Off to the Holy Land!

I am so excited, the countdown to my "Pilot Trip" to Israel is on. We (my DH and I) will be leaving this Sunday from the SF Bay Area to Los Angeles, and the next day we will be leaving from LAX to Ben Gurion Airport in Tel Aviv.
I cannot believe it has been 5 years since my first trip to the Holy Land. Ever since the first time we were there, I could not wait to return. I guess a Jew's neshama (soul) is most at home there. I know that from the moment we walked out of the airport and into the beautiful sunset and the smell of the Mediterranean Sea in Netanya where we stayed . . . I have been hooked.
We will take the train to Nahariya and stay there with a group from Nefesh b'Nefesh. The pilot trip with NBN will only last for 3 days. During that time we will visit various areas in the North and will attend meetings discussing everything from health insurance to jobs and housing.
After the official Pilot Trip is done, we will be off to a rental just outside of Jerusalem for our vacation. We found a wonderful little rental, in the country. It looks so soothing and relaxing. I'm so excited to get there and spend a couple of days just unwinding after the whirlwind of the Pilot Trip.
We are very excited, as we really want to move to Israel and make 'her' our home. The Go North Program sponsored by the Jewish Agency and NBN caught our attention from the time that we came back to California in 2005. We have been going through the tedious process of aliyah. Believe me if you are going to even think of making aliyah, you have to have dedication and persaverance. It isn't for the faint of heart, and if lots of red tape and paperwork freak you out, you may have to reconsider. I almost did a few times.
But . . . I am determined to go home.  Home, what a wonderful word. Not that I think that it's going to be easy, or be like living in the U.S. I know it's different, I know that I am going to have struggles and it is not going to be easy. Especially since I will be leaving behind my 3 grown children and my one and only grandson, who is so special to me. So people ask me, "How can you leave your children, and your grandson?" Well, I have agonized over this, believe me when I say, "It isn't going to be an easy thing to say good-bye to all of them." It's hard to do, but in my heart and in my DH's heart we know that we need to do this. We have recently had great financial setbacks due to the change in the economy, we had to do a shortsale on our home of over 20 years, but it was really for the best. So, we need to start over, and at our age it's not an easy thing to start over. Israel is giving us a chance to start over. We will receive financial help to re-settle, and help with finding housing, and jobs, etc. so even though it's a calculated risk, we feel it's one that is worth the risk.
The other question we get alot is . . . " How can you go live in such a dangerous country? Aren't you scared?" Well , yes on the one hand I am scared, but really no more scared than I would be moving to New York, or Los Angeles, or anywhere else. Do we ever have any guarantees in life? Do any of us know what is going to happen tomorrow? I feel that our lives are in the hands of HaKadosh Baruchu
(The One Holy G-d). He is the only One who knows what the future holds for any of us. So I go forth with my faith into the unknown, that is all I can do.
I think my faith  in G-d and my personal experiences with the paranormal in my life have helped to convince me that there is much more to this life than meets the eye. We are here for a very brief time, and then we go on to the Olam Haba (The World to Come). We don't really live for this life, but for the next one. This life is fraught with the unknown, and trials and tribulations. We are in this world only to prepare for the next.
So I am a sojourner in this life, and I feel the pull of Hashem saying to me, it's time to come home to where you belong. My children at this point in there lives do not share this feeling. So maybe Hashem has another path for them to walk. Maybe it is meant to be, and maybe at some point they may need to come home to Israel, and we will have prepared the way for them to come.
So anyway, I am going to go with the flow and enjoy this time in Eretz Yisrael. I just hope that G-d willing, it all turns out for the good. As my Rabbi in SF used to say, "Gam zu'la'tov!" (This too is for the good!)  Kol Tuv to You All.

Finally Posting Again...

Wow, it's been a long time since I have posted. October of 2010 to be exact! Way too long, but I'm really not a great blogger. But I'm learning.
The truth is we have been super busy, there was Chanukah in December, and we sold our home, but we are still living in it, and to add to it all we are in the midst of making aliyah to Israel. For those who aren't familiar with the term 'aliyah' it refers to one who is going to Israel to live. That is what we have been working on for about a year now.
We are almost to the finish line, we are actually going to Israel in late May, for our 'Pilot Trip'.  Now, you ask, what is a 'pilot trip'? Well, it is the trip you take where you go to Israel and check out where you might end up living, working, going to the doctor, dentist, school, etc. And you see if you are a good fit for Israel and Israel is a good fit for you.  If everything works out G-d willing, we will be able to go there to live by the years end .
Needless to say it isn't easy to fill out all of the paper work required by the Israeli Government.  There is a group called Nefesh b' Nefesh that helps you to organize all of the paperwork and helps with planning your pilot trip and your final move to Israel.  So along with everyday life and having ghosts popping in and out of my home it's been a lot of work.
Along the way, while we were selling our home, we had a home inspector do an inspection on our home, and he took a lot of photos of the house.  All but one of the photos he took were very normal, but there is one that he took of my youngest daughters bedroom that really caught our attention. I have posted it here on the blog. It is full of orbs. I talked to my sister who is a sensitive and she has confirmed to me that these orbs are spirits.  She also confirmed that there are indeed still spirits hanging around our home.  She told me that as we are getting ready to pack our bags, they are also getting ready to pack their spiritual bags and move on too. Whether they will follow us, I do not know.

So I leave it to any of you out there  who might come across my blog, and look at the photo, please let me know what you think of it.  This photo is one of about 25 photos taken in my house, and it is the ONLY ONE , that came out with all of these orbs on it. Also I guarantee that the photo has not been touched up or photo shopped.  
Tomorrow night we start our 8 days celebration of Passover or in Hebrew Pesach!  So for any of you out there who celebrate Pesach . . .  I wish you a Kasher v'Sameach Pesach! (Translated: I wish you a very kosher and joyous Passover!)                                                                                                                                                                                            

The Ghosts are Still Hanging Out Here . . . and Movies etc.

It is time for me to post once again. I have been busy trying to find resources online to help people to deal with the paranormal within the context of Judaism. I have recently been experiencing some new activity in my home... there seems to be someone or something that likes to hang out at the top of my stairs by my heater closet. We keep hearing the door bang as if opening and closing and also we hear knocks on the door. At the time all pets and people in my home are present and accounted for, so they are all ruled out as a source for the mysterious noises. Also it never happens when we are upstairs in our rooms, only when everyone is downstairs. I can't figure out what this is. I have also once again had things fly off of the cupboards in my kitchen and hit me, the floor and my kitties. Also when the noise upstairs occurs my kitties both stop and look up the stairs as if they are looking at something or someone. I feel very strongly that animals can see and sense things from the beyond that we may be completely unaware of.
So, I continue to try and not be frightened by these noises, but I have to admit that it is very unnerving at times to know that there are spirits roaming about my property. So far I do not feel that there is anything demonic here, and that I am not feeling threatened by them. I have a lot of relatives in the hearafter and so does my DH, so it could be family members.
Speaking of the "hearafter", I really want to see the new movie that opened today  by that title. It looks like a good movie about the paranormal, a medium and ... the "hearafter". Also it was directed by Clint Eastwood and stars Matt Damon both of whom I have a lot of admiration for. I am including a link to a review of the movie. So take a look, as the article is very interesting. http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/us_film_review_hereafter
I also found a trailer to the Hearafter so if you want a little glimpse of the movie in case you haven't already seen it on TV or the internet, here it is...http://movies.yahoo.com/movie/1810121908/trailer
When I get time I am going to put together a list of books, websites and other places where you can go to find information on Jewish viewpoints on the paranormal. So in the meantime, I'm really hoping to get some of you out there to sign on as members and to share with me any resources that you may know about. Also if you just want to comment, talk, etc. please do so. Tonight I'm watching Destination Truth, I love that show as Josh Gates and his cohorts always go to lots of spooky places! Now that is my kind of show, I guess I'm sort of hooked on shows about the paranormal now.

Calling all Jews who are interested in the Paranormal...

I know right before Shabbat is not the ideal time to post your first post on your new blog, so I'll have to keep this one short and sweet. I promise there will be more to come.
I am starting this Blog because I have experienced paranormal activity in my home, and I am Jewish so I looked everywhere for Jewish people to contact who had knowledge of the paranormal from a Jewish perspective. I found it quite difficult to find anyone to talk to about it.
So I called a group from Sacramento CA, to come to my home and investigate the situation that we were experiencing as it was at the time really frightening for myself and my family. B"H they were very nice people and there was a gentleman in the group who was Jewish who was very helpful. Now we still experience these things occasionally but I have learned a lot, so I am not frightened by it anymore.
I got to thinking though that there may be a lot more Jewish people out there in the same situation, searching but not finding any resources or support for this phenomenon. So if you think that you are experiencing the paranormal and need help to find resources please contact me here or by email. I am going to try and set up this blog as a resource for people like myself and you. Hopefully as I go along you can all help me too, so if you have any information or you are a paranormal research group who is interested in helping the Jewish community with this, please let me know.
I will be posting more in the near future, after Shabbat of course! So....
Shabbat Shalom to all of you out there!
Savta Neshama