“You don’t want to be left wearing the same T-shirt every day for a month, do you?”

So today was Packing Day. I am writing to you as I sit on the floor of my very empty room. Today a whole crew of movers came and packed up most of our stuff. They loaded it all onto a huge truck. The back of the truck is really a container that will be detached and loaded onto a massive ship filled with tons of other containers. The ship will then sail all the way to Eretz Yisrael, where our container (my mom said it’s called a “lift”) will be unloaded at the port and then attached to a truck to be hauled to our new home in Israel. We didn’t pack all of our stuff, because Mommy and Tatty said that apartments in Israel are built smaller, so some of our stuff won’t fit in our new rooms. I’m sending all of my toys, books, clothes, and sports equipment. My parents, on the other hand, have been debating for weeks which pieces of furniture to take. For example, Mommy packed all of our beds, but none of our dressers. When Gavi asked her where we were going to keep our clothes in Eretz Yisrael if we don’t have any drawers, she explained to us all about Israeli closets. It seems that in Israel, most houses and apartments aren’t built with the kind of closets that we have in America. Instead, Israelis have these huge wooden closets that are kind of like massive cupboards, where they store all of their clothes. Personally, I don’t care where I keep my clothes as long as I have all of my sports equipment!

Sorting out what to pack and what to keep was a little confusing. At first I just dumped all of my clothes onto my bed for the movers to pack up for me, but then my father came in and asked if I had separated the clothes that I would need for the next few weeks.

“You don’t want to be left wearing the same T-shirt every day for a month, do you?”

“What do you mean?” I asked him.

“Well, this isn’t like moving to a different part of town, where you can load and unload the truck on the same day. Our stuff is going to be sailing around the world for a few weeks and then it takes a little while longer until they unload our container and get it to us in our new home. So you need to keep some clothes here to wear until we move to Israel and also for the first week or so until our lift arrives.”

(Excerpted from Mishpacha Jr., Issue 778)