Please stow your tray tables and bring your seats to an upright position

“Welcome to Altanta’s Hartsfield Jackson Airport, the local time is 5:37 am”. With those words I am thrown back into reality, our trip is really over. I cling to the last couple announcements in Hebrew, knowing it will be a long time before I hear it again. I have no idea ½ of what is being said, but I want the flight attendant to keep talking anyway. Yosi was right, it IS harder leaving than staying!

Israel is so hard to explain to those who have never been there, whose only view is through CNN or the Washington Post. There is an energy in Israel that we don’t have here in the US, an electricity that comes with not only truly appreciating where you live, but fearing for its existence. Even on our worst days post 9/11 I don’t think any of us considered, even for a second, a world where the US didn’t exist, it is impossible. But for Israelis that is a real unspoken possibility they keep tucked away in their heads and hearts. The existence of Israel is not something they, or any of us, can take for granted.

Don’t get me wrong Israel is far from perfect. My taxicab driver said it best on the way to the airport as he was sharing his dreams of living in America, “Its hard living with a bunch of Jews”. And he is right, we ARE many of our stereotypes…we are loud, passionate, hard headed and opinionated. But we make that work. That passion and tenacity is what has sustained us through many hardships and it is what keeps us all committed to the state of Israel, to the dream of a homeland, to our belief that someday peace will come. Being a part of that energy is not something you easily want to let go of.

I have a wonderful life here in America, great friends, the job of a lifetime. I have a great life and I should be excited to jump back into it, but I feel drained, like a life force that has driven me the last few days is gone. I am not ready to make the jump back across that divide from the sacred to the secular, from the exceptional to the mundane.

Since arriving home this morning multiple people have said, I am glad you made it back in one piece. I have silently laughed each time I have heard it. They don’t realize how wrong they are. Yes I am home safe and intact…but a large piece of my heart is missing, I left it behind in Eretz Israel!!