Well, I would be
lying if I said I am ready to come home. Though I am finished being a
sabbatical rabbi and ready to work again, I am not ready to leave Israel. We
have had an incredible year. The year has been filled with adventure, joy,
frustrations, disappointment, learning, and experiencing Israel close-up.
My life has been
basically the life of someone in retirement. I set my own schedule. I learn and
do what I want. I have plenty of time to be alone and be with my family. I have
had very little asked of me from the Congregation (Thank you Temple Emanuel and especially
Rabbi Josh). But I am still not ready to leave Israel.
Every time I am
here I feel very complete. It is not that I feel incomplete in the US but here
I feel entirely whole. I have often said that when I leave Israel a piece of my
soul stays here. And that is why when I return I am entirely whole again. So,
too, that is why I typically don't leave Israel without knowing when I will be
coming back. (March 2013 is my next trip for the next Riding4Reform. Care to
join me?)
So, this week, I
have been doing my "lasts": Walk through the Old City, sabich (pita,
hummus, eggplant, salad, hardboiled egg), boutique beer(s), cappuccino(s),
calls, bike rides...and it is hard to leave.
I struggle with
my return back because as a good friend has analogized: Being in Israel, as a
Jew, is to live on Broadway. And so I am returning to off-Broadway. Lots of
good things happen off-Broadway and I was born off-Broadway and off-Broadway
interacts regularly in many ways with Broadway. But at the end of the day (b'sofo
shel davar as is said in Hebrew), there is only one Broadway and there is
nothing like it. Nothing. As Israeli songwriter Ehud Manor wrote: ein li
eretz acheret. I have no other land. And yet I, as an American Jew, do. Yet
it is simply not the same...nor should it be.
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