Saying Goodbye (Article# 10) 7/6/2006

So it’s official. Although I write this early in the week of July 4, by the time you actually pick up this edition of the Five Towns Jewish Times and read this article, our flight will have long since landed in Israel (early Thursday morning, July 6), and our family will officially be citizens of Israel.

Wow.

The movers came early Sunday morning and spent the entire day packing our stuff. It was actually a pleasure to be told to “please just get out of their way,” as they wrapped up all our furniture and packed all the breakables (dishes, silver, art, glass) for moving. Our shipping company had arranged for the local movers to have an entire day devoted just to the packing effort; we have heard from other olim that their movers did the entire pack/load process in one day, but I think the two-day spread allowed us to be more organized.

Goldie’s parents came by and took the kids off our hands and out from underfoot for a couple of hours, which was helpful. My youngest brother was with his family in Silver Spring, visiting his in-laws for Shabbos, and surprised us by dropping in for the day to see us off. He got the true pleasure of watching us sit around and supervise the movers.

Monday was dedicated to the loading of our container. Our appliance order was delivered directly to the moving company sometime last week and was pre-packed into the container before it even got to our house. So when they opened it up in the morning, our washer, dryer, dishwasher, etc., were already there.

We were concerned about getting all of our things on the container, because our estimated space usage was extremely close to the actual size of the container. At the end, unbeknownst to us, the wrong container got sent to us and there was extra space. It was such a waste, especially since there are many local people who would have loved to get their boxes included in our delivery.

We contacted our Israeli shipper, who will hopefully be able to shove something in there at the last second. Since it was 2:00 a.m. in Israel when this was discovered, we really don’t know what will happen.

Once the container was packed, they built a wall to keep our stuff from falling into the empty space and then sealed the container in our presence. It was too late for it to be taken directly to the docks to be loaded on the ship, so they took it to their warehouse to await the opening of the docks. We will see our stuff in about four weeks, once it has been released from customs in Israel.

Once we finished loading the lift container, we began packing the few clothes we still have with us, and we hope to enjoy on Tuesday a family barbecue/party at Goldie’s brother’s home in Teaneck, where we will have a final chance to see our (Goldie’s) relatives before we leave. There is nothing left to do (under our control) and ready or not we are going.

As I look forward to finally getting on the plane and moving on to the next stage of our aliyah, I cannot help but begin to feel a tremendous sense of relief that this part of our journey is finally over. The lift is loaded and gone. The bags are all packed. The waiting and anticipating is all a thing of the past.

The past few weeks have been so thick with emotion and anxiety. As you know, we were so worried about the packing, the kids, the house, and the million things that just weren’t going to get done. In that vein, we can’t say enough about the people who called us on the phone or stopped us in the street to offer their support. We received e-mails from all over the world from people who just wanted us to know that we were on their minds and in their hearts. This has meant so much to us and has given us a lot of comfort as we struggled with our plans and needs.

We now go forward to what we hope and believe will be a wonderful life - not just for us, but, most importantly, for our children. We know that it will take time for us to adjust to our new lives - years, perhaps - but we have taken this opportunity to do what we believe is best for our family.

We approach this with joy and a genuine sense that this joy has come to us because we are doing what we are supposed to do. With only a single major exception, every piece of our aliyah puzzle has fallen into place exactly when we needed it to. Even that odd piece is more of an inconvenience or hindrance than an obstacle.

I have repeatedly told you, and everyone I speak with, how Goldie and I each feel that this whole process has literally been min haShamayim. We can clearly see that the Divine plan called for us to make this move at this time, otherwise it simply would not have fallen into place so beautifully.

It could be that a lot of this feeling comes from our positive mental approach (not something for which I am well-known). After all, we still haven’t signed the lease on our home, I hope to have my signed employment contract before we take off on Wednesday, and three of the kids still have not been admitted to school. Nevertheless, we approach this move with a sense that everything will happen as it is meant to. We have not let those things upset our plans.

Yet there was always something hovering in the back of our minds, something that cast a small shadow upon our joy. In the past few weeks, as we approached zero hour, this shadow has come out more and more.

Simply stated: It is so hard to leave.

It isn’t as if we are leaving communist Russia or a Muslim country or some other wasteland (like, say, Canada). We aren’t leaving one step ahead of an eviction order for all Jews to leave the country. If this had been the case, parting may not have been so tough (although I am sure many people who left their homes under forced conditions or to escape difficult times still look back fondly upon their former homes in many ways).

We leave the good ole USA and the familiar comforts that we have gotten used to. Not material comforts, but personal comforts: people, places, and our entire environment and support network. We are happy here. We have family and friends that we will miss. Our children will each leave behind “best friends” with whom they have developed tremendously loving bonds of friendship that take years to develop. As will their parents. And their parents will have a much harder time adjusting at our age than will the children, who are naturally resilient due to their youth.

Goldie has worked at Bnos Bais Yaakov since shortly after Chaim’s birth 15 years ago. Our kids have no memory of a time when she didn’t work there. I have been at South Shore for 11 years, first as a parent volunteer, then a board member, and finally an employee.

We have real roots here in the Five Towns. We feel a tremendous affinity to our schools, to our shul, and to our friends and neighbors (who we also feel are part of our family). We have invested a lot of our time and energies in establishing these relationships, and are proud to have them. So we leave a place that we love and people that we love.

Although we know in our minds that we are making a move forward, these past few weeks it has become more and more difficult in our hearts. It is not only hard to leave, it is also tremendously painful and emotional to say good-bye.

We have been actively saying good-bye for weeks now: good-bye parties for each kid, good-bye ceremonies at work, good-bye speeches, good-bye gifts, good-bye presentations at graduation and school functions, good-bye kiddushim at shul and with the neighbors…good-bye, good-bye, good-bye.

Even writing this column each week has been a good-bye of sorts. (Side note: Nefesh B’Nefesh featured the blogsite with the archives of these articles in their June newsletter). It is tough to constantly say good-bye to people and places you really love, no matter what the reason.

Then there are the endless supply of “lasts.” The “last” final day of school. The “last” carpool. The “last” day of work. The “last” time getting a haircut from Sol the barber. The “last” time davening at the amud in shul. The “last” minyan in our basement on motzaei Shabbos. And so on…

Each one was a reminder that we are tearing ourselves away from our lives here and moving on. Last Friday, the Orah Day Camp bus driver stopped at our house to pick up our kids. At least one of our children has attended Camp Orah for each of the last 15 summers. Goldie had to tell him that this year there were no Katzes in camp.

That night, Goldie recounted how she cried when she saw that the closing tagline on last week’s article said “the outgoing executive director.” The sense of finality just jumped out at her. I wasn’t necessarily surprised; she cries easily these days.

I myself have been moved to tears several times at what appeared to be the strangest times: At Kiddush Levanah saying “shalom aleichem” to three of my neighbors. At my last graduation (thankfully before I was asked to say a few words). When another of my friends said a very public good-bye to us as the guest speaker in shul the week several of our friends sponsored a “tzeischem l’shalom” kiddush.

The worst part about this whole thing is that we are really awful at good-byes. Both of us avoided saying anything to anyone about “good-bye” on our last day of work. We tried to beg off on the kiddushim and the parties - not because of the attention, but because we are so uncomfortable with good-byes.

We have told everyone not to come to the airport to see us off. We will have plenty of time before going to the airport to see everyone before we leave. We just aren’t prepared to add to what is sure to be a big scene there, with all the bubbys and zaidys crying over the children and grandchildren. We plan to sit very quietly in a corner, trying to keep our emotions in check and to keep the kids calm and upbeat.

Our dream good-bye is no good-bye at all. After all, we don’t expect this to really be a good-bye. There will be so much that we can still be a part of, so we really hope that this is not good-bye - that is too final of a word.

Both of us will be traveling to America for work several times a year, and we look forward to seeing you all then. Our door will always be open to visitors (especially those who are coming to check things out), and we look forward to hosting your children for Shabbos and Yom Tov when they join the legions of college-age students learning for a year or more in Israel, as well.

Of course, for at least the next year we will have a weekly visit together, as we continue to share our aliyah experience here in these pages. There will hopefully be many simchas for us to share, both yours in America and ours in Israel. And of course, we also look forward to that day when each and every one of you is zocheh to join us in our new home - our new home that is also our old home.

Be’shavua HA’ZEH BiY’rushalayim!!