The Night After Visiting Day II

Libby Bamizrach: First of all, look at my comment to the last post about responding to readers' comments.

Secondly, you wrote, "...as the relative in chuz laaretz we feel just as badly if not worse when we leave Israel. We have the double heart-ache of leaving our loved ones AND the place that we know we belong. Maybe you can take some solace in that!"

I appreciate the fact that many of our relatives feel that way too. I could have guessed that they feel that way, but I guess we were so caught up in the way we feel, that I forgot how they felt saying goodbye to us!

I've written before about how we need "cheerleading." It's probably true to say that everyone - in all walks of life who live in any country in the world - need "cheerleading" at some point in their lives. We're not unique in that way. So, thanks for your cheerleading.

I would also add that I found this time of year - Yom Hazikaron and Yom Haatzmaut - hard to be in America. In other words, to be here, with the Israeli flags on every car, speeches in every town, fireworks in the park, barbeques in backyards, parades in the streets, images in the papers (from 1948, 1967, 1973, and from othere iconic times and figures such as Golda Meir, Menbachem Begin, even Ilan Ramon and Gal Fridman) - all these things remind me why we're here. It was hard to be in the States and celebrating Israel. I'm not saying it's impossible, but it felt strange. All these things serve as "cheerleaders" for me too.