New Year... new beginnings September 19, 2007 |
I know it's been a while since I last blogged. I just checked and to be honest, I didn't think it had been quite this long!
It's not that I haven't had a lot to say or that my experiences haven't been worthy of recording, but I guess what has begun to happen - and this is not a bad thing - my life is finally settling down. It seems that the months and months (maybe years!!) of frenetic soul-searching, tension and stress about making the big move to Israel are finally behind me.
As I enter my tenth month here in Israel, I can already look back and feel proud of what I have achieved. There is something beautiful about tracking the year and your personal progress against the ancient Hebrew calendar. I arrived at the beginning of Hanukkah. I wrote about the winter wonderland that was Jerusalem. The aroma of fresh, hot jam doughnuts that permeated the streets, the beautiful Hanukkiot that lit up the city streets and crunching snow beneath my feet...
In March came Purim - a festival for the child within all of us. I wrote about the joy of seeing children in the streets of Jerusalem and Tel Aviv dressed up in their fancy-dress best. A month later it was Pesach (Passover) and I made it home just in time from a business trip in New York. To be surrounded by my wonderful relatives here in Israel and my dear friend Elisabeth from my WUJS days made it an extremely special time for me. I remember thinking as I boarded the flight from New York to Israel that this was the first time I was flying "home" to Israel from another place. The place I was flying to contained my apartment, and all my (modest) worldly possessions - including my slightly psychotic, but very lovable cat, Sydney.
Hot on the heels of Pesach was the ternary period of Yom HaShoah, Yom HaZikaron and Yom Ha'Atzmaut - a time of great inner reflection, public mourning that turns into public celebration as the sun sets. A uniquely Israeli phenomenon if there ever was one.
Last week we celebrated the beginning of a new year. Rosh Hashanah 5768 (that's 2007-08 to the rest of the world!) It seems like only yesterday that I was in shul at this time back in Sydney, contemplating the year that was and fretting about the year that would be. I remember thinking how the year ahead was a total black hole. I had no idea where I would be in twelve months, what I would be doing, where my life would take me...
Well, הנני here I am. When I walk to work in the morning, I can spy the walls of the ancient walled city of Jerusalem and every morning they never cease to fill me with wonder and awe.
I love to come at night to my little apartment and my cat who rolls around the floor in sheer delight that I am home.
This new year has also brought with it the promise of love. A wonderful man has come into my life and we both think it could only have been divine intervention that brought us together.
So the year ahead looks good. In fact, it looks wonderful.
To all my friends, I want to wish you shana tova u'mtuka (a sweet New Year) and may we all be inscribed for a good year full of health, joy and blessings.