Coming Home
Today at mussar class my friend told me she was going home this weekend. Considering she lives right here in Cleveland, I gave her a quizzical look. "Oh," she said. "I still call Florida home, even though I've been living here for 34 years." Thirty-four years!
"Yes," chimed in my South African friend. "South African will be home until I live here as long as I lived in South Africa." Now, I know South Africans have a really strong attachment to their country of origin (and after seeing their Facebook photos I understand why), but we all have a funny definition of home.
When I was 18 and away from home for the first time, I was in Israel on my gap year program. The dorm was dingy and institutional. For the first time in my life I felt homesick for the familiarities, people, and comforts of home. Three months in, we were on three-day trip down south and I mentioned to my friend "I can't wait to get home." Shocked at my own verbage, it dawned on me that I had just called the dingy dorm "home"!
Point is, it was the place I could let my hair down, sleep in my own bed, and chill. It was the place I felt most comfortable in that I had access to. When our daughter Miriam comes to visit from her "home" in NY, she's coming "home" - but then she heads back "home" to her home in NY. So what is home?
A kabbalistic thought that has always gripped me is that spiritually, our souls come from another time and place - the world of souls. They are "exiled" to this imperfect world of struggle and growth to reside within us, but always yearn to return home one day. So too, our deep emotional yearning for home stems from a spiritual place and our journeys mirror the journey of the soul. Perhaps this is why we always pine for our home - whether that is Cleveland, Florida, or South Africa. We all have things about our home town that just seem perfect to us. All my Cleveland friends who grew up in Cleveland Heights understand with certainty that there was never going to be a replacement for Unger's doughnuts. And they are all right.
What happens when we go to Israel? Israel is home, even if we've never been there. What is that? Is it the history? The co-religionists? The spiritual roots? Maybe all of the above, but there is some invisible connection that binds all Jews to our homeland, no matter what your religious or political leanings. And when you go there, and see all those Jews, and all that Hebrew, something in the air just calls out: "Welcome home!"
Home is where you can hang your hat.
Home is where you know you can let your hair down.
Home is where your people are.
Wishing you all homes filled with love, acceptance, and joy.
Shabbat Shalom!
Ruchi Koval
