So Much to Say; Where Do I Start?

I guess it's by saying that this aliyah week has been an amazing experience. Nefesh B'nefesh transforms what could, and rightfully should be an exhausting, frustrating transition into a exhilarating, uplifting event. It really was amazing, having so many friends, family and others around to share in our aliyah. I'll just share different thoughts that struck me as we experienced this week.

• After the ceremony I went upstairs to deal with the Ministry of Absorption. What a pleasure! They had a number of offices open, each with a listing of names (divided equally among them), so that the wait was rather short. I walked into the office, and the woman already had our information printed out, and I just had to sign a couple of forms and she handed me our teudat oleh. Then she gives me an envelope with a bunch of money in it. All I could think was, "Wow. Here I am moving to a new country, and not only do they make me a citizen; they give me a bunch of money to get started." What does America, known as a country built on immigrants and immigrati on, give to its olim chadashim? Nothing. But if a Jew comes to Israel, the country has an entire infrastructure dedicated to my integration and acclimation. Wow.
• My brother Yair took me shopping for a bunch of small appliances near his house in Kiryat Sefer. After leaving the hardware (actually, it was more of an "anything you can think of") store, I was really hungry having missed lunch. But next door was a bakery selling among the cakes, great borekas with cheese and soy dogs. I bought a couple, heated them up and had a great snack, and all I could think of was, "In the US when I leave the hardware store and I'm hungry, they have a hot dog stand there, but I can't eat anything. Maybe some chips. It's an incredible thing to be able to take for granted the fact that there's kosher good food pretty much everywhere. I know that it's a small thing, but coming from a place where you had to make a trip to get a doughnut, that's saying something.
• My sister-in-law got us some groceries, among which she bought whole wheat cereal without added sugar. (I checked, and it's got maltitol. Yummy.) Because of my no-sugar diet, I haven't eaten breakfast cereal in over four years. It's almost impossible to get whole grain cereal without added sugar in the US. It's just cereal, but it's a big deal to me.
• People here in Yad Binyamin have been great. The kids have already found some friends, Simcha and Leah being the most active, and Leah in the most demand of course.

As you can obviously tell from this post, our internet (and phone) are up and running. It took two days. (My uncle, who moved here in 1972, didn't get a phone until he was here for six months.) There's something of a funny story there. The guy came and installed the modem, but we couldn't get the computer to connect to the network. So he tells me: "I just tried switching the modems, and I've never had two modems be bad at the same time. So your computer must be broken." OK, I'll check the computer. I take the computer to a local computer store - great guy from Gush Katif runs the store - and he plugs it in and it starts up immediately. So the computer is not the problem. When I go back home and look at the modem, I can see upon visual inspection that some of the wire connectors are bent out of shape. So, with a screwdriver and small piece of wire, I performed minor surgery on the modem and lo and behold - it works! Sure, it was the compter. Baloney. Telling my brother about it later, he tells me, "Get used to it. It's always the other guy's fault."
After I solved that problem, it was all uphill: the router worked great; I plugged in our Vonage phone and it worked right out of the box. It's pretty crazy to make local phone calls in America from halfway around the world. I remember my first year in Israel. My mother allowed me to call home once every three weeks. It was a real event that you schedules. Yesterday while speaking to her she was in the middle of something so she said, "Can you call me back in ten minutes?" Sure, no problem, but it's a different world than it used to be.
In any case, it makes a great impact to be connected - to be able to freely call family and friends back in the States. So getting connected was a big deal, and I glad we were able to do so so quickly.
I'll wrap up. But please write back. We love hearing from you. Shabbat Shalom to all!