In those days, in Israel, telephones were few and far between, especially in public places, like the Absorption Center we were assigned to for the first few weeks until our possessions arrived. But we had no reason to make any calls when we first arrived in Israel, except to the inevitable government offices. Two days after our arrival we visited my cousin who told us that my husband’s sister in England had been trying to contact us.
It appeared that several hours after we had taken off from Heathrow, the doctor had called my parents-in-law with the results from the tests my father-in-law had taken. It wasn’t good. In fact it was very bad.
“I’ll have to go back,” my husband said quietly as he replaced the phone. “But I’ll have to settle you in the apartment first. You can’t move in on your own with all the kids, and we can’t delay moving in or we’ll lose the apartment.”
My thoughts were doing somersaults. On the one hand there was the worry about my father-in-law but on the other hand there was the incredible hasgacha pratis that we had only now found out about my father-in-law. We had no idea he had even taken any tests. Had we heard this news before taking off, would we have been able to get on the plane? Would we have been able to knowingly leave my parents-in-law at this stage?
But evidently Hakadosh Baruch Hu had wanted us to make aliyah, so He delayed the results until we had left the country. Our first year wasn’t easy. We lived on the fourth floor without an elevator and with a double stroller. Being without a telephone during this critical time highlighted our feeling of being cut off from our family in England, but my husband flew between Israel and England many times. He did everything he could to help his parents through that difficult period.
But each time he returned home – and now, baruch Hashem – home was Yerushelayim ir hakodesh.