A Million Reasons.....

Other bloggers, pundits and paid professionals have posted numerous and excellent reasons why we love living in Israel.

So maybe someone else has already said this, but the Boy pointed out that one of the great things about living here is that the kids at his school blow the shofar every morning of the week during Elul.

This didn't happen in Marin. As a matter of fact, our rabbi blew the shofar and there were times the neighbors complained about the noise.

The absolutely funniest part of living there was local cluelessness.

The Chabad House truly was a house. It sat on a boulevard that was the major artery for traffic in the neighborhood. It was situated less than a block from a large elementary school, and kitty-corner from the school's enormous yard where soccer games were held every week. On Saturdays.

When the rabbi went through the application process to change its designation from a house to a synagogue, the neighborhood went nuts. This particular neighborhood had delusions of self-importance anyway, but those civic minded opponents who showed up for the hearing demanded that the rezoning from residence to Orthodox synagogue be halted immediately because it would lead to an increase in traffic on their street on Saturdays.

Hello? Orthodox Jews don't drive on Saturdays.

And how come the soccer clubs get to drive-and-park a hundred cars on Saturdays, and that's not a problem?

It's almost Shabbat, so I'll leave SATs on Saturdays and Home-Coming Dances on Yom Kippur for another time, but the Boy is right -- it's great to be here!