Good morning and a very Shabbat Shalom to all of you.

It’s been 6 weeks. 6 crazy weeks of seemingly endless trips by bus, bus, train, weighed down by backpacks and suitcases on wheels of varying stability. But I am here. I finally made it to a dream location, a lifetime bucket list place of mine – Mitzpe Ramon, in the heart of the Negev Desert in Southern Israel.

When you make a plan built purely on belief it takes a certain outlook on the world to turn such a plan into a lived reality. All of my moves, travels and 90% of my experiences have been built on a simple understanding : If it is meant to happen, if this is my path, then the right people and conditions will present themselves. All you have to do is be aware, be awake. Most of all you have to be brave, and a little crazy doesn’t hurt either 😉

You need a wish, a dream, to start. A true heartfelt desire. Then you can choose one of two paths – that of the Planner or that of the Dreamer. Neither is better, and if can find a way to marry the two, you too can live the life of the eternal Nomad.

For me, one of those dreams has been to return. Return to the open spaces of my childhood, the flat brown, grey, pale scrubland views with the occasional lost tree in the distance. Somewhere along your route, you will very likely spot a negligible bump in the land. At most a hillock.

Inevitably the name be <Insert name of famous local general> Mountain.

How I came to spend 30 years of my life on the Mediterranean shores, not more than 50km from the sea, is a question that baffles me. I am a desert person. Here people move slowly, speak slowly and think deeply. Harsh conditions do not make harsh people. They make realists. Who understand and accept how fragile and temporary not only their own lives are. But the span of Humanity itself.

So how did I come to this point? Now that is a question I can answer.

Two years. One month. One week. One day. That is when it started for me. On that morning, the morning of October 7 the, 2023, we woke up to the utterly unthinkable. It became my planned mission to get here. To get back home.

End part 1