A letter from Zahava

[My lovely wife happened to CC me on an email she sent out today to some of our friends and family.  Given the negativity of my post this morning, I decided it was worth sharing her little ray of sunshine here]

Dear Family and Friends,

As you know, David, Ari, Gili and I made Aliyah with Nefesh B'Nefesh in July 2003 [Ed note: our 3-and-a-half year old, Yonah, is an Israeli product made from imported materials].

As the Torah portion (parsha) this coming Shabbat (Shelach) recalls the sin of the 12 spies who gave a bad/inaccurate report of the land, I've decided to participate in a special Nefesh b’Nefesh project intended to try to “undo” the damage done by those biblical [and modern] spies!

David, the kids and I consider ourselves quite lucky in that we had the universal support of our friends and family regarding our Aliyah. 

The goal of this NBN project is to share with you 12 things that are special about living in Israel.

In no particular order:

1. The incredible feeling of being Home and belonging!
2. Being surrounded by our history — Israel’s great love affair with archeology makes the connection to our ancestors tangible!
3. Believe it or not, the “yenta” factor! I LOVE that all the Bubbies will yell at me if they think Yonah is over or under dressed! I love that people feel so connected that they are not shy about expressing their concern!
4. Hearing “Shabbat Shalom” from every possible sector of society (even some Arabs!) on Fridays when “out and about”
5. One day of Yom Tov
6. All Jewish holidays are national holidays (no more saving up vacation days!)
7. Fresh fruits and veggies that have actually ripened on the vine, are aromatic and taste like they smell! (gotta love that 6-hour maximum transport!)
8. Being able to do trumah and ma'aser (tithing) on fruits and veggies you grow yourself — again, the connection to our past and our heritage in a very real and meaningful way!
9. A FANTASTIC national park system — makes being outdoors fun and easy.
10. No insanely expensive day-school tuition!
11. A better work/life balance — from a sociological sense, society seems to be as geared toward family time and life-cycle events (even the “little” ones — like when your kids receive their first siddur in school, or they have a school play, etc.) as it is towards work.  Taking time off for these things is understood/expected. In fact, NOT participating in family events- large and small - is viewed as being out-of-sync... not the other way around.
12. GREAT place to raise kids! Kids here are treated like national treasures! (see numbers 3 and 11!)   

Feel free to be in touch with me any time if you'd like to hear more about my personal perspective of life in Israel.  [Ed note: Same goes for me.  also, any of you bloggers out there can consider this a (rare) meme and adopt it to your sites.]

If you'd like to know more about the viability of living in Israel, visit the Nefesh B'Nefesh's web site, and if you have ever considered even the remote possibility of aliyah, take a virtual pilot trip while you're there.

Please feel free to forward this message a link to this post to anyone who loves Israel.

Love,

Zahava

P.S. A special thanks to Nefesh B’Nefesh for reminding us how lucky we are to have realized our dream of living here!