The Novelty is Not Wearing Off

 

When we have strong feelings . . .  most of us want to  share them.

A therapist learns that when someone has pressured speech it isn't the words to listen to, rather the force of the words, the energy behind them--that's how we know what is driven by emotion. Words, our speech, tell a therapist less than the physical cues, context.  This is why we sometimes don't even hear what you are saying, we're so astounded by the feelings, either absorbing deflecting, repelling or protecting ourselves from all that delicious or too often toxic, emotion. All we need to hear are a few words and we get it. 

But let's talk about me and how I can't help but keep sharing this experience. 

We ate lunch at the home of my first new friend. How did I meet her? I attended a Friday night Shabbat service at a new synagogue, new for me, the first one at services. I'm walking to a balcony seat (yes, women are up in a balcony and no, I wouldn't have it any other way) when two other women, they are about my age, enter the space and smile and welcome me, ask am I new.

Well, yes. I'm new. I'm old, but new here. Not exactly old but you know what I mean. 

I am, in a word, still star struck being in Israel, living in Israel as opposed to visiting, and it shows. When FD and I vacationed, with the exception of 2 trips -Hawaii and Panama- we vacationed in Israel. Sure, it was ostensibly to visit nieces and nephews, friends. But mostly to be in Israel. To us this is where we should be, it is home. 

I used to say that leaving felt like going from living color to black and white, that's how dark it felt, leaving Eretz Yisrael. 

Anyway, all that to say that a month since the move here my new friend tells me that she will never forget that glow, how I couldn't get over it, living here, how wonderful it had been for her to see that appreciation for what Israelis once took for granted, no more. She said it in so many words. 

It isn't as if the news isn't disturbing and sad, and it isn't easy to see, at a dinner, a place at the table set for a hostage. We pray for their speedy return. But I am out of bed sometimes at 4:45 AM, early even for me, and it is dark outside and quiet, and by 5:40 the No. 2 bus passes my building as I watch the sun come up from our balcony, and the garbage guys are taking out the cans for pickup, and slowly traffic begins. There is a tiny sliver of moon. 

And that feeling isn't gone, but it is tainted with one that has been bothering me for some time, regret, regret for waiting so long. 

And I have to say that mantra:  

Don't look back, it will make you depressed.

Don't look forward, it will make you anxious.

Stay in the present. 

At the moment, that's pretty great. 

therapydoc

Being an Immigrant, Solving Puzzles

Sunrise from my balcony in Israel

I'm just going to say it: one of my best friends in Israel, Google Translate, is a huge enabler.

To the right, the sunrise. Pretty great. I wake up, go outside, pray and sing. But today I felt like saying hi.

What is it like becoming a new citizen here? 

Despite English being a second language to many, many Israelis (they learn it in school) communicating always starts with Hebrew. Knowing Hebrew, understanding it and speaking it, is important. We work on ours daily despite having learned to read and write in early childhood. We have the tools, but neither FD or I ever really learned to speak the language. 

Israelis will say: It's easy! Much of our language is really English but Hebra-isized. The problem is that when we read something in Hebrew our brains automatically assume all words are new to us. So we waste a few minutes working them out only to come to realize that the word פצצההת, for example, is just Pizza Hut. Or that סופרמרקת means supermarket. Or the word סייסו, means 'say so' and sounds exactly the same way in Hebrew. 

Being a 'greener' means forever solving puzzles. Who doesn't like a good puzzle?

More on being an immigrant: 

When a Jew moves to Israel she has typically spent 6 months to a year proving her identity to the Israeli government, the Jewish Agency. The application complete, a Visa Olah B in hand, the new citizen has the right to travel to Israel and enjoy the benefits of merely being new citizens. FD and I did this, spent months and months banging our heads against the wall to pass bureaucratic muster, finally receiving the blessing to return. Then, upon landing at Ben Gurion, we were ushered to a room to meet with a government official who explained our rights and delivered our temporary identification cards. Quite a rush. The endorphins insane.

The laws applying to new citizens are beneficent, generous, and include monthly stipends, free Hebrew classes, breaks on mortgages, a break on the purchase of a new automobile, a free flight if it is absolutely unaffordable. There are more. It is impressive, but it is the Israeli people who astound me. 

When FD and I are lost or can't figure out what we have to do in any situation, all we have to say is: Anachnu olim chadashim, we are new immigrants. Smiles follow, looks of incredulity. WELCOME! WELCOME HOME! WHEN DID YOU GET HERE! WHERE ARE YOU FROM? The welcome is in heavily accented English, sometimes in Hebrew and following that, there is so much kindness. They bend over backwards to help. It is magical. 

Upon hearing the magic words, we are new citizens, following the big welcome, many will say: NOW? You want to come to Israel NOW? You do know there is a war here, right?

And we say yes, we are aware. We do not say that we would rather die here Heaven Forbid, than live anywhere else. But we are thinking that and it is understood. This is the attitude of most people who live here, not that there aren't those who could use a well deserved break from the chaos. But it would be a temporary trip. This is our country is the general feeling. God gave it to us and we will never abandon it, we will never abandon Eretz Yisrael, the Land of Israel.  

The war? You want to know about that? 

It is a very ugly war. 

Today I read that the bodies of six more hostages have been found and that one soldier has died. I only read blips of news because it is as disturbing here as it is in the USA, which says a lot. But when a soldier or a hostage or an innocent civilian dies, we hear about it and we cry. It is automatic. 

Enough for today. 

Shabat Shalom, Peace,

therapydoc

Why Would Anyone Move to Israel, Especially Now?

FD and I are at Gate B14 to board a flight to Fort Lauderdale. 

No, it is not a vacation. This is the first stop. We are moving—intending to spend the rest of our lives in Israel. 

(I’m sorry, you know who you are, that I never had the chance to visit your farm). 

 

See, we're finally going. Not a vacation, not a Sabbatical. Not to visit the kids. 

We love America, the old America, the tolerant America. Not that we are leaving because the old America has changed, that melting pot, although it really has changed. And we're not leaving because of antisemitism, although that is not a bad reason to leave if one is a Jew. We get it. The Age of Jewish Enlightenment/tolerance is over. Hate has been in the air for decades and it reigns.

We'll be flying El Al, perhaps the only airline flying to Israel, the only armed airline. We leave tonight. 

 

Yes, we know that Iran vows retaliation for the assassination of a beloved leader, read murderer, a plotter and a planner of the destruction of the State of Israel and the annihilation of all Jews. That's the plan for all of us, everywhere, in the Palestinian-Hamas-Arab playbook.  

 

FD reminded me recently that there exists an entire generation of young people who know nothing about September 11, 2001. They weren't born or weren't cognizant of what happened here in New York. The deaths, the collapse of the Towers. This explains at least partly, why they might support the Palestinian people over the Jews. They don't get it that that other team, the one that isn't into Democracy, intends to come for them, too.

 

The culmination of this war is obviously in G-d’s hands, not President Biden's, although we appreciate his support, and it is not in Bini Netanyahu's. G-d seems to have empowered the Jewish people with intellect and talent and most important, a Torah that is true, and a Talmud, a compilation of books that include prophecies indicating that we will be, in the end, victorious. There will be blood, unfortunately, there will be pain and suffering and violations (read the book of Zachariah) but in the end the Jews will prevail. 

 

We believe this. That we belong there not here. This has been a lifelong dream beginning well before a massacre on October 7 that took thousands of Jewish lives and hundreds of hostages, many of whom are unfortunately gone, martyrs. The dream is inextinguishable in the Jewish soul, it is thousands of years old, precedes all pogroms and massacres. It precedes children and women and men young and old, brave soldiers and soon-to-be soldiers. Such cowards, these Palestinian/Hamas (they are one in the same, people, don't believe what you read) hoodlums honestly. Gangsters. Stealing babies. Mutilating babies, women, men. 

 

There are a few psalms, Tehillim, we say daily, psalms that literally mention Hamas by name. Take a look at Psalm 140. I’m not telling Jews anything they don’t know. 

Hamas is a word that means violence. They named themselves VIOLENCE. Wow.

Enough politics, let's talk about me. 

The response from the community to our move? Only heartfelt well wishes, so many of them, so much love, such an incredible atmosphere of hope and even, shall I say, jealousy because in the Jewish community Aliyah, becoming an Israeli citizen, is the goal. It is NOT a better you than me These are sincere people, people who truly wish that they could do this, too, that they could muster the finances (no small task, there's never enough). The decision not to move is also about family obligation. My demographic is a sandwich generation. How does one leave elderly parents, many with serious health problems, or children? HOW DO YOU LEAVE PRECIOUS GRANDCHILDREN? Most do not. 

 

But living in Israel is the ultimate commandment, the most important mitzvah. 

Many, maybe a third of the commandments of the Torah are about what one must do when living in the Holy Land. The land of Israel, let's just say it, not Palestine. Palestine is for Palestinians. Israel is for Yisraelim. Jews. 

 

Rabbi Cohen said it in one of many beautiful vorts (a vort is a short speech to the congregation, good luck with that). He said that many years ago, in line at Ikea, everyone looked up at a TV at the aftermath of an explosion, a bomb set off in Jerusalem, a pe-gu-ah, a terrorist attack in Jerusalem, perhaps on a bus or a packed downtown restaurant —Orthodox Jewish people searching for remains, bones and skin, heads, legs and arms, pieces of human beings, innocent civilians, blown to bits by a bomb.

 

What did Rabbi Cohen hear from the shoppers nearby? WHY WOULD ANYONE EVER WANT TO LIVE THERE?    

 

Well, because this is the land of milk and honey. This is the land that Heaven sent and this lovely land is mine. You land, you look around, and you marvel and don't stop.

It is in our blood, it is in our spirit, and many of us long, literally long for Jerusalem. You can’t buy this feeling, it is in our collective DNA or memory, ask a Jungian.

 

We become citizens of Israel soon after we land on Israeli soil, when an agency, perhaps the Israeli consulate, presents us with ID cards, assuming the office is still staffed. There’s this war going on, you know. 

FD's mother, 99, is coming with us. She is already an Israeli citizen but had to come back to the States for a few years, a terrible loss, my sister-in-law. How does one lose a child?  But now my mother-in-law is ready to come home, and so are we.

 

There isn't a person in the community I haven't hugged goodbye. If I missed you I’m sorry. I've been crying for three weeks, sadness, joy, a compote of emotions. This is crazy-making, and as you all know that's a DSM diagnosis.

 

I’ll post pictures next time.

 

As we say (as you chutzniks, ha ha) say, having not yet subscribed to this modifier of craziness quite yet. Next Year in Jerusalem. 

Come see me.

 

Blessings, 

therapydoc