8 weeks to aliyah – When are you moving to Israel?

I am convinced that Pearl did not REALLY send me here this week to get a job and get the house repairs started. Don’t get me wrong – I have made pretty good strides in both those areas. I have arranged 4 job “meetings”- I would not necessarily call them all “interviews” but they were all very job oriented and productive. And I have overseen the start of the shiputzim (repairs) which have taken off somewhat haltingly, but are still moving along.

Despite all that, I think that she really sent me these thousands of miles at a cost that we can hardly afford in order to clean the oven.

Allow me to digress a moment. I have a good friend (let’s call him “Yitzchak”) who moved here several years ago, who loves living here, but whenever he hears of anyone traveling here from the States, he asks that they bring something back here for him if possible. It is usually not a problem and they tend to not be too big items, but you have to wonder why, after all of these years, he still needs Listerine and cannot adapt to the local mouthwash (Ok, you know who you are now). I cannot imagine that he could find a single dentist here who would say “Yitzchak, there is only one thing that will save your gums now – good ole USA Listerine”. The last time that he asked me to bring back something I asked him when he plans to actually move to Israel.

So when I went to the Rami Levi to buy a few household items, although they had Pledge and Easy Off, I was determined to put my money where my mouth is and get the Israeli brands. Well, as anyone can tell you, things do not work here in Israel quite the way that they do in the States, (if they work at all).  The furniture polish smelled like Lemony Fresh WD-40 and I am convinced that the oven cleaner is a placebo. The only thing that it managed to dissolve is the skin on my fingers.

When we move to Israel, we are changing so much in our lives. We are disposing of a lifetime of items that we have grown comfortable with, leaving our 110 lives behind and replacing them with a 220 existence that we are unfamiliar with. As scary as that sounds, and it is scary, it is good too. Just the choice to move here itself is part of the process of deciding that you want to make a major change in your life, to make a major stride forward in one very important mitzvah.

So, if you need to retain a few of those comfy items that you could not possibly think of living without, then so be it. Stick with the Listerine or get that $100 transformer for that $50 toaster oven because it browns the toast so nicely on both sides at once. But you should also try to learn to eat vegetables with your breakfast.