We had to leave our apartment in England for a few months, and instead of moving temporarily to the next street or next block over, we decided to do something we’d long wanted to — go to Israel, live in Israel, see if it was something we could do longer term, maybe forever.
Our flight was at the beginning of the winter zeman and spirits were high; people who’d been stuck in the UK due to Covid regulations, yeshivah bochurim who were finally going back, and us with all the worldly possessions we’d need for the next who-knew-how-long. Everyone was masked, bogged down with paperwork, but when we touched down in Ben Gurion you could feel the joy in the clammy air of the plane, and I was clapping with the loudest of them — holding my daughter’s hand, heart in my shoes.
It’s late noon when the taxi drops us and our luggage off on a noisy, dusty street, outside a mammoth apartment building. We locate the apartment, open the windows, and when I step out onto the porch, the sun is at eye level. We stare at each other, the sun and I, until slowly she slips away over the horizon and everything is orange-yellow-pink and she takes my heart with her. And the next evening she does it again.
When I’m not drawn to the porch, we’re trying to get our bearings, unpack our stuff into this apartment we’ve sub-rented, get a pantry’s worth of groceries, settle our daughter in gan, go to the Kosel.
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