain-- where the prophet Zachariah said the Redeemer’s feet will stand at the final war-- to petition the Heavenly Courts on our behalf to keep us safe and bring us all home in peace.

My route continues past Aish HaTorah, down many sets of stairs and over the excavation of an ancient marketplace at the back of the Kotel plaza. Each week, they uncover more evidence of the mundane lives of those who lived in my neighborhood centuries before me, when Jews could actually go the to Holy Temple. Today, my avoda is offered meters below the Har HaBayit, in the tunnels of the Western Wall. I enter where the Tunnels Tour begins and wind my way through the cave like corridors and cavernous rooms under houses where Moslems live. My goal is a beautiful women’s section, the closest we can get to the Kedosh Kedoshim, as close to the center of the universe as one can stand; then I pray Shacharit.

I would like to say that my kavana is amazingly better there. But that’s just not always true. The lists I need to add to and the conversation I had yesterday creep into my prayer and often I wonder how it is that I ended up at Shema. However, I just look up at the wall with its grey stones hewn into rectangles as big as Chevy Suburbans, draw inspiration from the spiritual refinement of women praying around me, and look down at my feet in utter humility. Although prayer is still a struggle, my awe is greater, as is my gratitude.

When I return home, David goes off to Yeshiva Rabbi Akiva and for me, the lists are waiting. I add what I remember, check my email and gather up a load of wash. My breakfast is usually rice cakes and hummos with tomatoes, which, even near November and even in shmitta remain delicious.

This morning I had a yoga class. I have long benefited from this form of exercise, but in America I was bothered because (except for Tzipporah Metzel’s class) every instructor tainted her instruction with yoga’s avoda zara origins. Sara, our instructor, punctuates her instruction with diveri Torah. She and several of my co-students, have known each other since just after the 6 Day War when, as spiritual seekers, they found themselves living together on Har Tzion, learning at the Diaspora Yeshiva and marrying boys also becoming observant there. One of these women, Chaya Makla Abramson, still lives on Har Tzion. She is a living miracle, a woman who radiates warmth and emuna, whose courageous story is told in her book, Who By Fire (Feldheim). Each of them has an inspiring story that, in the weeks since I have joined them, slip out and reveal to me the special nature of these pioneers, whose very lives as mothers in Israel, have helped us reclaim our inheritance.

It’s 11 a.m and I have to get groceries. This week I am using a new online delivery service called Digital City. This is one of the ways I know Hashem loves me! In Atlanta, I was one of the few who mourned the demise of Webvan. Digital City is all that and more. They buy from the grocery, the shuk, SuperPharm, the butcher, a wine store, fish market and cheese shop. I haven’t figured out if the hechshers are all good, so I still have to shop myself some weeks, but for staples DCity is great! My order took about 30 minutes to complete and I chose to have them deliver tomorrow afternoon.

The brick and mortar store I go to is Super Deal. It’s the second stop on the 38 and a short walk, down an alley past a bar and behind the old train station. So much for location, location, location. It hasn’t hurt their business as they have been there for years, and it shows in their assortment of mismatched carts and rustic produce bins. Surprisingly, I find everything I need here. American products cost 3 to 4 times as much. We do buy Philadelphia cream cheese at 16 shekels and Ortega Taco Shells at 28. Pancake mix and syrup are still part of our pantry and they are ridiculously high. Other than those few items, Israeli products are of good quality and reasonably priced. The checkout people do not like to speak English, so I try my best to give them the address and phone number in Ivrit. Arab boys will deliver “b’erev,” meaning sometime between 2 and 9 pm. I have learned it is best to take my frozen and dairy items with me.

After this monthly grocery spree, I usually catch the bus up to King George and walk over to Chofetz Chaim, a butcher on Agrippas. I like them because they have a wide variety of meat, some fish and are English friendly. The woman who works there fondly remembers living in the same building as Rabbi Emanuel Feldman in Baltimore. She helps me to understand the mystery meat here: like what is a #5, a # 3? London Broil is not like at Steve’s, it is twice as thick with a stretch of gristle in the middle, making it a lot of trouble to eat. Steak is entrecote. Period. Cholent meat comes in uniform square chunks similar to large ice cubes. I often strike up a conversation with another shopper who tells me how she cooks the cut she pulls out of the case. Once I bought what I thought was a simple boneless rolled turkey breast, and when I sliced it, discovered it was stuffed with what we think was ground meat. In a happy accident, I discovered turkey shnitzel. This makes a moist and flavorful breaded cutlet for Shabbos day. For 20 shekels, Chofetz Chaim delivers, so I buy enough for several weeks and take my bubby cart full of cold dairy items in search of an iced coffee.

Anglo-Israelis like me, find iced coffee on a warm October day is essential. I know I should really be drinking water, but there is reward in this creamy, sweet, energizing formula that refreshes in a way that water cannot.

I like to walk with other Jews on Jerusalem streets named Hillel and Shammai, Rishonim and Misilat Yesharim. Sometimes I will walk all the way home from town, and sometimes just wander until I think I better get my things to the fridge, so I catch the 38 down at the bottom of Ben Yehuda. I used to squeeze in a trip to the bank, but I finally figured out how to check my balance online, and that is all I need from that bank. They are not at all English friendly. After our klita payments are all deposited, we are closing the account and moving to one I hope will be more accommodating. When you get here, I will tell you where NOT to bank.

By the time I return home, put the groceries in the refrigerator, tend the laundry and check my email, America is waking up. I try to talk to Elise every day in between her work and school. She sometimes feels very alone over there, with her entire (all 3 of us) family here. So, I feel it is important to share my day and hear what she’s up to. I try to catch up and learn on the phone, thanks to VOIP, with one or two people in America each week. The days go by for me as well as you and the time frame is limited, so I don’t keep in touch as much as I like.

David comes home from yeshiva at 2 for lunch and has a couple of hours to run an errand or do some work. He really loves the learning, and although he is not working, just keeping up with a little business in America that helps us out, I feel he needs to do this now. Never has he been in a serious yeshiva that accommodates his lack of background and still challenges him. His years learning at the ASK Yesodei HaTorah in Atlanta laid the groundwork for this. One of these days, he’ll write a letter about Yeshiva Rabbi Akiva and many of you will want your husbands to learn there, too.

In the afternoons, I try do some of that unpacking I was talking about earlier or clean out a closet that has already accumulated things we do not need. Sometimes I have the opportunity to do something to help someone out, just like you often do. Sometimes I have an appointment at the doctor, or I have to wait for a repairman, just like you have to do. Once a month Rabbi Keleman gives an astonishingly life changing shiur in the Rova, and sometimes I’ll write. Like today.

And then it is time to make dinner, on a mundane day, it’s just the two of us. We eat together and David talks about his day; that means I usually get a taste of what he learned over our meal. Delicious. Today Rabbi Aba Wagensberg taught for an hour on tefilla. Tefilla, he said is taking our shopping list of wants and desires to Hashem, Who certainly knows –and gives us—exactly what we need to accomplish our mission on this earth. Why do we have to ask when He will always give us everything we require? Because prayer is for us. To take it into our heart that our mission is not to serve to procure our needs (the shopping list), but to serve Him-by taking what He gives us, and using it to bring ourselves to shelimut. Perfection, completion.

On Sunday nights, I attend a shiur Rebbetzin Heller has been giving for 18 years at Sara Rigler’s house. Now we are learning from Path of the Just on fighting the Yetzer Hara. I like her class because she, like Rabbi Keleman gives us “homework,” something concrete to do or notice to actualize the concepts she presented. This week, she talked about how the Yetzer Hara distracts us, keeps us busy with the mundane and overwhelms us and robs us of our inner space. The Yetzer Hara knows that if we focus on that inner space, there won’t be any room for him. This week our homework is to focus on our inner space for 15 minutes throughout the day: review our actions, examine our mistakes and plan what to do different the next time --- while we are doing something mundane.

On a mundane day, I do just about the same things any woman does. I wake, daven, do chores, shop and cook. It almost never feels mundane. Mundane days are not for Israel. Mundane days are not for Jews.

A mundane day does not start at the Kotel haMaaravi. On a mundane day, one does not do yoga with a woman who staked her claim in the land of our forefathers when it was far from fashionable, far from easy. Walking on streets named for holy books and holy men doesn’t ever happen on mundane days. However, I make them mundane by going through the motions of tefilla, riding on the bus with mindless thoughts or attending a shiur expecting what I hear to change me-without my doing the work to grow.

You can feel you are davening at the center of the world even if you are standing in your living room in Atlanta, Ga. That is not mundane. When you drive into the Kroger parking lot and pray that Hashem will open a spot not too far up the hill and that the vegetables will be fresh and the things on your shopping list will be in stock, that’s not mundane. As you drive to work or carpool and think about where it is that you really need to go in life—and open a spot inside to hear what Hashem answers; when we do this, there is never a mundane day.

Have an extraordinary day, and come home soon.
Love,
Renee ...

Missed You on the Holidays

B”H

11 Tishre 5768
September 23, 2007

Dear Friends and Family,

It’s a beautiful evening and our windows are open to a sweet sounding symphony. We broke our Yom Kippur fast just two hours ago and already, we hear the sound of sukkah building: the clang of nails and bang of wood amid singing men, recently fed; and playing children, relieved of being so quiet all day--reverberating through the streets of the Rova tonight.

Yom Kippur began and ended early here, because the clocks were set back just after Rosh Hashanah to make the fast a little easier. And, since we “davened neitz,” the earliest time for prayer in which Shemona Esrei begins exactly at sunrise, we were leaving for shul this morning at 4:15, about the same time our friends in the States were arriving home after Kol Nidre!

For both Yom Kippur and Rosh Hashanah we prayed at Birchas HaTorah, a yeshiva here in the Old City. David saw his first Gemara there, and over the last 14 years we have developed a relationship with the kehilla, community. But it is not Beth Jacob. No Rabbi Deutsch’s sweet Shacharis, nor Rabbi Silverman’s soul stirring shofar. We missed Rabbi Yaakov Cohen, our sincere advocate, and his familiar tunes that uplift our davening and unite us in melody. And our yommim tovvim were incomplete without Rabbi Feldman, who knows his congregation so well and what we all can be; who provokes us and inspires us to “martyrdom moments,” to cross the line over who we were in order to be who Hashem designed us to be. Yes, we really missed all of that, and we really missed all of you.

But, Yeshivas Birchas HaTorah was not without its ability to move us. Rabbi Shimon Green’s focused talks, not really sermons, slice though fluff and push his talmidim, students, toward change. Each shmuz moved me deeper in prayer. Yesterday, just before Neila, the Rosh HaYeshiva said in order to move forward, we have to be willing to die. The axiom, “A coward dies a thousand deaths, and a hero but one,” Rabbi Green said, is backwards. A coward never lets go of who he is, as the Rabbi clung to his shtender and rattled and shook it as one who refuses to release a hold on something wrenching itself away. A coward will always cling to the old ways. A hero, he said, dies a thousand deaths in life; he wills the old self into oblivion, and is born to a new imperative each time. Our Neila, we said goodbye to the old self, and now anticipate, as new creations, whatever imperative the Almighty has in store.

Birchas HaTorah also gave us something familiar. Ron Wittenstein, of Huntsville, Atlanta and Har Nof leined the Torah so lucidly; every letter a precious diamond to him. Rabbi Green’s voice is familiar through his CD’s that have played a hundred times in our home, making his Musaf very personal. And Rabbi Shalom Gold blew the shofar, his imposing figure housing an angel’s heart which, I am sure, pierced the heavens and conspired to awaken the innermost crevices of our neshmos.

Rosh Hashanah morning also began at neitz. After services on the second day, we were treated to Kiddush (at 11 AM!) and a most rare occurrence; Rabbi Gold’s grandson’s bris. The unusual part is that Rabbi Gold was the mohel for both his son and now, his grandson. The Rabbi said he was more nervous for this baby than his own, but it went perfectly and he was deeply honored that Rabbi Nebenzahl, Rav of the Old City and his Rosh Yeshiva, Diaspora Yeshiva, Rabbi Goldstein, were in attendance among other Old City dignitaries. After the Kiddush where his Rebbetzin served well over 100 people, we went to their home for a seudas mitzvah where she served another 30-plus! The Golds radiated happiness and gratitude to the King of the World on this Rosh Hashanah, the day of the creation of man and the bris of their precious grandson in the holiest city; their simcha reflected in all of us who merited to be present with them on that day.

Rabbi Gold is Rosh HaYeshiva of Yeshivas Rabbi Akiva (http://www.rabbiakiva.com/). David is learning most days there, he says it is perfect place for him. It is for the “mature and motivated.” Now, that can mean many things. In this case, “mature” means an average age hovering around 63 and “motivated” means each talmid takes only one catnap per session! Most men are there and learning because of the miracle of modern medicine. David is one of the few who does not have a heart stent. Bli ayin hara, may he continue to hold that position. It is truly a wonderful place for those who only began learning well into life. They have just begun a Daf HaYomi shiur, one page a day for 7 years until the entire Talmud is learned in overview. And, since they were recently profiled in Mishpacha magazine, the yeshiva usually has a minyan for Mincha. Mature, motivated and growing. If you fit the profile, you are invited to join them!

Sukkos is coming and we are inviting guests from the new friends we are gradually getting to know here. We met several lovely couples through the yeshivas and some are neighbors. Although we miss our community in Toco Hills, especially on the holidays, I cannot tell you how thrilling it is to be in our new neighborhood, especially on the holidays! Never a day goes by that I do not turn a corner and see something that simply takes my breath away. Never a day goes by that we do not thank the One who invited us here to witness the great events He has in store.

Come home soon,
Moedim l’simcha!
Love, Renee and David ...

A Few Days In

B”H

May 15, 2007

Dear friends and family,

In between all the stuff we have get done first in order to stay here, we do the things that are the reason we want to be here. David is learning every day at Yeshiva Rabbi Akiva, a new place started by Rabbi Shalom Gold (of “The Dik-Duk Book”) for men who got a late start in learning. Rabbi Gold decided to begin a night seder when he found out David will not be able to come next week when he starts work. I daven every day at the Kotel, we visit with friends and take walks every night in the sweetest air on the planet.


Yom Rishon
25 Iyar 5767
Sunday, May 13


This week we have to go to government offices to fulfill certain requirements in order to live here and take advantages of services. In Atlanta, I did a lot of organizing for this to ensure we’d have all the documentation in order. I’ve heard how horrible this process is. How long the waits, how uncaring the officials, how inept the system. I was terribly tense. Everyone says go early and we were getting a late start. David wanted to know exactly where we were going and I seemed to have two addresses for everything. He wanted to know what the purpose of each stop was, and I did not understand the meaning of the words: Ministry, Absorption, Muchedet. I had a complete meltdown. I wanted to crawl back into bed and stay there.

So David called Nefesh b’Nefesh. A very friendly woman answered the phone and took him through it all; step by step and address by address, including directions. She told him all the documents we’d need and why we had to go to each place.

We realized we’d waited too late in the day to get anywhere with the Dpt. Of Ministry –they close at noon. So we went to the Post Office to get our applications for health insurance. It seems a lot is done at the Post Office besides mail. Bills are paid, certain checks are cashed and documents are authorized. We arrived at about 12:30. The room was huge, filled with people seated in chairs-stadium style in front of a bank of about 12 windows. Above each window was a flat panel television screen playing nature scenes from something like National Geographic alternating with extreme sports (such as skydiving on skis, and parasailing with kites). On the screen were also two sets of large red numbers: a one digit number for the booth and a three digit number for the last person called. They were on person 163 and we were number 229. We found a seat and settled in.

There was a cross section of Israeli society there. I did not feel we stuck out because everyone looked so different. There was a chassid in a long striped coat who had helped us at the door to get our number. An elderly frum couple looking a little lost and wearing many layers of clothing came in, they must have been suffocating. We sat across from a arab worker with rough hands. Arab women in tight pants and their heads covered with scarves walked by. Two large black nuns came in with packages in a hand truck they pushed. Mostly we saw secular Israelis. About ten minutes later they had called person 164. We nested.

The whole scene: the vivd television screens, the stillness, the unlikely assembly and our lingering jetlag combined to create a sense of surrealism. We felt vulnerable to this system we did not understand. Our collection of warnings and well wishes did not offer comfort. We watched with anxiety as they ticked through the numbers and surprisingly, they made it to 229 within 45 minutes.

Once at the window, it all went rather smoothly. We chose Muchedet insurance because that is what our friends in the Rova unanimously recommend. We got our registration and we went home.

Not too bad for a jetlagged day one.

Yom sheini
26 Iyar 5767
Monday, 14 May 2007

Today we are off to the Ministry of the Interior where we will hopefully receive our Teudat Zehoots (identity cards), banking permission and other documents essential to citizenship. Why-we are often asked- did we decide to become citizens? After all, we have said our choice to be here was because it is, in a word, a mitzvah. However, it is a mitzvah to live in Israel-the Torah does not say anything about becoming a citizen of the medina (modern state of Israel)-as much of miracle its existence is.

Usually one’s decision on whether to accept citizenship or not is primarily one of economics or ideology. Financially for us, the tax perks/disadvantages balanced out no matter what we did. The deciding financial factor for us was health insurance. At our ages the cost of private health insurance was comparable to that in the US—just too much to pay on an Israeli salary.

Ideologically, we are mitzvah oriented, not medina oriented. This is a hot subject, controversial and often divisive among Jews-so what else is new? Many say if 5,000 (some say 10,000) American Jews made Israel their home, it would result in a dynamic cultural/political shift here. Maybe. G-d runs this show, albeit through natural means.
We are here as Jews, true to Torah values and will participate in the government as loyal Jews, true to Torah values. This week’s parsha was about this. We are not a nation like others.

Speaking of this week’s parasha. David was called to the Torah on Shabbat for the Levi aliya. You won’t believe the first line of the aliya: “The land will give its fruit, you will eat your fill and you will dwell securely upon it.”


---Off to become citizens, now.


B”H
The day could not have gone better. We arrived at the Ministry of the Interior office 40 minutes before they opened; it was just a short walk from the Old City and a glorious spring morning. When the doors opened, we followed the crowd up the stairs and into the reception area where we got our number and papers to fill out. Problem #1: the papers were completely in Hebrew. But the good news is we were number 8! So when we were soon called, we told the official-who could not speak English-that we couldn’t do this. She solved the problem in a completely Israeli way. She found a nice young man, with a much higher number, whom she astutely identified as an English/Ivrit speaker to help us. He did, and we were then ushered to the only desk with an English speaking official. Chani was efficient, courteous and wished us well as she presented us with our prizes-his and hers teudat zehoots! It only took 20 minutes. We’d heard such horror stories, people leaving in tears, coming back three times, the office closing before they got their paperwork completed. This was a kiss from Hashem. And now we could open a bank account.

Off we went up Jaffa Road, and Ben Yehuda to King George. There it was, Bank Leumi. We were told to ask for Vivian who speaks English, but she was not there. So we took a number. Taking a number is de rigueur here, have you noticed? Morris who speaks French, not English called our number. David thought it was ridiculous to have someone open our account who could not communicate with us, but I thought it kind of fun. Morris clearly wanted to help and our request to open an account not so unusual; it just took forever and we had to sign our names an inordinate amount of times on forms and stickers. We have no ideas what we promised or agreed upon with all those signatures.

While we were sitting with Morris who speaks French at the bank, Inna who speaks Russian from the Ministry of Absorption called to make an appointment. Olim (immigrants) have to go there after opening a bank account because there is an Absorption Basket-30,000 shekels (about $9,000.00 for a couple w/o dependents) deposited into a oleh’s bank account over the first year. Since we were right around the corner, she waited for us. She was delightful and went over the future deposits, different ulpan options, told us how to get driving licenses. Wow-it only took 10 minutes, and we did not even have to take a number.

Our final destination to become “official” was to the Muchedet. That involved a long walk up Jaffa Road, past Machena Yehuda almost to the bus station. It was getting hot and we were getting tired. The Muchehdet building was well marked and we went in to the information booth where we got a nice "welcome home" from the attendant. (No one has been that friendly, he was probably a volunteer!). We were directed to the waiting room where we-you guessed it-took a number. Within 30 minutes, we were called, processed and back in the sunshine on Jaffa Road.

It was 11:30 a.m. And we were done.

We decided to celebrate the raging success of our morning with a nice lunch. Don't Jews always celebrate with food? I remembered a good café at Tachana Merkazit, (photo credit) the Central Bus Station, that Elise and I once enjoyed. Tachana is a multi story building that houses a mall, complete with shuk style kiosks and internet café. There are, indeed buses. The top level is the Jerusalem station for intra-city buses. We navigated through the crowds and security, up the escalator and enjoyed the best sandwich I have ever had in my life, in the best city in the world.



Come home soon.

Love, Renee & David ...