Before Yom Kippur 5780

Before Yom Kippur 5780

Our first Rosh HaShana in Israel has come and gone.  Wow, its unbelievable to think how far this past year has brought us.  Literally.  We’ve been here now just over three months. The initial set-up is done, the kids are finally settled into school and we are settled into our ulpan.  I’ve decided to finish the five month ulpan program which will end in February and start working at the hospital after that, in March. The boys are making friends, going to birthday parties, and meeting up with their friends at the local skate park to ride their scooters.  And coming home with all the scrapes and bruises that you’d expect from active healthy 10yr old boys. 😊 (and yes mom, they’re wearing helmets and knee pads…) The girls are taking a bit longer to adjust but finally are settling into their new school as well. They are on a school field trip to Jerusalem today just for the new olim, so the tour is in English for them.  And yes the thought did occur to me to sneak along on their tour – I would love a look at Jerusalem guided by the locals.  I’ll just have to wait to get the report from them when they get back tonight.

We are making some friends in the American community, also some South American friends (from Brazil and Columbia in particular), and some French from the schools and from our ulpan.  But it takes a while and is so far a bit hard to find our place.  I suppose if I look back to only three months after we had moved to Phoenix we probably weren’t totally settled socially there either.  It just takes time.  We’ll see what the new year brings…

Our shul here is small (there’s a thousand small shuls on every corner it seems), so for the High Holidays its BYOM – Bring Your Own Mahzor.  Well, I didn’t think to pack a mahzor in our 18 duffle bag allotment that we took from Phoenix, so we bought a couple locally. We bought the Koren Mahzor, translation and commentary by Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks, the former Chief Rabbi of the UK.  There’s a separate one for Rosh HaShana and for Yom Kippur.  And I have to say, the introduction he wrote for each one is fantastic.  I’m sure they have these mahzors in the US, they’re pretty widely available, so if you have the chance or if you use one in shul, make sure to the read the introductory essay.  Both of them are extremely insightful and very moving.  Very good reading leading up to the High Holiday season.