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...