The Keystone

Having lived in Pennsylvania for the last 11 or so years, I am very familiar with images of keystones. PA is the keystone state (don't ask me why). I don't know much about archway construction but I do know that there's a focal point in them called the keystone, and that it's what holds the archway up.

They keystone in any good community is, of course, the people. And the people here in Israel are the thing I love the most. Pittsburgh actually has an awesome feeling of community. Within the Jewish community there are all different types of people and they all generally get along better than in any other Jewish community I've observed.

Israel takes that sense of community to a whole new level. People at the airport helped us carry car seats around. I had a bunch of IKEA furniture delivered to the bottom of my staircase (we live on the 4th floor and IKEA wanted to charge 500NIS to deliver to my door) and two people from the community showed up to help me shlep it upstairs. Our next-door neighbors let us use their fridge for several days as we waited for ours to arrive. And just today, we got a call from someone in the community (who is the sister of the aunt of my best friend) inviting us for Shabbat lunch this week. Community here is such an important and amazing part of the whole Israel experience.

I love it!