He just doesn't know me......

Both hubby and I knew that once we started to tell people of our plans for making Aliyah this coming summer, that there would be some negative responses. We knew that some people would make it all about themselves and how they would miss us and our kids, etc. I appreciate their feeling of loss, but I can't let that hold me back, it's just the way it is.

One comment however has been just replaying over and over in my mind. It is from my brother, and mind you, has come to me third hand. My brother deals in business with my hubby's aunt who lives in another state. She speaks to him more than I do, and he lives 5 min from me. So anyway, they were talking this past week and he made a comment to her:

"I think if my sister and [her hubby] made more money here that they wouldn't be moving to Israel."

HUH???? It's so bizarre to me that that is what he thinks. I mean really, I have always known that he and I are on different planes, and truly were motivated by different things in life, but how could he SO not know me?? This just proves to me completely that he just simply does not know me. Doesn't know what motivates me, what excites me, and just doesn't get me. And ok, if it's a stretch to think that his little sister has any reason to move to Israel, it's as if he has sort of forgotten that my hubby grew up in Israel, he is Israeli. Anyone who KNOWS us, KNOWS him, KNOWS me, knows that his heart is there, always has been.

So my question to myself at this point is why is this bothering me? I mean really, I have always known that my brother and I live in different worlds. He lives in a home on an acre of land, in a neighborhood with professional football players and millionares. His kids go to the most prestigious private school in the area, and he has always been about having the best and giving his family the best.

I on the other hand, live in a modest home that could fit in his living room/dining room/kitchen (yes, my entire home, 3 bedrooms and a garage). My boys go to a Jewish preschool, and we live essentially on one teacher's salary. We love to travel, go camping, and just get away wherever. They didn't take their 3rd child with them on trips till she was about 4, and we're freaking out over leaving our 2 for one night while Saba stays with them and we go to a hotel 45 minutes away. They take trips to Disney or to go skiing, before kids we backpacked through Peru, Costa Rica, with kids, we find family to visit if it's out of state... I could go on and on. enough.

Enough is enough. it's no use, after all of these years of making the small talk, trying to talk even a bit deeper about our lives, my brother just simply cannot fathom that I am motivated by anything other than money and keeping up with the Jones'. He puts his values onto my life and has therefore come to the conclusion that I must not be happy because I don't measure up, or my bank account doesn't. Therefore, in his mind, I must move.

once again, HUH????

I think in the end I need to give him the benefit of the doubt in thinking that maybe he IS sad or pained that we are leaving, and maybe that was his feelings about us leaving coming out in the only way he knows how...related to money. who knows? I hope that he will one day be able to see and know that we have made this decision to live in Israel for a greater purpose, for the feeling of it, for the meaning of it, for our children. Because it feels right, and because life is an adventure.