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Monday 5 August 2013

being back home again, in eretz yisrael, after a pretty long visit back in to london, has given me the opportunity to notice some things that i didn't really see in the hustle and bustle and furious rush of making aliyah. 

less than 24 hours back home and in many ways it feels like we never left, but i'm finding that ghostly images of london are trailing after me as i turn, like the negative imprint on the retina after looking at bright things for too long. it's rather disconcerting. 

being in london, and then returning home was wonderful in the feeling of real homecoming when we landed at ben-gurion and knew that we only had to go home. no messing around with setting up a holiday place. bieng in london after living here for a year made me realise that there really is a background-level spirituality here, which i am aware of with the edge of my spiritual vision, but hadn't realised i was aware of until i was deprived of it. 

i spent quite a while trying to define to myself what it was that i felt was wrong while i was in london. apart from not being used to not evertyone around me being jewish, and to buses and cars driving around on shabbat, and not everything being kosher, and my children needing to be taken to places instead of going by themsecles. apart from all that. oh and everyone having english accents-  that was pretty surprising! 

eventually i realised that i felt claustrophobic. and i couldn;t think why, because here in RBS i am surrounded by apartment buildings that are higher than most homes in hendon or edgware where we were spending most of our holiday. and then i realised it was because i couldn;t see the end of the houses. and then i realised further that it wasn;t just a physical sort of claustrophobia - it was a spiritual one. all that jazz about 'eretz chemdah tovah urechavah' actually has something to it. this really is the land in which we can spread our spiritual wings and stretch luxuriously. 

leaving and then coming back was great. because i feel even more appreciative of this land. glad to be home. 

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