Shabbat Shalom! When my Rabbi asked me during my “Introduction to Judaism – Part Two” class what my favorite holiday was, I quickly answered “shabbat.” The only Jewish holiday we get to celebrate each week, I look forward to the chance to rest, reflect, and share the day with others. Today I was blessed to share Shabbat with a friend of mine – from San Francisco!
I was a little proud of myself as I hopped onto the #4 sherut (Israeli shared taxi) and found my friend’s hotel with ease. We had an absolutely lovely dinner with her cousins, and I was again blessed to be invited into the extended family of a friend. People always ask me if I have family in Israel, and the answer is always, thankfully, yes. They may not be biological, but I have always, always had family here. I think, in fact, that it was family that brought me here to begin with. But I digress…
After dinner, my friend and I found our way to a beach-front café. We both leaned back on our red salty couch with our glasses of wine, and relaxed. How amazing that we found our way to the port of Tel Aviv, with waves splashing on the broad wooden patio in front of us. We laughed as we watched children splashing in the sea spray despite the late hours, and young women in nighttime attire getting their too high heels stuck in the deck slats.
My friend patiently listened to my excited chatter about studying Hebrew, being back in Tel Aviv, and living in Israel. As I slowed my speech to sip my wine, she looked up at me and, perhaps unknowingly, said some profound and potentially prophetic words about my life:
“I think you have just made aliyah and don’t know it yet.”
We will see, in time, if she is right. Regardless of this particular outcome, her words struck a chord in me. My love for this place, for Israel, a place I so personally and passionately consider my home, is apparently just as tangibly visible to others as it is intimately known to me.
I walked her back to her room and easily caught a sherut back to my room, feeling like I belonged.
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