I would worry about our sons and the drinking parties they have in high schools in Minnesota. I’d be worried about the drugs and the pretty Christian girls they’d want to sleep with and get pregnant. These are things I don’t think twice about here. Any Jewish holidays that we wanted to take off would be an argument with the employer. Getting home early Friday to prepare for the Sabbath? Forget it! The circle of friends we built up here would be gone; the sense of adventure of living in the Middle East instead of some backwater in the Middle West? Gone in a puff of smoke. The friends my sons have would be gone and it is a lot easier to make friends here than in the States. In this country, we are all a family however much we may argue and fight. America is a lot of things, but it is no family.
Finally, and most importantly, my wife and I both feel a sense of purpose living here that neither of us felt in America. We both sense that we are on a mission, though neither of us is always sure of what that mission is. Both of us once called America home. But here, we are home. In our hearts we both know that. The boys know that, too.
So, I’ll budget the shekels as we do the Passover shopping and cleaning. We’ll try not to eat too many matzot as we say our goodbyes to this corner of Jerusalem and try to find a different place to live, hopefully not too far away. Yeah, we look back, but in just a few minutes, all the bad things we fled come washing over us and we remember why we are here; to be free in our own land, the Land of Zion and Jerusalem.
Happy Passover from the City of David, the Eternal Capital of the Jewish People.
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