Aliya: Dreaming the Dream vs. Living the Reality

Eli was lying awake in bed, again. He was as mystified as he was crestfallen. In his mind, he was again running the same script and again it just didn’t add up. The script sounded something like this: Born and raised a Zionist? Check. Always dreamed of making aliya? Check. Wife and kids on board with aliya? Check. Pilot trip? Check. Aliya plan executed with only minor hiccups? Check. Dream fulfilled? Check. Happy? No.

With all the checks in place, why the unwelcome sadness that had settled in with his new life in Israel? Why another sleepless night?

In a different blog, we identified one of the phenomena hidden in the aliya process, which sometimes accounts for unexpected emotional hardship for olim, even the most dedicated and ideal ones. That phenomenon is place attachment, which describes the connection formed with a person’s home. When that connection is ruptured or fundamentally changed, people experience feelings of loss and sadness - even if that place was chutz la'aretz (outside of Israel), which they had always planned to leave and even if their new home is Israel, where they had always wanted to be.

Here, we’re going to take a look at another dynamic often at play below the surface, which can contribute to unexpected feelings of difficulty for olim. We’ll return to Eli to illustrate:

The check-off strategy wasn’t yielding any helpful results. So Eli decided to take a deeper dive.

He began by reviewing the conversations he’d had prior to aliya, where he told people why he was excited to be moving to Israel. He recalled some of the points he’d made over and over: “We won’t have to worry about anti-semitism once we land in Israel; the cost of tuition is so much lower there than here; in Israel, I won’t have to explain to my boss why I need to leave early on Fridays or take repeated vacations in September; our new home will be much closer to nature than the urban jungle we live in now...”

A theme from those conversations began to emerge: he’d spent months emphasizing the upsides of Israel and the downsides of chutz laaretz.  Without even realizing it, as aliya came closer, he had been framing Israel in near-perfect terms and his soon-to-be old home as riddled with problems. In anticipation of aliya, he had looked past the challenges he had always known would lie ahead. Now, he was “living the dream,” but struggling with its realities.

Let’s take a moment to examine Eli’s latest self-observations.  

Eli may actually have been putting to good use a mental strategy that many of us employ from time to time, when major change looms before us. Though we know that the expected change will involve difficulty, we’re prone to adopt an oversimplified perception that magnifies the flaws of the current reality and the benefits of the coming reality. This way of thinking allows us to move forward and undertake the steps necessary to achieve the desired change, without being discouraged or overwhelmed by the inherent hardships. For an oleh, this may manifest in focusing on the drawbacks of life in chutz la'aretz and the many benefits of life in Israel.  This natural, reality-based “spotlighting” of the positives and negatives can in fact ease the decision-making and moving process. It certainly did for Eli.

However, this - practically necessary - mental strategy often comes at a price that is paid down the road. Once the change has happened, our consciousness naturally broadens to include the things we appreciated about our lives, pre-change and what's lacking now, post-change. In the case of olim such as Eli, as we begin settling into our new home in Israel, we find ourselves missing parts of our old home and not squaring entirely with all that is new. In fact, Eli’s shifts in mentality are entirely understandable: before departing for Israel he took advantage of the opportunity to give less attention to the difficulties he always knew might arise so that he could make the necessary preparations, uninhibited by worry; upon arrival, those difficulties became part of his everyday life and not paying them attention was no longer an option. The clash between the difficulties of the present and the difficulty-overlooking mindset that carried him over the ocean, yielded emotional distress that contributed to the disquiet with which Eli seems to be contending.  

What Now?

Once this dynamic is brought to Eli’s awareness, he can thoughtfully undertake the process of embracing a more accurate and nuanced perception of where he is now and what he left behind. While the process may not be simple, Eli will be better equipped for his journey once he can point to triggers of his negative feelings, rather than being perplexed by their very existence. 

As noted in our previous column, if Eli can acknowledge the emotional distress, rather than seeking to judge it or refute it, while also integrating practices from his old home and pursuing opportunities to get involved in his new home, he’ll be well set for a transition that smooths with time.