How Way Leads On to Way

While speaking with someone over Shabbos, I was asked how I felt going back to the place where I used to live. My immediate response was that I felt awkward and somewhat out of place, eventhough it was nice to see places and people that I hadn't seen in several months. At first, I wasn't able to explain why I felt this way, as I didn't think anything had changed between when I left to go to Israel and now, when I came back to visit for Pesach. As he and I walked after lunch, I talked more with him and was able to understand and explain why I felt slightly uncomfortable.

Whenever I began to change years and years ago, I always had some view of the world I left behind. As far as I moved away internally, I was always connected to a different way of life by virtue of proximity; whether I liked it or not, I couldn't completely break free of a particular viewpoint. No matter how I changed, and how much I advanced in my own life, eventhough I felt and looked different I wasn't that far away from what used to be.


As more and more choices are made based on a particular viewpoint, the further separated from the past you can move. This seemed to become really obvious when I visited America. I found everything as I left it, but I suddenly realized I didn't feel the same. After going down this path, and allowing it to take me somewhere new geographically, I unknowingly broke with the past. I wasn't expecting this to be so obvious to me, or to come with such a rush of emotion. While I didn't realize it in Israel, where I seemed to just be continuing naturally and identified with most of the people around me, I saw how much I had changed when I came to visit. Topics of conversation, ways of looking at things, news, interest...nothing seemed to be the same anymore. The visit showed me just how real the differences are, and how I am completely in a new place, physically and mentally.

Now that I'm going back, I wonder how different things will be the nex time I visit...

Cow Juice in a Sack

As I previously wrote that I would try to update on the things that I find different about Israel, I have been meaning to make a new post for it for the last week or so. I was standing at a street corner waiting for the light to change (okay, so I was really waiting for a long enough break in traffic to dart across, light change or not) and an American girl next to me was talking to her friend about her blog about Israel. She said that each post she tries to give an interesting or random fact about Israel at the end. Maybe I will do that, but until then....

1. In Israel, NO ONE wants to give change. If something costs 5 shekels, you better have 5 shekels on you. One day, while it was raining, I decided that I absolutely MUST go out an purchase an adapter for the outlet. I went first to a small shop near my apartment. As they were closed, I decided to walk just a little further to another similiar place. Again, closed. I decided to try one more shop, and it happened to be open. Already annoyed because I was wet, I tried my best to describe what I was needing without knowing the actual word for it in Hebrew. Seeing that this wasn't going well, I happened to see the adapter under the counter and pointed. He took them out and handed me one, marked 4 shekels. I handed him a 20, and he asked if I hd anything smaller. Honestly not having anything else, I told him that I didn't. He began searching high and low looking for change, he took out his own wallet, asked other customers...finally, I got so tired of waiting, watching the rain outside get worse, that I took a second adapter just so he could make change. Knowing Israelis, I doubt that it was such a big deal for him to make change, but so it goes.

2. Israelis express themselves much differently. My roommate went to the shuk (Middle Eastern, open-air market that sells everything from lettuce to underwear) to buy Crocs. Clearly not REAL Crocs, but he needed something to wear around the apartment. When he walked into the "store", he asked the man if the had Crocs. Saying that they did, the store attendant asked, "Which?" to which my roommate replied, "Black". The Israeli got a strange look on his face, and barked back, "Which SIZE?" Israelis simply aren't soft people. A famous joke goes, "An American, a Russian, a Chinese persion, and an Israeli were asked for their opinions on the meat shortage. The American replied, 'What is a shortage?', the Russian replied, 'What is meat?', the Chinese person replied, 'What is an opinion?', and the Israeli replied, 'What is 'excuse me'?'" Too true...

3. In Israel, milk comes in a bag. Yes, a bag. When you buy it, you put it in some plastic container and slice a corner off so that you can pour it. This still makes me cringe when I see it.