An exciting letter to parents during her school year in Israel
Monday, Friday, Adar 2, 1933 - Jerusalem, the Holy City
Dear Mom and Dad,
You know, it's funny. I started writing you this letter at first in the same way I have been writing to you for the last year and a half - the same title, the same greeting, the same paper, the same handwriting, and I sit here and look at it a little in disbelief, because this letter is different.
This letter is the happiest letter of my life, the most hopeful, the most exciting, the most mature, the most calculated, the most meaningful, the most important letter I have ever written. I pray and am pretty sure you can see and be absorbed in all the above thoughts and feelings and countless more. My happiness can only be complete knowing that you are a partner in it.
Eli and I, after a lot of mutual thoughts, decided we wanted to get married on Elul this year. That is, around the end of August. Mazel Tov!!!! Oh, that's hopeless! I need you here to talk to you, to plan with you, to discuss with you, to share with you.
I look at these words "Eli and I are planning to get married on Elul" and I feel an incredible jolt of happiness and ecstasy and great and immense anticipation as I begin to understand the meaning of these words, and I am overwhelmed with frustration and helplessness at knowing that you are so far away. If only you could see how happy we are.
I love you so much and I would never want to grieve you, I just want to make you happy and content. I think you will agree - because after all, you educated me to something precious that I learned from you, that only if I am happy, you will be happy.
You need to know how right and good and happy this step is in our lives. Eli and I belong to each other as a unit, as a family, as a home in Israel, and the time has come for us to take that step and start our new life together, to build, to help and to complement each other.
We did not hurry, it was more than a year and a half where we got to know each other well, but getting to know each other is not so much the point, there is something I want to explain to you, it's going to seem like a paradox at first, but that's the only true truth.
Being with Eli - and we've been together a lot in the last year - and learning together, and planning together, and seeing together, and hoping together and experiencing together, and growing together - but most importantly - learning together, through it all we became connected. It is not that I got to know Eli fully and thoroughly, and through my recognition of him and he me, so we see that we are "coordinated" and want to spend our lives together - no, it is just the opposite.
Through our learning and stay together, we learn about each other. When I am with Eli, I see more clearly who I am, where exactly I am, what is local, what is my potential, what is my role, I see my unique spark - the one that sets me apart from everyone else. And I see exactly who and where I am as a woman in general and as a Jew living in Jerusalem in the 25th year of the Hebrew state, and especially as Debbie, and I think it's the same with Eli, he also understands and finds out who he is and what his role is as a man in general, and especially Kali.
And when I said before that we know we 'fit' and are meant to share our lives together and create a family together, it's not because we knew each other and saw that we 'fit', but rather from the fact that we are together, we learn about each other, the more we know ourselves, I as me and me as me as Eli, only then (and here seemingly the paradox) it becomes so clear that we are meant to be together and that we complement each other and that there is no other reality.
We not only threw ourselves into fate and let things happen, no! We are very sensitive and aware of what is happening, and most importantly, we are doing work with ourselves. We are very busy building a strong foundation on which we can build a fruitful, positive and happy marriage.
What I mean when we say 'we work with ourselves and build our common ground' is like what I talked to you about in the summer, that good qualities, good personality and good qualities are the basis of everything. Nothing - especially in marriage - can succeed without a strong foundation of virtue, consideration, patience and inner peace. We try to strengthen and bring out these good qualities and make ourselves worthy of each other and our important life together.
Until September - the practical side of our plans, now is not the time and place to go into details; We're just starting to check it out. First of all it was important for us to let you know and wish you good luck. We would love to hear your response and introduce you to Eli a bit. Details in the next letter, I can not write everything at once.
Please remember that I am writing this on the eve of my 20th birthday.
I love you so much
Deb
