Israel, Part XI: Back Home

We are back!  After a wonderful trip to Israel, many of us are back.  Some stayed longer to visit other places or to spend time with family or friends.  But many of us flew back together and then took a bus home from Miami, stopping first at Shell Point, and then coming here to Sanibel, where parked cars awaited their owners.

It felt good to be back home.  I thoroughly enjoyed the trip, the group was great, the sights and people we met fascinating, the food fabulous--but still, there's no place quite like home.

On the trip we were reminded by many things just how fortunate we are.  We were reminded that we live in a relatively safe place, with more than enough to eat, with roofs over our heads, with a sense of personal freedom.  But we were also reminded how fragile all that can be, and that only by committing ourselves to working for a better world will we be able to assure that there will be a place for ourselves within it.

Come November or so, Rabbi Fuchs and I will present a program here on Sanibel reflecting on the trip--but for now just this.  When I studied French in school I learned more about English grammar than I had ever known before.  When we travel to far off places we don't just learn about others who live in distant lands, we don't just learn about those foreign countries, we also learn about ourselves and the place that we call home.