// 845.371.2222 “So, when are you planning on moving back?” my mother asked casually. The question was not unexpected. Still, it caught me off guard. It was the last day of our extended summer vacation, and we were relaxing on my parents’ porch, watching the children play in the endless green back yard. It had been a wonderful interlude, but all good things must come to an end, and our flight back home was the following afternoon. I was already dreading the endless trip with five restless, overtired children. “Moving back?” I sighed. “Believe me, it sounds like heaven. Especially with this glorious back yard. But it doesn’t look like we’re going anywhere for the time being. After all, our children are growing older, and they’re all settled. If we were planning to come back we’d have done it a long time ago.” “There’s something special about living in Eretz Yisroel, and I don’t just mean for a year or two,” my husband, Shloimy, added. This was something he felt strongly about, and I hoped it wouldn’t come out the wrong way. “I really feel that our children are growing up differently, with pure values. Not like today’s kids.” “Not that there was anything wrong with the way we were raised—on the contrary,” I interrupted quickly, sensing we may have crossed a line. “We got the greatest chinuch, Mommy. But things are simpler there. There’s no peer pressure to have the nicest, the best, to upgrade. And so far we’re living our dream life.” And indeed we were. We had been married over a decade, and we were raising our five little ones, three boys and two girls, in a warm and welcoming community where everyone was thriving. Our children had known no other life, and were content with hand me downs and trips to the local park. Whenever they came back ‘home,’ to my parents and in-laws, they experienced a culture shock. Their cousins, who were around their age, had beautifully decorated bedrooms, went on midwinter vacation to Florida, and enjoyed shopping as a pastime. Back home, in our modest apartment, our three daughters shared a room, while our two sons slept on a high-riser bed in a corner of the dining room. No one complained or thought it was too cramped. After all, most of their friends were doing the same thing. Time passed quickly, as it tends to do when one is busy. Shloimy learned in kolel in the morning, and had an excellent teaching position in the afternoon, while I babysat for some of the neighbors. Once a year, usually before Pesach, and sometimes in the summer, my parents or in-laws would buy us tickets and treat us to a trip back home. It was important for our children to reconnect to their nowelderly grandparents and meet their cousins. As for myself, these visits were as refreshing as an ice cold drink on a muggy, sticky day. I would shop with my siblings, go out to meet friends, and host extended family at my parents’ home on Shabbos afternoon. And so the years passed, with our family returning ‘home’ each year to bask in the glow of family togetherness. We felt virtuous for going back, away from all this gashmiyus to our Torah’dig lives, secure that our parents were proud of our sacrifice. Yet as both sets of grandparents grew older, the reality slowly began to change. AS TOLD TO CHAYA SILBER 197
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