The Tedious and the Sublime

Moving to Israel is simultaneously very tedious and very sublime.

The goal: living in Eretz Ha-Avot, the Jewish homeland, surrounded by Jews from all over the world, with a bevy of Jewish religious and cultural sites, and a great variety of religious practice. Not that Israel doesn’t face challenges, but there is a lot to be excited about as a Jew fulfills the two-thousand-year dream of living in Israel.

And yet the process of moving to Israel, like preparing for any move, is extremely tedious.

You spend weeks on end going through your stuff and deciding what is worth bringing along, what to save, and what to throw out. (See last week’s column!) There are the iterative stages of cleaning, choosing, packing, and re-packing again. There’s finding a place to live, and a car, and a cellphone plan, etc., all in a foreign language and a foreign system. Just about everything you do, you’re doing for the first time – if you go to a gas station, you need to figure out the difference between 95 and Solar. (Turns out, it’s gasoline vs. diesel fuel, so it’s good I didn’t choose the wrong one!)

And all that’s assuming one is able to move to Israel in the first place. The documentation required for applying for a visa or for aliyah is considerable – from notaries and apostilles to scheduling trips to the consulate, the hurdles are many, and at times unfathomably senseless – and those are just an introduction to the welter of bureaucracy that is to follow once one reaches the other side of the Atlantic.

There is a real dissonance between the lofty goal of living in Eretz Yisrael with its religious significance and storied history, and the tiresome tasks, challenges, and annoyances endemic to moving to a new country.

Amidst this dissonance, there is a real risk that the technical challenges of moving to Israel overwhelm the positive aspects, even for those who are deeply motivated to move there. How many long lines, unanswered emails and phone calls, and unclear instructions must one endure in order to make it to the other side?

The only way to ensure that tedium does not prevail is to be able to see the positives outweighing the negatives. For some that may come from a clear sense of values and priorities, but in so many cases it comes from outside support as well. We have experienced this ourselves – so many people in Israel have offered to help us in all sorts of ways, reflecting Israel’s deeply pro-aliyah culture. Of course, there are also organizations (Nefesh B’Nefesh, Olim Advisors, Bnei Akiva/Camp Moshava) that provide both the logistical and emotional infrastructure that moving to a foreign country requires. The support of these individuals and groups helps to mitigate the tedium to some degree, and to remind us of the sublime value of living in Eretz Yisrael.

And so we set out for Israel this past Wednesday, tired from the tedium of packing but excited and optimistic about our year ahead in Israel. We wanted to arrive about a week and a half before school started on September 1, in order to allow our children to adjust to a new home, a new time zone, and new surroundings in advance of the school year.

Apparently, we were not alone, as our day of arrival was slated to be the busiest travel day of the year at Ben Gurion Airport. Many people coming to Israel for the year or returning from their summer vacation wanted to return with some buffer time before the school year began.

If only it were so simple. First, our flight was delayed by an hour and a half for reasons that were not disclosed to us. (Actually, it was only delayed 15 minutes, except it was delayed 15 minutes six times.) Not great, but not terrible. We got on our flight with a squirming 14-month-old, not expecting to get much sleep, and let’s just say we met our expectations on that count.

One highlight of the flight: the pilot made an announcement noting that thirty people on the flight (not including us, although we knew about half of the families) would be making aliyah. It was a most appropriate gesture, and people clapped in their honor, another source of excitement alongside the drudgery of an international move.

At long last, we arrived in Israel, a bit later than originally planned. Some family members were waiting for us, as was our cab driver. We got through passport control without incident, so all we had to do was get through baggage claim.

So we waited for our bags. And waited. And waited. A handful of bags appeared, and then nothing. After an hour of waiting, it was clear something was wrong. We tried sitting on the floor, some of us even fell asleep (not so hard after a sleepless night on the plane), and still nothing was coming out. We started hearing rumors that this was not a fluke or some technical issue, but was rather a surprise strike by the workers at Ben Gurion, who decided to disrupt the busiest travel day of the year. Lucky us!

We went to the information desk to see if there was any official update. They had no information about the delay or when it might be resolved, but they did offer watermelon-flavored ices in an attempt at compensation. (For future reference, watermelon is *not* the ideal ices flavor!) Finally, after waiting two and a half hours, and over three hours after the flight had landed (and over four hours after the scheduled landing time), we were able to collect our bags and go home. We had vanquished our final foe, the baggage carousel.

Fortunately for us, our very conscientious and helpful cab driver waited those extra hours for us (we gave him a nice tip), but unfortunately for us, our family member waiting for us with her little kids had to go home. You can’t win ‘em all!

If you think about it, our experience on our flight to Israel matches the pattern of tedious and sublime. We experienced the worst of Israeli bureaucracy – the strike! – and at the same time the friendliness and support of our cab driver. We also saw many people who were celebrating their aliyah, alongside family and friends, after filling out hours of paperwork.

We are willing to endure our fair share of tedium in return for the privilege of being here.

Now, on to our adventure! But first, unpacking!