GUIDELINES 

COMING HOME
by
Ryma Shohami

     My husband and I are observing a twenty-year ritual. Each time I return from Canada, cranky about leaving family, friends, and, no less important, my language, he takes me on a short trek that never fails to remind me why I live here, in Israel, and not in convenient and quiet North America.

     I wander this tiny country and trip over the Bible at every turning. Each rock hides some of the footsteps of the millions of my people who have walked here before me. Each hill covers the layers of civilizations that thrived here at one time or another.

     My husband points out Har Megiddo and informs me that's where the final battle will take place. Final battle? Does he mean Armaggedon? I never connected the name in the prophesy to the hill at which we turn when driving to Haifa. He's amazed. I'm embarrassed.

     The land has come full circle. Once again, Hebrew, the language of the ancient prophets, is heard in the marketplaces and streets of every town. How miraculous that the language Jesus spoke has been resurrected after thousands of years. My connecting strings to Canada grow weaker with each step.

     This Hebrew I've been struggling to learn is a rich, musical language, one that rhymes easily, turning ordinary folks into poets. It's also a language that has no qualms about adopting words from every immigrant group that arrives. But mostly, it's modernizing itself. Cutting edge high-tech has encroached on the mellifluous biblical phrases, spawning a New Hebrew that, like the New Israeli, improvises as it goes along.

     I berate myself for not being good at languages. How do all the immigrants manage to learn this Hebrew and yet I, after more than 20 years, sound like a child. I'm disappointed in myself for having taken the easy way out all these years. I try to convince myself that I really did want to learn Hebrew, but what chance did I stand when all along I've had a major obstacle thrown in my path - everyone here wants to practice their English!

     Back home, I park myself at my computer and determinedly click a shortcut on my desktop that I have been studiously ignoring since I placed it there. Not for the first time, I find myself on a site that offers free Hebrew lessons.

     I vow to myself that this time I am serious. I will not speak another word of English until I've learned this Hebrew well enough to finally understand my kids. Yeah, right! Who are you kidding, I groan, rolling my eyes. There's no way you'll ever understand your kids, no matter what language you learn.

     As I sit repeating the phrases on the screen, the rhythms of Hebrew seduce me again. Soon I'm back in the Holy Land of 3000 years ago, feeling right at home bargaining for pomegranates in the market in Jerusalem.

© 2007 Ryma Shohami