This time of year always makes me feel pretty vulnerable.
Sitting (although I seem to remember the standing bits more) in shul on Yom Kippur I struggle with myself internally every year and say to myself, I will get into the whole davening (praying) side of things. I will read the words in the machzor and read the Haftorah and finally THIS year I will gain some G-dly insight into things that I never saw before. Finally this year I will be swept away by some spiritual passion and deep meditative spirituality that by the end of it all will make me feel satisfied that my personal sealing of the year ahead is air-tight.

Except that’s not generally how things seem to work for me. Instead this is the reality. Here is a glimpse into the frightening thing that is my brain:

1. I woke up in the night with a coughing fit and had to have a sip of water from the sink in my bathroom. Have I just ruined my fast?

2. I am in shul and suddenly I find myself creating a to-do list for work the next week (bad, bad bad!).

3. I peer over the balcony and spy the cute guy I met recently. He smiles at me and my heart skips a beat and… crap… back to the praying woman!

4. How many pages until I can sit down again?

5. How many hours until I can eat and drink again?

Maybe to some readers I am sounding too flippant and maybe to other readers I sound like I am being too harsh on myself. After all Yom Kippur is a time of self-reflection and I can’t deny that I spend many, many hours contemplating on my year that has been and the big black hole that seems to be the year ahead.

I don’t remember a year that has flown by at such a frightening pace. I seem to have spent most of the year wishing it was the end of the year. When I decided I wanted to move back to Israel, I just wanted the year to end and for me to “be there already!” Now it is almost the end of the year and it seems reality has finally caught up with me. In some ways it seems like a lifetime ago that I worked out when I would need to give notice on my apartment. It seemed like a million years ago when I made my mental list of what I would ship to Israel and what I would sell.

Well. That million years ago is now today. I have to give notice on my apartment in a week and I have to start seriously sorting my stuff (and myself!) out. I think this realization hit me at work the other day and it’s a wonderful thing that I have such caring and supportive colleagues and friends there. I needed to vent big time, and have a teeny bit of a cry, but hey, that’s ok. I am only human.

Sometimes I feel like my life is on constant repeat – playing out the same scenarios again and again. I am reminded of something I wrote exactly three years ago – almost to the day.

“All this moving about is making me tired. Making me feel old. I wish I could be like other people. Happy in one job. Happy with one person. Happy to live in one place. Happy just… well... being.

Why do I need to make my life so complicated? It’s like I have this genetic pre-disposition to upset my internal applecart. Just when things were getting settled, bam! There go them apples…”


And here I am again, three years on, about to do it all over again. I am sure that every time I uproot myself, I tell myself it will be the last time. The move to end all moves, so to speak. But so far I don’t have the best track record. The joke about being the “typical wandering Jew” is wearing pretty thin to be honest. I wear the number of cities, countries that I have lived in like some badge of honour.

I’ll tell you what I prayed for in shul at Yom Kippur this year. (I don’t think it is like sharing the wish you made over your birthday candles – I am pretty sure this doesn’t negate my prayer!) I prayed for peace. My inner peace. I prayed that the year ahead will finally allow my feet to stop moving faster than my head and my heart.

I am still not a hundred percent sure exactly what it is I am going halfway round the world to find, but I sure as hell hope I recognise it when I get there.

Shana tova everyone.