Category: Letting Go

Kibbutz, Learning Hebrew, Letting Go, Living in Community, Parenting

Yin yang

Jen

It’s almost 6 months since we moved to Israel…and I’ll soon compose a contemplative look back at our transition to life here. But in the meantime, I’m doing eight loads of laundry in a crappy stackable washer/dryer set that’s shoved in too tight into our bathroom and it got me wondering…how is my life easier and harder compared to my life in the NJ suburbs?

I recently discovered this blog post at BrainPickings.org in which they feature a film of people discussing their “perfect city.” I loved watching what people had to say about their ideal community, and then thinking about my own answer, particularly since I have been so immersed in and focused on intentional community since we moved here.

The answer for me, if I’m offering the simple one, is “my ideal community would make my life feel easy.” Why? Because I find that the “easier” my life feels, the easier it is for me to give and receive. To love and be loved. To enjoy life. To live in the present. To smile. To breathe.

Why “feel” easy? Because, as you must know, there is no easy and hard. There’s only what you feel is easy and what you interpret as hard.

Now, of course, living in (or participating in)  intentional community isn’t always easy. Like life, living in a small, intentional community is give and take; sweet and sour; hot and cold; easy and hard. It’s our job to be mindful of the balance, no? 

Much of what makes my life feel easier here has to do with living in intentional community. I’m very present to that fact, and thankful for it, because it really counterbalances most of what makes my life seem harder here:

  • Bugs
  • Parasitic bugs that like to live in your hair
  • Critters
  • Poisonous critters
  • Critters that hang out on your ceiling while you’re sleeping
  • Critters that hang out on your porch waiting to bite you
  • Dirt
  • Dirt that somehow ends up in your dryer, despite going through a wash cycle
  • Dirt that won’t come out of your laundry…ever
  • Dust
  • Dust on your window screen, on your floors, car windows
  • Cleaning dust on a tri-weekly basis
  • Being far away from family and friends
  • Being far away from family and friends, and trying to find a good time to Skype with a 7-hour time difference
  • Food
  • Food-centric society
  • Food-centric society that loves the foods my kids are allergic to
  • Food-centric society that isn’t necessarily mindful about how said food leads to rotten teeth, poor behavior, and childhood obesity
  • Crappy appliances
  • Foreign germs
  • Language barriers
  • Bureacracy
  • Crazy drivers
  • And, in a nutshell, a society that cares little for clear order, rules, organization, structure, or advance notice

When I get aggravated about, annoyed with, or frustrated by the things that seem to make my life harder here, I try to remind myself of what makes my life feel easier:

  • Intentional community: Neighbors that want to get to know me, and do
  • Family-friendly community (and by community, I mean both specifically the “yishuv” of Hannaton, and Israeli society)
  • The sharing, caring, and intimacy that comes with living in small community
  • Open space
  • Open space filled with children my children’s ages
  • Mild weather
  • The beach
  • Less time in the car (walking the kids to preschool, the bus stop, etc.)
  • Family nearby
  • Shabbat
  • Shabbat dinners at my house (where your kids to entertain mine)
  • Shabbat dinners at your house (where my kids eat your food and you clean up after them)
  • English-speaking co-workers
  • English-speaking neighbors
  • Hebrew-speaking neighbors that are tolerant of my “Heeblish”
  • Minimalistic lifestyle

  • Yoga on my neighbbor’s rooftop

  • Letting go…

The list is much longer than this, I am sure. And could get a lot more detailed and specific. And perhaps it will…

I’d love to hear your thoughts on your “ideal community.” What about where you live makes your life easy or hard? If you could live anywhere, would you live where you do? And if not, where would you live?

Learning Hebrew, Letting Go

Q2 Progress Report

Jen

Now that I am officially in my second quarter of my first calendar year making Aliyah, I imagine it’s time for an assessment; a performance reviews of sorts, particularly as it pertains to my acqusition of Hebrew.

Conversationally, I’m proud to say, there has been a clear improvement.

While I am nowhere near capable of carrying on an age-appropriate two-way conversation with an able-bodied Israeli adult, I can certainly carry on a two-way conversation with an able-bodied Israeli dog.

“Lech!” I say to the unleashed dogs that poop on my front lawn. They understand me, I know they do, but they don’t care. They bark back at me as if to say, “Go ahead. Make me!”

I’d say that’s progress.

And my comprehension? Getting there. Every morning during the drive to my new job, I listen to the news on Galgalatz radio. I am pleased to say that while I don’t understand exactly what they’re saying, I understand enough to know the difference between when the newscaster is talking politics and when he’s reviewing culture or the economy. “Blah Blah Blah…Hezbollah.” Versus “Blah blah blah…William and Kate” or “Blah blah blah…dollar l’shekel.”

In fact, I have an easier time understanding the average Israeli reporter than I do the average Israeli neighbor of mine. This is in large part due to my Hebrew professor at The George Washington University, Yael Moses, who spent a whole semester focusing on “words they use in the news.” Subsequently, I have the strange and irreversible habit of using newsroom words in conversations with friends and colleagues. Words like emesh for “last night” and phrases like “af al pi.” I understand now why people have been taking me so seriously here. I speak like a square. They’re waiting for me to spit out statistics or weather patterns or other important data.

On a social level, I am breaking barriers, or trying to at least. The other day, I took a stab at sarcasm in Hebrew with my friend Talia. However, sarcasm is not as effective, I find, when you have to speak slowly enough to conjugate verbs. It’s also significantly less funny when you screw up your friend’s gender.

The biggest shift in my Hebrew is certainly my willingness to speak it. The first few weeks I lived here, I wouldn’t open up my mouth at all. Not because I didn’t have enough Hebrew to speak, but because I was convinced whatever I would say would be wrong. I’d draft a strategic plan for every in-person meeting where Hebrew might be required and script every dialogue in my head. I haven’t given that up completely. But I have given up the need to be right.

Now, I find myself just spitting Hebrew out. Not thinking so much before I talk; which is a habit that I perfected in English. There are certain words — the ones I knew confidentally before moving here — that come out of my mouth without first being translated in my busy brain.

There are still many others that don’t. Sometimes I find myself asking a question when I should be making a statement: As in, “Ani rotzah lasim bazal b’salat?” (“I want to put onion in the salad?”) And, my husband will look at me and say, “I don’t know, do you?” My question is not about the onions or my desire to put them in the salad. It’s about the verb. Did I use the right one?

What everyone here has said to me from Day One is true. L’at, l’at. Slowly, slowly. Slowly, my Hebrew is getting better. Slowly, I am becoming less fearful and taking more initiative. Whether it’s ordering from a menu, instead of asking my husband to do it for me. Or reading Hebrew emails from my new colleagues (with the help of Google Translate). Slowly, I’m doing what I have to do.

Step out of my comfort zone. Open my mouth. And speak.

Kibbutz, Learning Hebrew, Letting Go, Making Friends, Parenting, Work

Kadima!

Jen

Spring is often used as a metaphor for rebirth. Combine this with the Jewish tradition of cleaning house before Passover and you’ve got yourself a good season for change here in Israel.

And so it is for our family.  Changes abound that are already impacting our immigrant experience…and more so mine than anyone else’s.

I blogged recently (in my regular Patch.com column, “That Mindful Mama”) about our family’s “team trade.” More specifically, how I recently accepted a full-time position as a marcom specialist for a hi-tech incubator here in Israel, and will be leaving my position of the last five years: part-time primary caretaker and work-at-home freelancer. In addition, my husband will consult part-time (he’s a grant-writer and fundraiser, work that may be done from home), but will take over responsibility of caring for our kids and maintaining our home needs. 

This is a huge shift for us as a family, and for me as a new olah.

First of all, it means I need to leave my bubble. My safe little kibbutz cocoon. It means I need to get in my new car, figure out the different mechanisms (like how to work the windshield wipers), and brave Israel’s roads. Worse than navigating the hilly, foggy roads in the morning is navigating psychotic Israeli drivers who are either constantly riding up my rear or trying to run me off the road as they pass me.

Most of all, getting a job means I need to interact with a lot more people who might want to speak Hebrew with me. However, I have a feeling, that just like an enema, this decision might make me momentarily uncomfortable, but is likely exactly what I need to get things moving in the right direction.

My new job is at a mainly English-speaking company with many Anglos on staff. It’s also primarily an English-speaking position.  While a high level of Hebrew is not required for the position, the office is not a Hebrew-free zone. Mostly everyone except for me speaks a fluent Hebrew and when an Israeli is in the conversation, the language quickly converts over to Hebrew. Therefore, I’m required to listen and understand or, at the very least, nod as if I do.

Most of my new colleagues have been told that my Hebrew is still “a work in progress,” but that hasn’t kept all of them from trying. Which they should and which I reluctantly encourage. Reluctantly because it usually leads to some level of humiliation and discomfort for me.

At least twice during my first week here, I thought someone was speaking to me — they were looking straight at me, after all– but it turned out they weren’t.  I’ve also been spoken to without realizing it was me who was being spoken to. In those cases, I learned, a smile and nod only get you so far. If the statement ends in a period, there’s a 50-50 chance I can get away with a simple smile. If the statement ends with a question mark, however, I might be in trouble. “Ken” or “lo” only get you so far in the workplace.

Thankfully, I haven’t yet been made fun of or chided for my lack of Hebrew. So far, most people here seem to think my broken Hebrew is cute and endearing. However, I am fully aware the “olah hadasha” tag will only work its magic for so long.

The big question is: How long?

When are you no longer considered an new immigrant? When do you make the transition over to just plain old immigrant? Or “olah vatika?” (“Seasoned oleh”) How is my status measured? In “daylight, in sunsets, in midnights, in cups of coffee?” Is it when the sal klita ends? When my kids are fluent in Hebrew? When I make five Israeli friends?

I certainly hope getting a full-time job doesn’t prevent me from milking this status for as long as I can.

I need all the help…and breaks…I can get.

(This was previously published as part of my blog, “Israeli in Progress,” on The Jerusalem Post.)

Letting Go, Living in Community, Making Friends

This is Israel

Jen

This was originally posted on my blog “Israeli in Progress” on The Jerusalem Post Blog Central.

By Jen Maidenberg

“This is Israel.”
 
It started off as a joke between me and my husband’s first cousin, Jami (who is also a close friend of mine). Jami and I were lovingly making fun of my mother-in-law (also Jami’s aunt) whom, since retiring to Israel two years ago, would often say the phrase during a Skype session with one of us.
 
For instance, my mother-in-law would reach over to her kitchen counter, grab a grapefruit, and say, “See this grapefruit? It’s from my tree. Just outside in the yard. I picked it myself.” Sometimes she would peel a piece, too, just for effect and say, “This is Israel!” READ MORE…

Education, Food, Kibbutz, Learning Hebrew, Letting Go, Living in Community, Love, Making Friends, Middle East Conflict, Parenting, Politics, Religion, Work

Moving

Jen

Don’t worry.

We’re not moving anywhere.

But this blog is.

I’m happy to announce that The Jerusalem Post invited me over to blog about my Aliyah experience on The Jerusalem Post Blog Central. You can find my new blog there, “Israeli in Progress,” on the Blog home page in the Aliyah category.

Hope to see you join the conversation over there. And if you like what you read, please share with your friends on Facebook, Twitter, or via email.

Kibbutz, Letting Go

Stop Bugging Me

Jen

I am not a clean freak. Nor am I a slob. I’m somewhere in the middle — which makes kibbutz life tolerable, particularly in the rainy season.

When I was growing up, we were a no shoes in the house, no food on the couch type of family. I had to tidy my room for the cleaning lady (a point of contention for most upper middle class teenagers), but at least I was allowed through the living room, unless there were fresh vacuum lines on the carpet.

In my house in Israel, there are no carpets, just a few rugs to keep our feet from getting dangerously cold. (Apparently, if you don’t wear slippers across the cold tile floor here, you’ll either catch pneumonia, go into shock or turn into stone.)  It’s actually better that we don’t have carpets because it makes it a lot easier to spot the bugs.

I have to give myself a great big pat on the back for the tolerance I’ve shown the crickets and spiders.  I’ve even turned my head at the garden slugs that make their way to the front porch every morning and the centipedes that sneak under the front door in the middle of the night. I’ve only smooshed about half of them…the rest I’ve swept out the sliding glass door with my big Wicked Witch of the West size broom. I’d say that’s pretty compassionate.

But now we have ants. They appeared out of nowhere at the base of one of our bathrooms sinks; in the guest bathroom, which is much better than the master bathroom because I can ignore the problem until the next time we have guests, at which point I will feign shock and utter “What? Ants? I had no idea!”

In New Jersey, where I lived most of my life before Israel, if you have a bug problem you call Jerry the Exterminator. Not me, of course, because I know that pesticides kill you or give you cancer, whichever one comes first. I only call Jerry for the mice.

According to my friend Shira, who has lived here longer than I have, “Every season has its share of critters.” This includes mice, who don’t discriminate based on whether you rent or own your home.  And snakes, which apparently stick to the backyard. Somehow, I thought with all the rogue cats that hang out around here, I wouldn’t have to worry about rodents.  Not so. Could have something to do with folks like my mother-in-law who feed the cats fancy scraps. Who wants to prey on mice and snakes when you can have leftover Schnitzel?

The lice I expected…not because Israelis are dirty or anything, but because Gan is gross. It’s heaven for my kids, don’t get me wrong. What four year old wouldn’t love digging through the mud to find a cellphone from 1998 or snuggling up with a hand-me-down Raggedy Ann doll that looks like it made its way over here on The Exodus? It’s just that old pillows and stuffed animals are lice paradise, so having my kids in Gan pretty much guarantees I’m going to spend the summer months scratching my head off.

I have a theory, though, which I am unwillingly testing out and hope is true.

I think one is genetically predisposed to get lice the same way one is predisposed to near-sightedness or freckles. According to my theory, you are either a family that gets lice or you don’t. It’s something in your hormones or pheromones. It has nothing to do with which shampoo you use or how often you bathe.

So far, my whole life I’ve never had lice.  No matter how many times I’ve anxiously scratched away at little ghost nits in my hair as the school nurse ran her plastic comb through it, I’ve had nary a one. Let me make this perfectly clear: I feel very, very lucky about this, and I’m very scared to say it out loud — ptoo ptoo ptoo kenahora. I have enough conditions and illnesses to manage in my household. That last thing I need to be obsessing over is lice.

Unfortunately, my husband can’t make the same claim I can. He did have lice once as a kid, and so therefore I have to wonder what’s in store for my kids. Did I hand them down the lice-free genes? Is there such a thing? All I know is that having two kids in Gan will seriously put my theory to the test.

The good news is that the influx of little critters has desensitized my previously bug-aphobic kids. Now instead of screaming when they see a worm, they look around for a sharp object to slice it in half — just like any good kibbutz kid should.

Food, Kibbutz, Letting Go

Supersize It

Jen

Our Rabbi (who is also our friend) and her family are coming to Israel in a few weeks on a synagogue-organized trip, with a special stop to our kibbutz. We’re really excited to see them, but their visit presents a moral and ethical dilemma:

How inappropriate is it to ask them to devote an entire suitcase to items we need from the States? And is it even more inappropriate to ask them to forgo an item of luggage so they can instead bring us an IKEA Expedit bookshelf?

I’ve only lived here for six weeks and already I completely understand with great compassion why our Israeli relatives and friends always asked us to buy shoes on Amazon.com or toys from Amazing Savings or tupperware from the Dollar Store to pack in our bags and schlep over here for them. For years, the reason eluded me. Why on earth would my father-in-law need coffee from the States? Is he that picky? Why did our little cousins get so excited by a cruddy little Fisher Price wind-up toy we spent 75 cents on?

Why? Because you have to be an Israeli millionaire before you can afford quality tupperware in this country. You need to be among the upper elite before you can buy a decent gift at Toys RUS. And home goods or kitchen supplies? Ha! What you pay here for a ripoff of a Made in China ripoff is the same as what you’d pay in Williams Sonoma for the Chef Michael Voltaggio brand in the States.

I am not kidding. Ask my mother-in-law. We were joking about it last night, but really not. In fact, we were not joking so hard we were crying real tears.

When she goes back to the States to visit, she brings an extra suitcase. On the last day of her trip, she goes to Costco and fills up that suitcase with everything from Kirkland brand white albacore tuna (you can only get Chunk Light here!) to Swiffer refills to Chinet paper plates.

But, then you return to Israel, and you can’t bring yourself to actually use the Chinet! It is like fine china — reserved for dignitaries and special Shabbat guests only.  I mean, what happens when it’s all gone and you have to go back to using the flimsy plastic plates they sell here?

It’s not like you can ask a friend visiting from the States to bring you over some Chinet.  When a friend asks you if you want anything from “back home,” she expects a “Please bring me a movie-sized bag of M and Ms” or a “Yes, I’d really love the new Michael Chabon book.” Your friend is not expecting you to politely beg her to bring you paper plates in bulk.

When my mother-in-law saw me unpack a bulk-sized Bounty paper towels from one of my kitchen boxes a few weeks ago, she audibly gasped. “Zvi, did you see? Bounty…,” she said longingly. I laughed at the time, but after one trip to SuperPharm, where I bought a pack of the paper towels you get around here, I told my husband, “Hide the Bounty! You are forbidden to use the Bounty for anything less than vomit! Do you understand me?!?”

I think about all the items we liquidated at our weekend-long garage sale right before we moved. Or, the leftover items that were donated to charity. Lord, how I wish I had my rusty old teapot (I can’t seem to find anything but an electric kettle here) or my kids’ less-desired Playmobil (I could have resold it here for a gajillion shekels! Or at least re-gifted it to my kids’ classmates at birthday parties.)

Today we re-bought gardening tools we didn’t realize we’d ever need in Israel.  With the rains over the last few weeks, our backyard has grown so tall, we’ve lost our two-year old. I don’t understand. Never, on any of my trips to Israel, have I ever seen a blade of green grass. I’ve seen sand. I’ve seen dry wisps of what may have once been grass. But never green grass or yards. Whomever would have thought we’d actually get enough of the green stuff to require a weed wacker? And yet, today we needed to buy a new one at Home Center. Don’t ask me what it cost — I had to barter one of my kidneys.

I’m a nice girl. I’ll never ask you to pack me a case of Rice Protein powder from Whole Foods or a family pack of Charmin toilet paper. But if you happen to have a little extra room to spare in your suitcase…consider going up to your attic and rifling through your “donate to charity” pile.  If you see an old teapot or some extra under-the-bed plastic containers, we’ll take ’em.

If not, I’ll gladly accept the remaining pack of travel sized Kleenex you didn’t use on the plane. Or the M-n-Ms.

Letting Go, Living in Community, Making Friends

Camp Food

Jen

Earlier this week, we joined 10 or so other families in the Chader Ochel* on the kibbutz for a potluck communal dinner.  I got really excited when the invitation arrived in my inbox; for one, I understood the Hebrew flyer almost in its entirety without the assistance of my part-time translator (who also acts as my husband.) But also,  a communal dinner in the Chader Ochel reeked of summer camp, and this, my friends, is why I moved to a kibbutz.

When I think back to the most dramatic, intense, inspiring moments of my childhood, I’m transported back to camp. I split my adolescence between two overnight camps: Camp Wohelo, an all-girls camp in the Blue Ridge mountains of Pennsylvania; and when Wohelo closed, I joined Camp Wekeela, a co-ed camp in Maine. And perhaps it’s the intensity of once having been a part of those camp communities that has me continually seeking to replicate the experience.

I would come home from camp at the end of each summer and instead of hopping off the bus with utter joy at finally being reunited with my parents, I would weep in despair. I remember one summer my parents picked me up at the IKEA by the Plymouth Meeting Mall where the bus dropped us off, and we stopped at Pizza Hut for lunch before getting on the road to Cherry Hill. My parents tried to engage me: Asking me to share tales of my adventures or filling me in on the local gossip. But I just cried into my pan pizza, in between hiccups moaning, “I want to go back. I want to go back.”

The dinner in the Chader Ochel on Wednesday was only vaguely reminiscent of the camp dining hall. While there was plenty of noise and chaos, there were no twenty-year-old Scottish lads delivering big plates of steaming hot schnitzel to my table. Instead, I was doing the waitering, filling up my kids’ plates with homemade pizza and mac and cheese; while said kids ran around like wild maniacs. I have to admit, though, since running around like wild maniacs is a regular evening activity for my children, I’d rather it be in someone else’s noisy dining room than my own. 

I sat across the table from my new friend Anat, who arrived to Hannaton with her family only a few days before we did. Anat was explaining the traditional kibbutz movement to her 10-year-old daughter; particularly the part about the children living together in a house, only seeing their parents a few hours every day. Anat and I both shared with sparkles in our eyes that, as kids, we both thought the idea of living on a kibbutz was cool.

Anat’s daughter wasn’t sold on the idea. She thought that children would want to spend more time with their parents, and she might be right. There is an Israeli film (which I have not seen) called “The Children’s House and the Kibbutz” which supposedly emphasizes the “emotionally deficient childhood that [kibbutz members] experienced in the children’s house of their kibbutz.”

However, thanks to sleepaway camp and a library filled with young adult books set in boarding school, I’ve always had the impression that living with other children far away from your parents was the best way to live. In my mind, only in dormitory-style rooms or in the woods behind said dormitory style room did fun and exciting things happen.

And, perhaps, I still retain that notion today. Is it possible that my choice to live on a kibbutz is partly inspired by my unfulfilled dream of year-round summer camp?

Yes.

There are a lot of similarities, as I can tell so far. Seeing and interacting with the same people day-to-day; moving from activity to activity in groups; retreating to the quiet solitute of your cabin when you need some down time.

Making friends on a kibbutz is camp style, too. I almost feel like the camper who arrives for the second four-week session super excited to become part of what looks like an awesome scene, but hesitant to integrate herself into the groups and cliques that already organically formed earlier in the summer. My kids, thrust into school and Gan without a choice, are getting over the shy hump a lot faster than their parents. But kids have a lot less relationship baggage to keep them from sharing of themselves authentically and without hesitation, don’t they? 

Have no fear. Just as it’s impossible for me to be late to a party no matter how hard I try, I know that I won’t be able to maintain this level of shyness for much longer. It’s not in my nature.

My nature is to play, to laugh, and to make others laugh: And sooner or later I will need to leave the safe confines of “Ani lo m’daberet Ivrit” to get a much-needed fix.

==

GLOSSARY
Chader Ochel = Dining Hall
Ani lo m’daberet Ivrit = I don’t speak Hebrew

Letting Go, Living in Community, Love, Parenting

Limbo

Jen

I still don’t feel like I live in Israel.

This is probably because I don’t.

Technically, I do, of course. I am now an official citizen of the State of Israel. I have a new cellphone number and an address here.  I have a Teudat Zehut — and therefore, an Israeli identity. And by mid-week, all three of my kids will hopefully officially be in school.

I live here. But I am still in limbo.

Our shipment with all of our furniture, most of our clothes, our new Israeli small and large appliances, and all the material possessions that make it possible for me to live at peace with my children (read “Legos” and “dollhouse”) are still, supposedly, stuck in the port of Haifa.

Three days after we landed at Ben Gurion, our container arrived at the port. Unfortunately, that same day was the start of a week-long strike of the port workers. This is Israel.

The strike was finished a week ago, but we are still without our shipment, and also without any word of where it is or when it might arrive. Our rented home on Hannaton sits empty. We remain living out of duffel bags on the second floor of my very generous in-laws’ home in Kfar Hittim, a moshav overlooking Tiberias. I am fully aware that the situation could be much, much worse. We could be living in an Absorption Center, as many immigrants do. I could be living in a one-room apartment with not just three, but six children. I could be pregnant.

Things could definitely be worse.

And, things could be better. Right now.

Meaning, I could get over wanting this phase to be over.

I am a believer in the Law of Attraction. Say what you will, but it’s worked for me. Using a strong sense of focus and clearing my mind of negative thoughts, I somehow have been able to manifest anything from incredibly close parking spots to a huge bonus for my husband. Ask my family members about my parking luck…it’s not luck, my friends, it’s the power of intention.

So why isn’t the Law of Attraction working now?

How am I unable to attract a 40 foot container attached to a tractor trailor to my little red house on Hannaton?

I posed this question to my possibility-creating Facebook friends. One said: “Perhaps focus on the feeling you would feel once the shipment arrives. Just keep on thinking those feelings.” Another said, “If you can accept this moment just the way it is, everything gets easier- whether it all shows up or not. You do what you can and then relax and trust that it will work out in the best way possible.” (A lot of people “liked” that response.)

And, yet another said, “[Practicing the Law of Attraction] is harder than it sounds. That’s why they call it practice.”

Indeed.

Can I accept this moment just as it is?

Can I enjoy the chaos, the uncertainty, the cramped quarters, the unfamiliar tastes, smells, and sounds?

Can I be with the crying and the pushing and the acting out of my children? Accept that they too are in limbo?

Lord knows I’ve been trying.

But I know that I haven’t been trying hard enough.

I know what I am capable of accomplishing. Who I am capable of being…for myself and for my children.

I haven’t been her as of late.

When my friend Rita challenges me to accept this moment just as it is, what I know she’s saying is: “Choose it.”

Once I choose the balagan that is my life right now, I will suddenly have all I want. I won’t have to resist it any longer.

And even those who don’t practice Law of Attraction know what happens when you resist.

It persists.

So, what happens when I let go? When I accept? When I choose?

Anything and everything.

Limbo disappears.

And suddenly, I am here.

Living.

Letting Go, Love, Making Friends, Work

Follower

Jen

One of the best decisions I made before making Aliyah was the decision to let my husband lead the way.

This was not easy for me. I’m a born supervisor and taskmaster.

I met Avi a little more than ten years ago when I was a “madricha” (counselor) on a JCC association youth program to Israel. Avi was technically my boss; he coordinated the programs and was in charge of hiring the counselors. I think he’d agree that the summer of 2000, when we were both on this program, was the last time he told me what to do.

Since then, I’ve typically been the leader in our little family unit. This is not to say I’m bossy necessarily, though I do have a tendency to nudge. But thanks to an inherited and proprietary blend of obsessiveness, impatience, and a touch of arrogance, I tend to be the person who researches and makes decisions for our family. My husband agrees (I swear he does! Ask him!) that a lot of my proverbial, but not literal pushing and shoving has generally benefitted both him and our kids over the last ten years.

But I wasn’t 100 percent on board with the idea of making Aliyah. Excited about this prospect, yes. But terrified at the potential implications — for me both personally, and professionally. So, I contemplated letting go of the decision entirely. Not because I wasn’t strong enough to make a definitive yes or no decision for myself and the kids. But because I was tired of being the decision maker. I had no practice in “just going along” with a plan of someone else’s design. All of my spiritual gurus and trusted friends advised me that “letting go” was something I might actually embrace, if and when I got better at doing it.

Avi took on the application process through Nefesh B’Nefesh. He was the one who sent requests for all of our needed paperwork to local and national government offices– copies of our birth certificates, our social security cards.  He was the one who organized the “Aliyah” file, keeping careful track of which documents had been completed and mailed, and which ones still needed to be aquired. He looked into communities in the North that might be a good fit for our family.

I remained a little bit aloof and even moreso in denial that this Israel thing was really happening.

When it was time to actually make a real decision, the kind that leads to a plane ticket and a contract with a shipping company, I couldn’t quite bring myself to say yes or no. Yes, would mean leaving my parents, my good friends, my community, and even parts of my business. All relationships I had spent time and energy cultivating over the past few years. No, would mean landing in a new country, learning a new language, and adjusting to new cultural norms and expectations.

It was all too big.  Suddenly, the born leader understood why some people choose to follow.

And it’s not to take the easy way out. It’s to allow someone who loves you to lead.  To fall under the spell of your leader’s vision. To be able to see what he sees for you through his eyes.

During my time of indecision, it was difficult for me to see anything but fear and anxiety. But Avi could see hope. He could see freedom. He could see dreams coming true.

Who wouldn’t want to follow that?

And so yadda yadda yadda….we made Aliyah.