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| My Family - July 4, 1999 |
Thirteen years ago – I attended a Motivational Seminar,
where the keynote speaker challenged us to go home and make a list of 101
goals. At that time in my life, I was a
stay-at-home mom with young children and feeling rather lost. Wanting to make a change in my life, I took the “homework”
to heart and sat down that night to create my list.
One of the goals, number 9, was “Visit Israel – Climb Mt.
Masada with my sons”. At that time, I was the heaviest weight I had even been in
my life and just climbing the stairs was a challenge. And, my two sons were 3 years old and 19
months. So to say that my goal - to
climb a 1300 foot mountain in Israel - was a lofty one, is not an
exaggeration. However, after attending the
seminar I was convinced that sometimes we have to have goals that are larger
than life, so we continue to stretch and grow.
I have never forgotten that goal and I have to admit it was
instrumental on starting me on my present journey of "100 Days in Israel". After 100 days of blogging about this trip of
a lifetime, I now feel quite confident that I will get there. After all the research and posts, there are
now so many great experiences beckoning me to get on that plane in two years! True to form, each blog post has made the
possibility of the going more and more real. I have been transformed from “wanting to go”
to “planning to go”. In my mind, it’s
already a done deal.
Over the past 100 days, I have avoiding writing a post about
visiting Masada. Since I am now planning
to go to Israel alone, I now know that I will not be fulfilling the dream to “Climb Mt. Masada with my sons”.
At first, I toyed with the idea that perhaps we could time separate
trips to Israel together – as both my sons have decided to definitely take
advantage of a Birthright Trip. However,
the logistics of doing that would really be a challenge. Plus, when they go on their trips, they need to be free to enjoy the whole experience with the group they are with. So in the end, I have just had to accept that
I am not going to be able to fulfill the second part of my goal.
Last night, as I was thinking that today would be my 100th
post, I began reflecting on the goal I wrote down 13 years ago and saw it from
a new light. I began to think that perhaps the
goal was really just a metaphor for the kind of parent I wanted to become?
After all, there must have been a reason I
picked Mt. Masada as the destination and climbing to the top as the goal.
Masada is more than just a mountain in Israel. Masada is one of the Jewish people’s greatest
symbols. Next to visiting Jerusalem, it
is the most popular destination of Jewish tourists when visiting Israel. To understand the significance of Masada, you have to know
a little about it’s history. In 74 A.D. a group of
Jewish rebels, fighting the Roman army after the destruction of the Temple in
Jerusalem, made history by ending their own lives rather than being taken alive
by their enemy. This little group of Jews held off the Romans for almost five
years - while the Roman soldiers built an enormous ramp up the side of
the mountain, with the intent of driving a battering ram through the fortress
gates. When the Romans finally made it inside,
they discovered that almost one thousand men, women and children had committed
suicide. Two women and a handful of children survived to tell the tale.
Today, Masada has become a symbol of valor, courage, and conviction
for modern-day Jews. Which is why Israeli
soldiers climb the mountain and take an oath there: "Masada shall not fall
again." When I think to who I was thirteen years ago, I was looking
for a way to incorporate those qualities into my life and my ability to
raise my children. I wanted to raise my
boys to become men that would know what they wanted in life and know they were
capable of achieving anything. I wanted them to be brave enough to reach for the stars and never give up.
As I look at boys now, I know they’ve already “climbed
Masada”. Next week they are leaving for
their dream trip to England and France with their Boy Scout troop. Two years ago, they began doing “whatever it
took” to earn the money to pay for the trip.
Whether it was selling food at sporting events, mowing lawns, stacking
wood, or pitching hay, they just kept working towards that goal. Sometimes the road looked very long and hard, but they never gave up.
Like my boys are going to Europe without me, I know that
they will go to Israel without me too. When
they finally do visit, I hope their travels will take them to Masada, so that they can appreciate the significance of climbing that mountain –
as Jews and as individuals. In essence, I know that just having that goal
for them – way back when they were babies - has made them who they are today.
So, I now feel I can finally release any angst I am feeling about
not climbing Masada with my sons.
Instead, I can now accept that establishing that goal made me a better parent –
as it gave me the vision to raise my boys to be the kind of people that are not
afraid to climb to the top of ANY mountain.
