Make Yourself at Home

Before Yehuda and Michal Feld’s l’chayim, the young couple excused themselves while their parents hammered out the finances. At that meeting, both sets of parents agreed that since the young couple had their hearts set on starting off in Eretz Yisrael, they’d “let the kids go for six months, maybe up to a year, and then we’ll call them home.”

The Feld newlyweds knew nothing of this arrangement until Michal’s mother mentioned it when she flew to Jerusalem for a kiddush welcoming her first granddaughter. As Yehuda tells it, “My mother-in-law sat us down and said ‘I have to tell you, I’ve been amazed by the solid home you’ve built and your friends and neighbors sharing in your simchah — it’s all  so genuine, I couldn’t have had more nachas than I do, watching you and seeing what you’ve established.’ Then she told us of their little agreement, about giving us six months. Now, two years later, we’re still here in Sanhedria and making it work. Needless to say, no one is planning on ‘calling us home’ anymore — or as the case is now, calling us back to America.”

Moishe and Mati Hoffman saw Dini off at JFK with her newly married husband, amid the usual flurry of hugs, tears, and high hopes for the future. Just a few months later, the Hoffmans noticed how strained their overseas calls with Dini were. They wrote it off to the normal adjustment period, chalking up Dini’s unusual reticence to the time difference and other inconsequentialities. Isn’t shanah rishonah just like that for some couples? By the time the warning bells turned into an all-out siren, Dini was moving back into her parent’s home with two young children. In devastating retrospect, Moishe admits that his ex-son-in-law was “a good guy,” albeit with certain problems which eventually turned him into an abusive, unreasonable husband. “Had we been more vigilant, had he gone for help early on, had she gone for help,” says Moishe, “the outcome might have been different. But she was so far away, and we had no idea what was really going on.”

What makes the experience of starting out married life in Eretz Yisrael so positive and valuable for some, and so devastating for others? What should a young couple and their parents be aware of when making such a life-altering decision?