We made aliyah 14 years ago.  When one decides to pick up everything and move to another country, you either pack up your belongings and ship them to the new place, or get rid of everything and start over.  For us, it was cheaper to ship our things to Israel.  (Only our beds did not come with us.)  However, it would take 6 weeks for the container to arrive.

When we got to Israel, and the city in which we chose to live, we were in a hotel for 2 nights and during that time we enrolled all of our children in school (and they began attending) and we found a place to rent.

The place we found was in a religious community and there was a family with 7 children who lived above us.  They immediately came downstairs and invited us for dinner the first Shabbat we were there.

When we first got to town, we also went to buy beds, and found that it would take weeks to get delivery on the beds.  Baruch said that we would only get beds if they came down from heaven.

In the mean time, we had bought a plastic table and chairs (like for a balcony or patio) to use as a place to eat.  But, all we could do is sleep on blankets on a concrete floor in Northern Israel in January.  Needless to say we were not comfortable.

On Friday night we went up to our neighbors’ for Shabbat dinner.  We talked (I spoke very little, as I had not learned Hebrew yet) and they mentioned that they noticed when the came to invite us for dinner that we didn’t have any furniture.  They wanted to know what we were sleeping on.

Once they found out, the wife/mother told their oldest son to go upstairs to get something.  The next thing we know, there are mattresses being hurled down the stairs!!  This family who we had just met gave us beds and mattresses for our entire family.  I cannot tell you what a blessing it was for us to sleep in beds.

Why am I telling you about this?  Of course first it is a confirmation of G-d’s love and provision for us.  It is a testimony that He will provide.  But, the reason I really chose to write about this is that we found out a couple of days ago that the wife/mother died last week.  She was in her early 50s.  This was a fond memory I had and I just wanted to share it.

Blessings, Rivka