Shana Tova (Article #22) 9/28/2006

Our first Rosh Hashana in Israel.

Truthfully, our lives have been so hectic that it almost snuck up on us without our noticing. We have been dealing with so many different adjustments and mini surprises along the way, that we don’t have the opportunity to look too far down the road at things.

I had returned home from America on Wednesday morning. Despite the flight being totally full, I really had no complaints. Got my aisle seat and the right meals, and I even had the opportunity to nap on the flight too.

I came back loaded with gifts for the kids from their grandparents as well as two bricks of American cheese (they cost $25 a brick here) and some frozen deli and hot dogs (can’t get a decent hot dog here). I also brought back a shipment of paperback books for the girls school, saving them delivery time and a ton of money on shipping costs.

I was very popular when I got home, all the kids were very excited to see me. I think they may have been excited to see the size of my suitcases as well, since they eagerly dove into them searching for booty.

With just a couple of days left to go before the chag, there was little I could really do to help Goldie to get ready. There wasn’t a lot of cooking to be done since we were eating out for two meals (the community has been terrific here – we get invited out every week). She had really been busy while I was gone, arranging the meals, seats in shul and everyone’s schedules. Adjusting to the fact that I will travel regularly will definitely take some adjusting for us, but it is what we wanted, so…

Goldie’s biggest issue is dealing with the myriad of repairmen who come to fix the various unfinished areas in the house. The exterminator (ants – yuck), the plumbers, the stucco guys, the carpenter, the list goes on. Then there are the installers, the dishwasher guy, the laundry machines, the phones, all the people who need to get into the house to set things up. Since she goes to ulpan four mornings a week, does work via the computer and is also responsible for all the chauffeuring, shopping, and anything else about the home, each time she has to stay home for a repairman is a major inconvenience.

The worst are the A/C guys. We had not had air conditioning for a quarter of the house (our bedroom and one kids bedroom) since we moved in five weeks ago. They had come to the five separate times to check out the problem and still had not solved it by Erev Rosh Hashana. Twice they came to the house and refused to climb out to the roof, and on Thursday evening, the wrong repairman showed up and the guy with the right equipment didn’t even bother to call and cancel!

Thankfully, by Erev Rosh Hashana they got the unit fixed (one of their workers had drilled a hole in the compressor, so it wouldn’t hold any coolant). We were thrilled to have the whole house up and running (finally) that we didn’t even notice that they had inadvertently shut down another A/C unit (covering several bedrooms) while they fixed the first unit. After a couple of frantic phone calls, I climbed up to the attic and they talked me through resetting the cutoff switch. Whew.


We spent a lot of Erev Rosh Hashana trying to reach many of our friends and relatives in the US to wish them a Shana Tova. Of course, each of our kids tried to reach their friends as well. With the time difference, the window of opportunity was small. Many of our friends had the same thought and called us, so our phone lines were busy the entire day.

The first night of Rosh Hashana (and every chag) is always full of excitement. The little kids are full of wonder and eager to show off their various projects. The bigger kids try to hide their excitement by acting nonchalant.

This year we broke out of that mold. Clearly, being “somewhere else” made a difference. The fact that the “somewhere else” was Israel made it even more striking. In unexpected ways.

To start with, the whole country is excited for several days before the chag. EVERYONE wishes you a Shana Tova; from the supermarket clerk to the telephone operator, the whole country is buzzing with excitement the whole week. It is unreal. Our dry cleaner delivery guy (he does weekly pickups and deliveries to our home) even brought us a gift basket. It is just so different from what we are used to.

A major difference for the kids is the giving of “Shana Tova” cards. In America we will occasionally get one in the mail from other adults or families. In Israel, the children all prepare their own homemade Shana Tova cards and give them to their friends on the last day of school before the chag.

It was so exciting for them to get these cards from their friends at school. It really made them feel like they fit in. They couldn’t wait to get home to show the cards to us. The only negative was that it came as a total surprise to them and they had nothing prepared to give to their friends. I guess they have something to look forward to next year.

Once Yom Tov started we saw other differences, things that said to us – something has changed.

I love the bread here. For some reason, Challa and bread here tastes SO MUCH BETTER than it does in America, at least to me. That first taste of Challa with honey brought home in a big way, the fact that we were actually in Israel for Rosh Hashana.

Eating the simanim was also different. The kids are a year older, so they understand a bit more about what the simanim mean. Also, since the whole country is so focused on the chag, the anticipation level for all the special Rosh Hashana things is at a fever pitch by the time we got to the simanim.

Of course, they tasted better too. Our Rimon (pomegranate) was most likely picked within a week of our eating it. It was so much better than we are used to that I cannot adequately describe it. The dates were awesome; the whole series of fruits and vegetables were terrific and it made such a difference.

Davening was also a change. In the US, we were used to the Chazan leading the singing, sentence by sentence with a break for everyone to say the words to himself or herself. Here, once a song has been recognized, the entire shul joins in (in full voice) to finish the entire song together without a break – and I do mean the entire shul. I know it uplifted my davening, Goldie’s too. The proof? The fact that davening lasted for six hours each day (from 7 AM to 1 PM) really didn’t bother us too much.

In one of our Erev Rosh Hashana phone calls a friend asked me if we still thought they should consider moving to Israel (they will be here this winter checking things out). After all, I write about how tough things are and how hard things seem for us.

In truth, I understood the question. I do write a lot about the tough things, partly because there is nothing remotely interesting about “we went to the grocery store and bought six containers of milk……”, at least not after the first time I wrote about it. The things that occupy a large part of our attention are the hurdles and adjustments that we have had to make as time goes on.

Being here is definitely a lot of hard work. Yet, I can see a time in the future where it will be less hard than it is today. And it will continue to get easier as time goes on. Everything is tough at the beginning. We are learning how to do everything that we used to take for granted, and we are doing it for eight people. It is bound to be hard work.

But it is worth it.

As I have said before, there just is simply no place like Israel for a Jew to be. It truly is the land of our fathers. We truly are “home” here. For better and for worse.

While we get an emotional and spiritual lift simply by being here, we get as much or more of a lift because of the people we are sharing it with. They have really begun to make a difference in our lives.

Everyone here has that same love for the land of Israel and for the people of Israel that we do. We have all made tremendous sacrifices (some more than others – but each in their own way) to be here. So we have a shared sense of camaraderie that binds us and makes us naturally predisposed towards friendships and kinship.

Many of these people have gone through what we are; almost all of the others have parents who came here as foreigners. While we all had different agendas, motivations and goals, there is nowhere more than Israel where you can really say that a Jew is a Jew. We fight. We disagree. We will shout at each other and oppose each other with great fervor BECAUSE WE ARE ALL PASSIONATE ABOUT THE LAND THAT WE LOVE.

Yet, somehow, at the end of the day, we all have it in ourselves to turn to the cashier in the supermarket, the garbage man, the bus driver or whomever we come across and greet them with “Shana Tova”.

What a country!