Some of you know we were planning a family trip to Israel. In fact, we were going to be leaving tonight, connecting in strike-beset Rome, and carrying on to Israel, where we would spend nine days in Haifa as part of the Bahá’í Pilgrimage, then four days in Jerusalem. My parents were going to come too. This was going to be the trip that fulfilled a lifetime goal of Amy’s (Pilgrimage), mine (go to Israel), and help the girls feel their Bah´’ái-Jewish identities are grounded in an actual place where those faiths coexist happily. Plus, all that heavenly falafel was going to make this trip a vegan paradise.

Someday... (credit: Flickr user daveboudreau)

Alas, we decided we couldn’t go right now. My dad had some health problems that, while now abated, made it clear he and my mom would not be able to accompany us on the trip. And that was a wake-up call to really think about what it would be like to have Amy doing Pilgrimage stuff in Haifa—going to the major sanctuaries of the faith, places where silent meditation can easily be ruptured by a three year old yelling, “MOMMY, WHY ARE THEY QUIET? WHEN CAN WE PLAY?” Either Amy was going to have to peel off from the family, maybe with grown-up-ish Miss A., leaving me to doodle around the falafel joints and bakeries of Haifa with two restive bunnies all day; or, we’d try to do all the visits together, being braced to tear outside in case our kids were disturbing various pilgrims’ spiritual reverie. Plus, the hills of Haifa are steep, and gigantic Suburban-like double strollers are not allowed on the gravel paths of the Bahá’í World Center and its gardens.

So we put this off for at least three years, on the idea that by that time our juniormost mint will be together enough to keep it meditative and to tromp up and down the hills without needing a sedan chair—and also to remember it more than she would now. Given the vagaries of health and the political situation, we really hope that when we think we’re ready to go that it will be possible to get there.

PS everyone I recommend this to has already read it, but Start-Up Nation is a fascinating view into Israeli society and how it has succeeded so well in creating entrepreneurs