Arriving in Israel

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On the plane on the way from Holland to Israel, I thought about what it was that I wanted to accomplish on this trip. Getting to Israel in the first place seemed like such a miracle. I didn't want to have the whole trip pass as just a tourist venture. What would I do when I walked off the plane, onto Israeli soil? What would I think, what would I feel?

I wrote in my journal:

I want to hurt. I want to be sad because I can't be in the land, and when I finally put my foot on it, I want to feel as if I've truely come home. Not because the people there accept me, because, quite possibly, they won't. But I want to know that I've come home because this is the land that was promised to us. I'm G-d's child and a child of Abraham, a member of the covenant. I'm not just visiting another foreign country. I'm coming home...

I watched out the window of the plane until I saw the light of Tel Aviv shining through the darkness. My heart started beating faster. The second the wheels touched on Israeli soil, I burst into tears. It truely felt as if I had come home.

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