Full Circle

After a cancellation, rerouting, change in airline, delay, another cancellation, repurchasing, and then two flights later, here we are!

… In Prague.

It’s no small feat getting to Israel these days, but we’re getting closer. Rick and I are in the last third of what has become a 31-hour journey getting us to the Holy Land, and I for one am still excited, even through the fog of my exhausted brain. (So be kind if this becomes incoherent rambling.)

During this last layover, I thought I’d get started on the first installation of what I hope will be an interesting series of pieces about our adventure in Israel, so buckle up, because you’re in for quite the ride (fingers crossed, it might not be all that it’s hyped up to be). But I promise it’ll be full of thrills, history, food, culture and lots of tears (from me)!

As I sit here in the international terminal in Prague, fighting sleep, I can’t help but think of this as a full circle moment in my life. I am just hours away from returning to the place where I first discovered true happiness. That’s not to say, I was never happy before or since, but the degree of joy I experienced while in Israel had been unmatched up until that point in my life. I know it sounds cliche to say I went away to find myself, but in hindsight, that’s exactly what I did and I am so lucky I had parents who supported me in this endeavor.

When I was a senior in college, I was able to create a curriculum comprised entirely of subjects which fascinated me most: history, Judaica and even a little liturgy. Naturally, I wanted to go to rabbinic school upon graduation to continue in this course of study. Long story short, it didn’t happen. So I took off to Israel instead… to find what it was I was meant to do with my life. I immersed myself in the culture, language and lifestyle, and even tried to figure out a way to study my favorite things there. I registered for graduate-level history classes at Tel Aviv University, but after a couple, I realized the language barrier couldn’t be overcome.

Instead what I found in Israel was my passion for being Jewish. And I’m not talking about religious observance. While there, I fully embraced being secular (my desire to continue studying liturgy fell to the wayside), but my Jewish identity became my defining feature. Upon my return to the States, throughout law school and beyond, I searched for ways to combine my passion for Judaism and my love of studying and writing. In law school, I wrote my Law Review article on the courts’ civil enforcement of the Ketubah, the Jewish marriage contract. I delved into this 108-page article with a fervor I didn’t know I had. The research and writing was invigorating, and my article was one of only two student-written articles to be published by our Law Review that year. After graduation, I tried unsuccessfully to forge a Jewish legal career.

Until very recently, I was still searching for a way to marry my passions of Judaism and writing. And now, as I return to Israel 32 years later, I know I have finally found it. I have gotten immense satisfaction from being a vocal advocate for Israel and Zionism in a post-October 7th world through my writing. I hope that in addition to being a source of pride for me, you all find my pieces informative and engaging. As an author of women’s fiction, I am writing my second book with a strong Jewish theme and plan to incorporate this Israeli journey into the plot. And my loftiest goal to date is to attempt to write a third book after this one, moving into historical fiction and tackling the miraculous founding of the modern State of Israel. I remember the feeling I had when writing my Law Review article and I want to recapture that in the telling of this remarkable chapter of our history. This is what I was meant to do. And it only took me 30-some years to figure it out.

Sometimes it makes me sad that I didn’t keep a kosher home or observe Shabbat with my kids growing up. But, it’s recently become apparent that my three adult children have become so much like me in their expression of Judaism. They’re not observant, but they do enjoy celebrating the holidays and keeping the traditions. And even more important, they have an unwavering commitment to their cultural and national Jewish identities. And of that, I am most proud. Hey, I just had a realization. Maybe during all those years when I was searching for a way to merge my love of Judaism and a career, I had been doing it all along. My passion (and job) for the past 27 years was raising my amazing kids, and I have succeeded in raising strong Jewish adults. (Yes, I write this with tears in my eyes, but I’m overly sentimental right now.)

When I returned home from Israel all those years ago, I cried the whole way home, with a shattered heart and convinced my future was bleak. Today I return to the Promised Land, my second home, also crying but with jubilation in my heart, knowing that my future had been anything but bleak. I’ve been waiting for this moment for oh so long and now, finally, it’s a mere few hours away.