Home

It has been wonderful to come back to Israel. It is funny how everyone I know here, from my good friends to people I have just met, greet me by saying, “Welcome home.” It sounds presumptuous to say, almost arrogant, since my home is in Pelham. But being here reminds me that home is a pretty expansive term, if deeply intimate. It is decidedly not limited to the place in which we build a life, and I, at least, need to be reminded of this.

As many of you know, the Collens family came to Israel in July. Last week we went to the shuk (marketplace) together before Shabbat (I took them to a tiny little hole in the wall restaurant in the Iraqi section of the shuk that makes hummous and shakshuka that is heavenly), and while Tali was buying vegetables, the kids and I waited by a candy stall. The merchant leaned over and gave the kids a piece of candy and said “Shabbat Shalom.” Nadav, of course, dropped his on the filthy ground, and the man sweetly gave him another one. Jan practiced her Hebrew (he didn’t speak any English) and asked him what his name was. “Eli,” he said, “k’mo Eliyahu Hanavi” (Eli, like Elijah the Prophet). He asked us if we just moved to Israel. I told him that we were just touring for the month. He replied by saying that this was our home, that we have lived here for 2,000 years and we should return for good.

Welcome home.

I bumped into our tour guide Jared on the sidewalk one evening. The last time I saw him (and the first time I met him) was in the PJC. I was still trying to get over jet lag and seeing him outside of the only context in which I knew him threw me off a bit. His greeting also confused me: “Welcome home, David.” Airplane travel to a different time zone always overwhelms me; it takes me some time to get my bearings, and hearing someone say “welcome home” dizzied my brain for a moment. I had a hard time remembering where I was, but after a few seconds, I realized that I was indeed, back home.

Welcome home.

Home is a place in which you matter to everyone. The country is absolutely possessed by an urgency to bring Gilad Shalit back home. He has been held hostage by Hamas for four years now without one visit from the Red Cross. Over two hundred thousand Israelis have been marching with his parents as they walk from their home in the north to the Prime Minister’s residence. They are demanding that PM Netanyahu bring Gilad home, knowing full well that this means releasing, at minimum, 1,000 terrorists, many of whom are eager to return to their sickening quest to maim and kill Israelis. Without arguing the merits of the moral argument of trading 1,000 terrorists for a low ranking, non-combat soldier, it is clear that a large segment of the population is demanding such an exchange. Why? Probably because every parent here knows that since the army is obligatory, Gilad could just as easily be his or her son. When it is your child, his life is worth an infinite amount of risk. You bring your son home no matter what the cost.

Welcome home.

As I write this I am sitting in the apartment we are renting on a Friday afternoon at 6 pm. The streets are completely quiet; the cafes are closed; people are cleaning their apartments and getting ready for Shabbat. My skin is a little burnt from the 6-hour hike I took yesterday up in the Golan and my legs ache, but my heart is so full. I am so content to be home, even while I miss our other home at 451 Esplanade. I can’t wait to stand at the airport in Tel Aviv and be he first person to greet you, to say “B’ruchim Habaim,” “Welcome home.”

Shabbat Shalom.

David