One of the original purposes of this blog was to communicate major life events to my friends and family without having to resort to bulk emails. (This was of course in the days before social networking sites like Google plus and some new little upstart called facebook). To that end, I have been remiss of late because I haven’t yet blogged about a rather large life event taking place in about a week. Since Rebecca finished her residency in July we decided to go to Israel to live for a year. I’ve left my job at Navy Federal after 3 or so years and started my own consulting firm called Defensium. I’ll be doing some contracting work remotely and exploring the country. Rebecca will be working as a pediatrician at Hadassah Mt. Scopus. (Because the medical board are only offered in Hebrew, she couldn’t obtain a license to practice independently, but can work on the hospital’s license).

Aliza has been in a Hebrew immersion program at her pre school for the past few months. Rebecca and I have both been using the Pimsleur language approach to learn Hebrew as well. We’ve also started reading Hebrew children’s books to Aliza and Maya (which are helpful both for them and for us). That being said our Hebrew is still collectively quite poor when not using Google translate, and one of my goals for this trip is to improve my conversational Hebrew.

We have an apartment on Eli Cohen st in the Katamon neighborhood of Jerusalem. The apartment’s main feature is that it is about a quarter mile from my sister, who has already proved invaluable by helping us find an apartment and buying a crib for us. (Other than the crib the apartment is mostly furnished already).

We leave the states on Oct 31, and arrive in Israel the next day. At the moment we’re buried deep in the packing process and are trying to figure out how to maximize the number of kids toys we can bring in our checked baggage. We’re still trying to rent the house, and have listed it with a realtor. The goal is to rent it furnished to avoid having to move our furniture anywhere else.

One of the interesting things about this move is how little it will actually affect many things. Thanks to the internet I will have the same phone number, skype name, and email address. Our mail will be forwarded, and while postal mail will have an obvious delay, some people may not notice we’re gone unless they physically walk over to our house and knock on the door. I’ve noticed that when I talk to people who have done similar things and read article and blogs by others who have either taken a sabbatical to Israel or moved there permanently, much of the advice they  provide changes based on when they made their move. People who moved in the 70s and 80s talk about how isolating it can be, and how disconcerting the loss of certain consumer options is. People who made the transition in the last 10 years all give advice on how to find a smartphone that will work on the Israeli cell network (they use the European frequencies so our American phones won’t work). I will of course let you know in a few months how true I find this to be.

So anyway, that’s it – just a simple quit my job, start a company, move halfway across the world, find a new school for Aliza, and Rebecca is finding a job kind of week. I can only hope it will get more interesting from here.

And since everyone seems to ask – yes, we will be back. Promise.

A few weeks ago I decided to run the Hebrew home 10K. The only thing was, I decided to run it on a Saturday night, and the race was the next morning. It was also right after a 3 day hag (holiday), so I had spent the last 3 days sitting on my rear stuffing my face, and the few weeks before that preparing for the holidays and my impending (and since completed) job change, often forsaking my regular running. How did I do? Well, the picture here pretty much sums it all up – in the foreground is an 8 year old girl crossing the finish line. If you look carefully in the background, you can see me just beginning to come down the final stretch. I actually showed up in a couple pictures the race photographer took, but this is without a doubt my favorite one.

In the days when the temple stood, Jews communicated with god through animal sacrifice. Compared with the prayer that replaced it after the destruction of the temple, an animal sacrifice is a very haptic experience. There is a true physical connection to your communication, as opposed to the ethereal nature of prayer. In many ways the physical connection has it’s benefits – which do you think leaves a bigger impression – a hatat (sin offering, to atone for a transgression) where you take a live animal you own, slaughter it, roast it, and eat it; or the viduy? (A confession as part of the prayer service). Prayer also has it’s advantages too – by removing the physical connection you allow a more spiritual to develop between the individual and god. God is longer tied to a place, a time, or any constraints of the physical world. You can perform your atonement when you are emotionally ready, regardless of proximity to the temple or access to an animal.

This past weekend gave me cause to think about this contrast. One of the many traditions of Rosh Hashanah (the Jewish new year) is to go to a river of stream and say a few prayers known as tashlikh where we symbolically cast our sins into the water to be carried away. There is a tradition in some area to throw bread into the water, but it is forbidden on the sabbath and holidays to do so. As a kid my elementary school used to have a school trip every year to a local park before Rosh Hashanah where we crumbled up Saltines and threw them into the water. I remember liking it a lot (and not just because we missed class for a morning), so I figured I would take Aliza (my 3 year old) with me. On the way I tried explaining to her the purpose of tashlikh, but I don’t know how well I did. Trying to explain any symbolic action to a three year old is difficult. Aliza kept asking where the sins went, how we got them there, and how the entire process worked on a physical level. What I really wanted to do was to just hand her a piece of bread and say “here – go throw this in the water and stop asking questions”. (Interestingly when we got there she took it upon herself to start throwing leaves into the water – apparently the urge is universal). I eventually managed to explain that the whole process is supposed to make us do fewer sins in the coming year (or in her case, stop pushing her sister), but the whole idea of symbolic actions is clearly lost on a three year old. The best idea I got for this when I talked to a few people with similar aged children was from a friend who says he takes his kids to do tashlikh later in the week so that they can throw bread, thereby giving them the haptic experience that will hopefully provide them a connection they can understand.