Come Home

The past almost three weeks has been something I never could have imagined.  Living here, seeing the pain on the face of every single person you come across in your daily life, the agony grew and grew.

And now, they are buried. Three boys gone, three families devastated, an entire country in mourning.

All we wanted was for them to come home.

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There is apparently a phrase "Aliyah snob."  Meaning someone who has made aliyah and then throws it around among non-Olim, acting all superior about how they've "done it" and "you should too."

Well, you can call me what you like but here is my lesson from the past 19 days:  Please, please - come home.

Yes, I only made aliyah because my kids did.  Yes, we came when we, unfortunately, no longer had aging parents to take care of.  Yes, yes, yes.

But do you know what?  

We only realize now that the whole time we were living in Baltimore we could have been living a real life here.  Once we became Israelis, once we begain to live here and got our Israeli IDs and became a part of our homeland in the real sense, we realized that THIS was the life we had always been looking for.  It was here all along and we found every reason in the world not to come here.

So, let me just say this - THIS is the life you are looking for.  It is not "full of meaning" - it IS meaning.  I'm sure I'm not saying this very well, but our lives are so different now - our souls are so different - that I almost feel that if I don't share this I'm not fulfilling some task that I need to do.

So please. Please come home. Come live where you are meant to live, in the way you are meant to live, in the place Hashem gave us to live.