Home from Sem But it Doesn’t Feel Like Home

I remember coming home from seminary after 10 months being away.

I also distinctly remember not wanting to come home for Pesach because it would break up the year’s momentum. Remember the story of Rabbi Akiva, how after 12 years he came home, heard his wife Rochel say that she would be happy to have him learn another 12 years, and he went back without even telling her hello or goodbye. I remember my teachers explaining, “12 plus 12 does NOT equal 24 and Rochel knew that. That is why Rabbi Akiva became Rabbi Akiva. That is why he didn’t even come into the house to tell his wife hello. He needed 24 years to become Rabbi Akiva.”

I am not saying I am Rabbi Akiva. Not even Rochel, but I remembered that message of 12 plus 12 does NOT equal 24 and I felt that 8 months plus 1 month does equal nine; if for sure doesn’t equal the 10 months I was in seminary. So, I stayed in Eretz Yisroel for Pesach, missed home and my grandfather’s seder, and then          came back home thinking I would slip right back into the life I left, minus the 10 months of seminary.

Yeah, right. That’s exactly so not what happened.

My little sister was not so little anymore; and in my absence had been adopted by my best friend, becoming her little sister instead. My little niece was not as ecstatic to see me as I was to see her. My mother didn’t realize that if I could gallivant around Eretz Yisroel with a bunch of friends and a change of clothing, staying at youth hostels and washing my clothing in the sink, I probably could figure out on my own what time I want to go to sleep at night and how long I want to talk on the phone (these were in the days when every family ONLY had landlines!) with friends.

And my brother had gone and gotten engaged to a perfect stranger without consulting me and everybody knew her except for me!

Coming back from seminary, to put it mildly, was NOT fun.

There were other weird changes and similarly weird reactions. When I walked on the 13^th Avenue and secular music blasted out of the stores (today it’s only Jewish music!), I had become so sensitized that I literally could not walk into the manicurist if there was secular music playing. It hurt my ears. I missed the streets of Eretz Yisroel and the names of rabbonim instead of the numbers of Boro Park. I missed the oafballs they served for lunch (don’t ask) and how they mixed up lunch and supper, making lunch fleishig and supper milchig (and there wasn’t even 6 hours between them!).

I missed my Israeli cousins who were thrilled out of their minds to see me and did not let me lift a finger when I visited versus my very own parents who kept bossing me around and telling me stuff like, “Clean up the supper table, fold the laundry, run to the grocery.”

And here you are, coming back for Pesach, and probably feeling misplaced, misunderstood, and mis-erable too.

But the good thing is that I am going to warn you, prepare you for your inevitable homecoming and hope that this heads up will allow you the space to acclimate to these changes—both teeny weeny and ginormous—with a better attitude than I had 35 years ago!

So let’s talk about the changes that may be hard for you.

The first change can be the role you left, the role you want or don’t want now.

Let’s say that you were the oldest home when you left. And after your mother was niftar, you took care of suppers, shabbos, and yom tov. You read the little ones stories at bedtime, and it was to you they ran to for hugs when they fell. And here you are coming home and your eleventh grade sister is making some weird kugel that is definitely not potato. It’s broccoli, it’s squash, it’s something green; and it’s not pretty. But when you want to make potato kugel, you are shocked that everyone loves this green horror that your sister makes.

Or, when your baby sister, the one you always got up to rock to sleep in middle of the night, nerve of nerves, now runs to your sister to get her hug and kiss.

It feels lousy. Everyone is not only managing just fine without you, in some ways, they like the new manager better.

You feel useless, you feel out of place, you feel that the rules changed on you and you walked into somebody else’s house. It’s this uncomfortable situation of “Who am I in this family? Where do I belong now? Does anyone care if I am here or not?”

There is a loss of status and pride in running the house that has disappeared; and with it some of your self-esteem. And it’s even worse if the grief of your mother loss pops up out of nowhere because she is the one you would have cried to had she been alive.

But what if it’s the opposite? Yes, you left doing Shabbos, Yom tov and suppers, and you come home to a resentful, angry eleventh grade sister who is burned out of running the house in your placek. The minute you are back, she sullenly refuses to make another kugel if her life depended on it.

And you know exactly how she feels because when you come back, you no longer want to slip back into that role either. But you are resentful too because you took over that role when your older sister went to seminary and had it since; and not it’s your younger sister’s turn. The two of you, once best friends, hate each other’s guts. And both of you feel guilty for making your father upset at your constant bickering over Shabbos chores.

Problem, no?

A second change can be even worse than just role reversals. How about if your father’s petirah happened while you were in seminary? You came back for the levayah and shiva but promptly escaped to seminary until now.

So many changes. Your brother is hanging out until late at night with unsavory friends. Your little sister is bedwetting and she’s been dry at night since she’s four; and now the room smells. Your mother took a job to find ways of earning money she hadn’t needed to do when your father was alive. Goodbye calm mother and goodbye homemade suppers every night; unless you volunteer to make them. You hate doing laundry, which became your job since your mother took hers.

Another change you may be forced to deal with is a remarriage while you were in seminary; or that occurred twenty seconds before you left for seminary.

You come home and the food tastes funny. This is not how your mother used to cook, thank you very much; and since when your father allows oil in the house Pesach? All the years your mother begged him to switch to oil from shmaltz and suddenly this woman enters the house and is frying away in oil? It doesn’t matter if the food tastes better with oil! This feels wrong and you are furious at your father.

It feels terrible that your brother was shipped away to a dormitory (who cares if he loves it?) because the house you lived in all your life was taken over by her four daughters and it was deemed best (by who? Did anyone ask you???) to send your brother out-of-town to yeshiva a year earlier.

The kitchen was remodeled, you can’t bear to see your mother’s bedroom furniture in the guest room and it’s painful how your younger sisters have in-jokes with the step-sisters (no, they are not cute at all, if anybody is asking you, which they are not!) that exclude you.

Different food is bad enough, but what about the different rituals that have been created while you were away? Game night on Tuesday, pizza night on Sunday (everyone knows pizza is Thursday and Sunday is leftover cholent which you always hated but now you are insisting everyone eat in memory of your mother who—if we are to be perfectly honest—was so not in the mood of cooking on Sunday so she ignored everyone’s kvetching and served leftovers), with ice cream, to make things superbly unfair.

Fine, you got your own room because you are the oldest, but it’s unnerving how the roommates have shifted in the other rooms with sibs and step-sibs sharing rooms according to age or preference. And it doesn’t matter if your stepmother picked a perfect color to paint it, you wanted to be there to decide.

Or, it’s your stepfather that brings changes to the house. His big shoes in the hallway, his hat and jacket hanging a dining room chair. He doesn’t belong! And why does he decide for the family that this summer you are all going to the bungalow colony? So what if your sisters are all excited about the idea and you are going a full summer to camp? It feels so discombobulating to deal with so much change.

There there is a different part to coming home that doesn’t deal with changes externally in the home, but with changes within you. Like my new sensitivity to secular music. Nothing changed in the manicure store except for me.

After being away for so long, some things you hadn’t ever paid attention to now feel off, feel wrong. Maybe after becoming close to some American families living in Israel and hanging out their homes, you realize that it’s not okay for members of your family to fix their own suppers every night instead of sitting down together to a home-cooked meal. You never noticed how shlumpy the little kids looked with uniform shirts that are not ironed. A Shabbos table, even with only a mother heading it, needs to have zemiros and Divrei Torah. It’s not healthy for your siblings to go to sleep without your father coming into their rooms to tuck them in and kiss them good night. Your mother should be doing homework with the children, not leaving them on their own without a bedtime while she sits on the computer working or watching. No wonder your sister won’t bring friends to the house; it’s really messy and dirty! And your ninth grade brother is in the wrong high school, for sure.

It’s a struggle to notice these deficiencies for the first time and it’s even a greater struggle to decide what you can do about it, if anything.

How can you deal with these changes both externally and internally without becoming bitter, angry, adrift, lost, alone, or sad?

First, do nothing. You just came home.

Observe. Be friendly. Be helpful. Observe some more. Be honest with yourself if the problem is the problem or if you are the problem.

Second, if you can, talk to your parent or older sibling. Tell him or her your concern. Be respectful. Curious. It’s not in your best interests to make your parent defensive or angry. Prepare yourself to state the issue(s) clearly and calmly without blame or attack; and offer solutions if you can. Ask for solutions if you need to.

Third, if nobody  at home who can help is receptive to your concerns, ask an older person you trust for advice. A teacher, mentor, aunt, grandparent, or someone at LINKS.

And finally, brainstorm what can be helped, what cannot be helped, and how to access the help that is possible. Is it a cleaning lady that’s needed? Some resources like a cook, a tutor, or Big Brother? Is there a rav to involve, a therapist, or a teacher?

Are you able or willing to chip in with cooking supper, part of your salary, or giving your mother an occasional night out with friends by babysitting?

Tough questions and even tougher answers.

Sometimes, the toughest part is just knowing it’s tough and knowing that not doing anything about it is the best you can do.

It doesn’t make coming home easier, but it makes it calmer.

Sometimes, it’s even worth a trip to the manicurist even if the music hurts your ears. That’s all.

Originally published by Teens Connect Magazine, a division of LINKS