Changes and New Blogs

Many things have changed since this blog went silent. While I am not going to get into the details I will say that I will always miss Israel but I will continue to move forward and enjoy all of the gifts that Hashem has given me and to all of us.

Moving forward I will be switch to a different blog, Time to Keep it Simple which can be viewed/read at the following link: http://timetokeepitsimple.blogspot.com/

When the time comes that I decided to write about Aliyah, Israel, and many other topics related to Judaism I will be posting on the blog Back in the JewSA which can be found at http://backinthejewsa.blogspot.com/

I know that many who come across this post will be shocked, some will be disappointed, and a few will be angry. All of these emotions are understandable but please know that the content of this blog is heartfelt, passionate, and, above all, honest.

I wish you all the best that life has to offer and I invite you all to continue to follow me on my journey to see where Hashem takes me.

Thank you all!

Waiting, Weighing, and Working

As our flight date gets closer and closer I keep reminding myself that every little bit that you can do to ease the transition is worth pursuing; any excess baggage you can eliminate will make your flight easier and will increase your flexibility as you get used to your new life.

This simple statement has motivated me to get rid of a lot of household clutter (books, DVDs, clothes, etc.), digitize and shred excess paperwork, pair down collections, and, in general, reevaluate every little thing that takes up space in the house and weighs us down.

However, the biggest thing that has weighed me down is me. With that in mind, now that we are less than two months away, I have set a small goal for myself to work toward… to weigh less than 240 pounds by the time we leave.

This isn’t a huge difference from my current weight of 250 but when compared to the last time we were in Israel this is a massive change.

When we were walking around and exploring Jerusalem on our honeymoon in June 2009 I was doing so while weighing 350 pounds. I was still able to explore and do the things we wanted to do but I wasn’t setting any land speed records.

With so many things changing and so many unknown changes, I know that this will make a huge difference in my ability to adapt to a different lifestyle. I will be able walk everywhere comfortably (or as comfortably as I can in the summer heat) and not dread the walk back.

I am looking forward to exploring without the time constraints that a vacation puts on you and without the burden of 110+ useless pounds. There is enough stress during the Aliyah process without the additional stress on my body of so much excess weight.

Of course, this will also help with the food budget as well!

Terrorism Will NOT Deter Our Aliyah!

It has been a horrifying day. I have been frantically emailing and tweeting to check in with friends to see if they are okay after this morning’s cowardly and unspeakable act of terrorism. 31 people got up today expecting it to be like any other and it was until the bomb exploded. Dozens have been injured, one person was killed, and countless live have been effected (including my own).

My wife and I have been absorbed in the aliyah process for almost a year and, like clockwork, whenever something happens in Israel (and the Middle East in general) we are asked whether we are still planning on moving. Every time, including right now, our answer is a resounding YES! When someone attacks your home you don’t run away.

We understood at the onset of our journey that acts such as those over the past couple of weeks could happen. Do we pray for peace? Of course we do but we cannot stand on the sidelines and wait, we can’t expect others to stand in our place, we can’t say we support our home and our people with all our heart and soul if we are not there. This is our home and we are not going to run away!

I know I am not the only one who feels this way – I am not the first and I am not the last. I know that many people will not understand or agree with these views but they should think about the power that conviction in the face of terrorism can possess. We saw this in the US after 9/11 but these “smaller” events can have a similar impact. Take a couple of minutes to watch the following video and think about how many lives have been changed. Think about how many people have been able to go home thanks to Rabbi Yehoshua Fass and Nefesh B’Nefesh.  

The objectives of these acts of terror are to kill some and frighten, to get rid of, and prevent the rest of us from returning home. Have these events scared me? I would be lying if I said they didn’t. Will they prevent me from making aliyah? NO! Will they get rid of me? NO! I am going home!

 We are one people with one home. No one can take away our faith. No one can take away our home. Acts of terror should bring us together. These events should motivate us to change our lives and appreciate all that Hashem has given us. While these recent events have made me stop and think, they will never deter me from going home! 

I will continue to pray for peace, for the victims and their families, and that everyone will be able to find their way home!

In the Beginning There was Rambling

In this first post I hope to offer a broad strokes background about myself and what I plan on writing about. As the title of my site suggests, it has been a long journey from goy to, future, oleh.

I was raised Presbyterian, shuttled off to Sunday school classes most weeks followed by church services. Just like most kids, I didn’t think about what I was doing, I just didn’t like getting up early on the weekends to sit in a classroom and a pew.

As I entered my teenage years I tried to embrace the faith that I was brought up in. I tried to believe in the things that were being taught. I even briefly turned to Catholicism for answers that eluded me in the Presbyterian Church. Without resolution I abandoned the Bible and explored eastern faiths as well as Native American spiritual belief systems. I began reading and exploring but I was never satisfied enough to practice any of them.

Lost, I took a step back and asked myself a simple question… is there anything from what you were taught growing up that you do believe?

At the time it was a simple assessment… I believe everything in the Bible until the New Testament. Too many things didn’t add up, didn’t sync. I was lost until the day I began writing about the Holocaust.

As odd as that sounds, it was when I began reading the diaries and studying the events around the Holocaust and writing about them that I began to find answers. It was the faith of the people and the deep understanding of who they were that resonated with me and satiated my longing.

It was at this point that I began my Jewish education. I first started reading and exploring in the comfort of my own home (and dorm room) looking for details and explanations to all the things that I felt and questions I had that had gone unanswered for nearly a decade.

I was fortunate at this time to have met my wife who supported my decision to pursue my faith even though she wasn’t as fervent in her views as I was quickly becoming… she was raised Reform while I lean heavily toward the Orthodox side of things. In the end, we met in the middle: Conservadox.

With some basic knowledge and a lot of support (even my Grandmother was all for it) I found a Rabbi to sponsor my conversion and a shul that was willing to take me in, Congregation Or Shalom.

Over the course of 10 months I went to conversion class on Wednesday nights and attended Graduate classes at Rosemont College on Monday, Tuesday, and Thursday night while working during the day. It was a trying schedule but by June of 2008 I had received my MFA as well as gotten snipped, questioned by a bet din, immersed in a mikveh, and cast my lot.

Later in the summer I decided to take a job in Manhattan and moved from the Philadelphia suburbs to a small apartment in the Ocean Parkway section in Brooklyn. That was an experience that not only allowed me to live in a different kind of environment but also expand my Jewish education by simply talking to my observant neighbors and Hasidim on the F train.

In June of 2009, my wife and I were finally married after being engaged for two and a half years. We had a wonderful wedding that, in my completely unbiased opinion, is the best wedding I have ever attended. What followed our wedding had profoundly altered the course of our life. When our plane kissed the holy ground at Ben Gurion International Airport, we were home. It is a feeling that is difficult to articulate. It is much more than returning to the house you grew up in. It is the feeling of being embraced by generations of longing and desire… a fulfillment of our prayerful declaration “Next year in Jerusalem.”

In the most basic terms, the feeling is like returning to the place of every happy place and time in your life at the same time.

In the eight days that followed, we lived without the weight that life places on you. During those eight days, we lived our faith, we lived with pride, and we felt like we belonged. Leaving left us on the verge of tears and, at that moment, we promised one another that we would return.

Throughout the rest of the year we made a few changes (i.e. moved to New Jersey and other minor things) as the longing memories became more and more intense. Eventually, we started having discussions about moving to Israel. What started as plans to go back every year or every other year quickly evolved into discussions of moving there someday, maybe after we retire. It finally got to the point that I asked myself, what would it take to make aliyah? The question lingered for a few weeks when finally the need for answers took over.

Both The Jewish Agency and Nefesh B’Nefesh websites answered many of the questions and representatives (via phone, email, and social media) answered the rest of them. I knew the time to move was now but I had to let my wife get there on her own so I presented her with the answers and information I collected and let her process.

The final decision wasn’t made until we attended The Jewish Agency’s Israel Planning Expo in mid town Manhattan on June 13, 2010. While learning about the ins and outs about employment opportunities, ulpan, the first home in the homeland program, taxes, shipping, aliyah benefits, healthcare, and cultural differences we became more and more excited about the opportunity of returning home. By the end of the day we decided that this is what we want to do, this was what was meant to be, this would be the best thing for us and our future family. So, we sat down with our Shlichat, completed our interview, and outlined the application process and the paper work that we need to pull together in order to make aliyah in the summer of 2011.  

With our decision made, it was time to tell the parents. We took a couple of month to brace ourselves and in September we told them. They had reservations about us going to Israel on our honeymoon (we were the first ones from each of our families to visit Israel) and now we were going to tell them that we were going to move there. Well, for the most part, things went smoothly… a lot of expected questions, surprise, happiness, worry, and a few freak out moments.

That is where we are at this point. Our family and friends know about our plans and support our decision and we are pulling together our application and documents. As we make our way through the process and grow in our knowledge and observance, I will open things up to discussion by posting my thoughts on this blog.

If you have any questions or comments please feel free to post them below and I will do my best to address them.