Jen is here!

So what's an amazing side benefit of having Cousin Sela here in Israel for a seminary year?!  Her mom, my deardeardeardear cousin Jen, coming to visit!!!!  And they even came to us for Shabbos, which was all the more incredible because Jen has hosted us for Shabbos 248 times (exactly) over the years, and, due to our formerly living near her parents (Hi AP!), we have hosted Jen and co. exactly zero times over the years.

I also got to meet up with Jen, Temima and Sela (in L to R order) and walk around the Machane Yehuda shuk after work the other day

We just HAD to try the famous chocolate rugelach at Marzipan Bakery.  I would say they are justifiably-famous, as I don't even LIKE rugelach much and I thought these (warm from the oven and literally dripping with chocolate) were delicious

I am cracking up because Temima and I, at opposite ends of the store, whipped out our phones to snap a picture at the exact same time.  Temima won.  (Look how GOOD all that stuff looks!!!!)

I think the nicest thing was just knowing it was *possible* to run into Jen and Temima any day/any time.  Like Penina, in Jerusalem to celebrate her birthday today (woohoo!  Happy 17th, Penina!!!!) who, boom, "accidentally"' met up with them.  "Coincidences" are just so much more common here--land of Hashem and all :)

Four Year Aliyah-Versary (!)

I've been musing over this post since August, when our actual Aliyah-versary passed.  What to write about? 

How it's so nice to finally know people and how sweet it was that on our 2 a.m. flight back to Israel from NY this summer there were two other families from our neighborhood on the same plane? 

How Penina was reading some homework recently and said, "Can you believe this--I'm just READING this in HEBREW?!" 

How much easier each start-of-the-new-year is over the last one, and how this year's schedule so easily fell into place because we know who is offering dance classes, where the place for horseback riding lessons is, etc? 

How food shopping takes me a fraction of the time because my label-reading Hebrew has vastly improved?!  While my regular Hebrew has also (mildly) improved, my level of "food shopping Hebrew" is SUPER good now.  I can tell what kosher supervision a product has and if it contains gluten in just a few seconds now.

While touching on those, I decided the main thing I wanted to share is a concept I heard at a shiur by Rebbetzin Shoshana Pol over a month ago and have thought of often since then: In whose merit are we living in the land of Israel now?  When we think of our great-grandparents and further back in time, there are endless generations where the thought of even being *buried* in Israel was too much to hope for. 

In the merit of which ancestors do I get to live in Israel when for thousands of years my people prayed three times a day to be here but the word, the dream, of Jerusalem was as close as they came?  In whose merit do I get to live in modern Israel where I drive my car on a four-lane highway to get to Jerusalem (no donkey from the port of Haifa for me), walk into the Old City with hordes of tourists, all of us excited like we're walking into Jewish Disney World, and sit in my office in a building that's so ancient I can't get phone service because the walls are 7 feet thick?!  In whose merit do I live the life of luxury I have?!  True, it's not American luxury, but when my main complaint is that no place sells "Earth Balance" natural margarine, I'd say we're doing pretty well.

I don't know whose merit brought me and my family here, but to Hashem and to all my ancestors, I hope you are feeling my most heartfelt thank you.  Because it is such a blessing that we are living, and thriving, here.

In case you think I'm exaggerating about the office walls!