Living in Israel

It's not the fact that I still can't even pick up a newspaper here or follow the TV news without the photos (c'mon lets be honest!), it's more those little daily events that curl my lips into a chuckle when thinking of my obvious incompetence.

But rather than seeing that negatively, I'd prefer to term it a "humbling experience."  I'm meant to be leaving my apartment in a few weeks time, Baruch Hashem to live with a pool table…oh I mean with my fiancé (who'll then G-d-willing be my husband) and I'm trying to find a mover.  I got a phone number of a reliable one from a friend (who told me he doesn't have a cell phone but you leave a message on his landline and he calls you back; "he'll probably," she added somewhat matter-of-factly "bless your new home too when he drops off your stuff" as if she was telling me he'd give me a receipt for using his service).

I set out to call said-guy Shmulik (what else would he be called?) and tried to sound as un-Anglo as possible (fearful of all those if-they-know-you're-not Israeli-they'll-screw-you types).  "Shalom, medaberet [rolling the resh] Emma; kibalti et mispar telephone shelcha [quickly remembering male-female thingy]…" going well until…"ratziti leda'at [I wanted to know, still okay] im ata yachol lazuz oti"….if you could… move me…? Well, correct me if I'm wrong but I was always led to believe that was to be Daniel – future husband's – job… Like I said, a humbling experience.

Even more humbling because I'm still not sure what I should have said, i.e. the correct use of language.  Still!  Great.  34-years old; 2 degrees from UK universities; quick off the mark in so many things and end up asking Shlomi (probably Shmulik's brother; c'mon they're all having a giggle at us!) in the shuk a few weeks ago, "yesh lecha sprinkles?" Can you imagine being in a shop in England and asking "do you sell cadorim?" They'd probably ignore you; in New York though at least one staff member would know what you're talking about, push away other customers in the shop to give you a hug, and thereafter ask you if you want to join him for the best humus in town.

But I digress…So then why not live in New York?  Do we really need these lessons to humble us?  Yes.  In a world in which we're so caught up in being right and having all the answers and being convinced – each one of us – of possessing absolute truth, we need to take, nay grab on to, any opportunity to be humbled.

And Baruch Hashem in a place where you take your wedding invitation – the one of Pooh and Piglet you designed with such pride and joy – and are asked by Yossi (Shlomi and Shmulik's father no doubt) "Beseder; zeh chatul v'jook?" (is that a cat and a cockroach?), you can turn round, smile at your fiancé and schep nachas that when you turn to Mizrach to daven the next morning, you can probably actually see the kotel in your midst.

That's why we came and that's why we'll stay; to be humbled; to remember who we are and why we were put on this earth; to understand that there is something greater and higher than me as an individual and us as a couple (Hakadosh Baruch Hu) and that the spirit that will never die in Israel, nestling among the Shechina we hope we're enveloping, that spirit amongst Jews can never, ever be replicated in any other country.

Thank You Hashem for bringing me home.

Emma