The Blogs: Aliyah Diary: Part 5

This week was a whirlwind of a week. An exhausting, whirlwind of a week. We started this week with a full apartment. With our home. In less than two days, that home was packed into boxes, placed into a cargo container, and began its own journey to our new home in Israel. We spent the rest of our week clearing out the few belongings and selling our cars. It was a jam-packed, crazy, intense week.

As I sit here on Motzai Shabbos, I find myself in a weird headspace… Today, we spent our last Shabbos together with my parents and siblings before our flight on Wednesday. Now, I know it isn’t ACTUALLY going to be our LAST Shabbos together, but it WILL be the last Shabbos all the Shelleydale Spigelman’s spend together the way that we have been for the last nine years…

For all our married lives, “Mommy’s and Abba’s house” has been the place for the majority of our family gatherings. Shabbos and Yom Tov meals, Thanksgiving dinners, Channukah parties, birthday parties, Shalom Zachor’s, Upsherin’s, Purim Seudas, etc… have all taken place at 2501 Shelleydale Dr… We have always had a home base in my parents’ home, the house that I grew up in. We have been so incredibly blessed to have this in our lives… I don’t know many families that are lucky enough to have as close a bond as we siblings have with each other, and with our parents. This coming Shabbos will be very different. Starting this coming week, we will no longer just be able to walk over to Saba and Savta’s house on Friday morning just because, we will not be coming over for a random weeknight dinner… Whenever we end up back here together, it will be because of some event. A wedding, a Bar Mitzvah… Not just Stam… This is really hard to leave…

It’s a weird dichotomy… As excited and proud as we are (and I promise, we are!) for finally being able to make our dreams come true, and FINALLY make our journey HOME to Israel to raise our children in the land of our forefathers. There is also this sense of mourning and loss. We are mourning this aspect of our lives that will never be again. It will forever be different.

The most difficult part of this move has been watching the people we love experiencing untold pain because of a decision that WE are making. My parents and siblings didn’t choose for us to pick up our family, and move them across the globe (it may as well be planets away)… WE did… We made that decision… The decision is bittersweet. Although, for us, there is more sweet than bitter. We are going towards something. Towards a new, different life. And that is extremely exciting!! For the people that we leave behind though… there is mostly just bitter, not a whole lot of sweet at all… they are being left behind. There are no two ways about that. I think it is important for us to be sensitive to that, for us to realize and acknowledge that. Acknowledge their pain, and ours.

Even with all of that, today was really nice. All of us were together. We ate, we sang, we harmonized (like us Spigelpeople do), and hung out. We laughed, we cried, and we did it all together. I am so thankful for our family. So thankful.

Love you all,

-Yoni