While I am glad to be back in Jerusalem to continue my training, the visit home was too short. It was wonderful to spend time with my wife and kids, and to go to services at my “home” synagogue.
I arrived in Israel yesterday afternoon. The flights were uneventful and, for the most part on time.
I flew through Frankfurt, Germany on the way to Israel. This was the only noteworthy experience of the trip. All flights to Israel from Frankfurt use the same gate, which has significantly enhanced security at the gate. Even though you go through a security screening to re-enter the concourse after passport control, in order to enter this gate you go through another complete screening including your carry-on bags being x-rayed and opened for inspection. Once in the gate area I had about 2 hours. There were a number of religiously observant people there, so I went with them to a quiet area and did the morning service.
Once we were on board for our “on time” departure, they pulled back the loading ramp and we sat there for about 10 minutes, going nowhere. After that we were told that we needed to go to de-ice the wings before we could leave. This set us back about 25 minutes, but we still managed to arrive only a few minutes late in Israel.
I did have one other thing of interest occur. I mentioned previously that I felt something “missing” when I left Israel, and that a friend of mine put it into words --- I was missing the feeling of the presence of the Shekhinah. While we were on our final approach into Israel, at one point I felt “something” that I can only guess was the feeling that I was once again near the Shekhinah. I looked out the window immediately (I was in the center section of the plane and not really near a window, so was not following where we were) and saw that we had just crossed into Israeli air space. We were directly over Tel Aviv. I am told that a lot of people feel “something” when landing in Israel, but I had never had this experience before. It felt like something that was missing had been returned.
I have spoken to a number of my friends here since arriving and have been spending my time practicing in preparation for my next lesson. It will be good to start working on the hazzanut again, and I am anxious to move forward.
I will be going for a nice walk tomorrow, including a trip to the Kotel, and then preparing for Shabbat. I have no idea yet where I will be going, but will write about it after Shabbat is over.
