Celebrating One Year in Israel

This past Shabbat, we celebrated our one-year anniversary of our aliyah. I made a siyyum on seder Nashim of Mishnah, and we invited some friends from the yishuv to join us after seudah shlishit. We really didn't feel like making a whole meal, and a dessert seemed doable. It was a wonderful, low-key event. Also, we were fortunate that our good friends the Sobols of Modiin joined us for Shabbat. We sat around, sang a couple of songs. I spoke about how grateful we felt that we had merited to spend a year living in the Holy Land, noting the great difference between Jewish life in the Diaspora and in America. (I likened Jewish life in America to being born underwater with an air-tank, and never realizing that there was something called "dry land.") Then Rav Sobol said some nice things about us, and that was it.
It's hard to believe that a year has gone by. It seems to have passed so quickly. And I continue to be thankful that we have had such a smooth and successful year, and pray that we continue to grow and acclimate in our new home and lives.
This week, Rena and I attended the Tzohar International Rabbinic Conference in Yerushalayim, which gather rabbis from Israel, the United States, and a couple of other countries. I guess I'm still an Oleh, because I got a rush from the fact that my name tag for the conference said my name, and under it: ישראל. I'm from here now. I'm not one of the rabbis looking at the Olim wishing that my tag said "Israel". I did that already. Thank God, now I'm on the other side, and giving thanks for that fact each and every day.