This morning, I said goodbye to my grandmother. I cried. She cried. Then she called me four times today to check on me. The matriarch of her kingdom, she worries for everyone and everything. Worries for her children, her grandchildren, her great grandchildren, their spouses, careers, jobs, homes, and lives in general. Her worry knows no bounds. And in my being in her backyard, It meant that she would take on additional worry on my behalf. Whatever the case, I promised to be back sooner rather than later.
So, I drove back to the airport return my rental and met up with the JWRP women. Some I have known for many years, some more loosely and others more closely, some that I've just met in the last few months and weeks, and some that I just met today. I did not know what to expect but I knew it would be something new and something special. We started with a discussion given by Adrienne Gold - Motivational and inspiring, I started taking notes and found myself trying to write down verbatim what she was saying. So then I decided to just listen and try to take it all in. The thing that resonated with me most today were the words that I often look for when discussing my Judaism. I sometimes feel I need to defend my decisions or my family's decisions and how we observe and what we observe Judaically - like sending kids to Jewish day school but giving them the space to order non kosher foods at restaurants. Adriennes said "something so so profound - she said "it is not all or nothing at all." Meaning, if you decide to light Shabbat candles for the first time and serve pork chops for dinner, you've decided to do something for Shabbat but not everything. Something is not nothing. In other words it's not all of nothing. Something is something! That really resonated with me and I see myself using her inspiration and her words in the future.
By the time she was done speaking my stomach was growling. Time change is really wreaking havoc on my eating habits and appetite. So finally it was good to be hungry at dinner time and JWRP organized the most phenomenal group dinner for us at a restaurant called Decks. Decks is on sea of Gallilee, Lakeside and alfresco. Once we were seated and MC welcomes us and beckoned us to pay attention the lake - when we turned our heads. We saw a ferry of sorts approach the restaurant shooting up lights and then fireworks as our welcome to Israel. The meal was then followed by a dance party that would put any bar mitzvah to shame. 300 women danced, partied, jumped, and reveled in each others company. It was really quite spectacular and beyond a warm welcome to Israel. This place beckons us home because it is part of our collective Jewish DNA. Thank you JWRP. I can't wait to see what else awaits us.
