Bracha?! The woman joined the organization a month ago, and suddenly she’s qualified to lead it?
Ayala rubbed her eyes as she wheeled her suitcase through the JFK terminal. Since making aliyah, she’d flown back about once a year to visit her parents, but her frequent trips notwithstanding, she inevitably had to stop herself from speaking Hebrew to the airport personnel, and felt unsettlingly out of her element as she took in the people, the advertisements on the walls, the atmosphere — a culture shock that only got stronger as the years went by.
“Welcome home,” the passport control official said with a smile as he stamped her American passport. She smiled back, but inside she felt the awe and gratitude that was still there, after 13 years, that she had the zechus to live in Eretz Yisrael.
And then she took back her passport, headed toward the luggage carousel, and the anxiety of the present smacked her in the face once more.
Ma.
What had happened during Ayala’s 12-hour plane ride? Was her mother still in the hospital? Was she still in danger or had her condition stabilized?
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