May 17 // I’m sweating as I sponja at 2 a.m. Thursday night trying to shepherd clouded water down a musty hole. And the unthinkable has happened: I’m actually going to miss doing this. Eretz Yisrael has been my home for 11 years. It’s the only place I know as a married woman as a mother. Many starry-eyed newlyweds follow the script and float over here by default but for us building our family’s foundation here was a conscious decision. We understood that Toras Eretz Yisrael is unparalleled that simplicity — this land’s trademark — makes room for spiritual growth. We knew that continual living in a space where material logistical concerns orbit around a polestar called Yiddishkeit leaves an impact. But now our family of eight will be boarding a one-way flight in two months and I know I’ll be crying as the palm trees bid us farewell. I have a pit in my stomach. Sure my brain — and my bank account — tell me it’s the right thing: finances have become more of a strain each year and Chezky’s geshmak in kollel has been steadily ebbing. When his former rebbi called proposing a unique chinuch position in the States that would solve both problems we knew it was a not-to-be-passed-up offer. But my list of concerns is as long as… the lines at Misrad Hapnim. Where will this move put me — my growth my aspirations? In Eretz Yisrael there’s this healthy spiritual peer pressure in the air. Away from that will I fall prey to the treadmill culture skittering from work to home to mall too busy and breathless to daven Shemoneh Esrei or play on the floor with my kids? Will I forgo the neighborhood shiur and instead spend those rare spare minutes finding magenta headbands for my girls? I know that making one’s home inEretzYisrael is hardly a guarantee for spiritual success. Somehow though it seems like being close to Hashem is just easier here.