In July 1993 I had to leave Jerusalem after five years of PhD studies for financial reasons. It took me 11 years to return, in August 2004. To my pleasant surprise, I was offered a position at another Israeli university in the same area where I had done my PhD - against all odds. Many people advised me to compromise and look for a job in other, more "realistic" areas. But I never gave up.
This first "exile" of mine was not an easy one, especially because, in retrospect, I was completely controlled by the ego and wasn't even aware of it. Toward the end of those 11 years I unconsciously did what I would later learn to do more consciously: give up the illusion that I control my life. Soon after, I received an invitation to teach at the university I mentioned above.
Ironically, I left what seemed like a dream job in September 2020 of my own will, as a result of a soul reckoning. This itself was the result of my spiritual awakening, triggered by my unexpected divorce and accelerated by my subsequent encounter with - and systematic study of - Chabad Chassidus. After leaving academia, I started a new personal business aligned with my newly found life mission. But this fateful - some might say "fatal" ;-) - change eventually brought about my second "exile" for the very same reason.
I had to make a very difficult decision to leave Jerusalem again at the end of September 2023, without knowing at the time that this second "exile" held at least one blessing in disguise - one I could only recognize from within "exile".
Comparing these two exiles, I now see some fundamental differences. Thanks to my spiritual transformation, I'm no longer controlled by the ego though I can't claim to have fully tamed it. In some ways, the financial challenges in this "exile" are even greater. In the first "exile" I had a job secured in advance. This time I had to find sources of income from scratch.
But again, it was when I gave up the illusion of control that "miracles" began to happen. My financial saviors appeared out of the blue and out of nowhere, both in the first and second years of this exile. I just want to let you know about the second, still ongoing, "miracle".
Toward the end of my first year I began to feel anxious about how I would support myself in the year to come - this year. I also began to think more seriously about the power of Chassidic tales as a way to complement my new work sharing Jewish life wisdom based on Chassidus. Just two weeks later I was offered a job translating Rabbi Nachman's tales from Hebrew and Yiddish - by a former colleague of mine at the very Israeli university I had left!
In addition to this key difference between the two "exiles" there is another: this time, I'm not thinking about returning to Jerusalem. First and foremost, for financial reasons - my personal pension doesn't seem sufficient to live, at least not in the same neighborhood where I used to live. I can make far better use of the same amount by living somewhere more affordable.
That's the main "negative" reason for not returning. But I also have a "positive" reason. There is one city in another country where I feel drawn to live. In fact, I visited it two months before leaving Jerusalem, and I fell in love with it anew! Sorry, Jerusalem and Jerusalemites, ;-) but in a sense I miss it even more than Jerusalem.
I've also come to realize that throughout my life, whenever things became too comfortable, I would pull myself out of that comfort zone. I used to do this unconsciously, but now I do it consciously. I'm not so naive as to idealize this new city as a rosy garden. On the contrary: it's precisely the new challenges I expect to encounter there that will likely help me grow more than Jerusalem, which I know too well - for better or worse.
I've already begun thinking about the best time of year to visit Jerusalem from this new city. So far, my conclusion is around the 19th of Kislev. Not so much because of this Chassidic holiday per se, but because of the annual Chassidic book fair held in Jerusalem during that time. I was fortunate to visit it three times. I still vividly remember the excitement I felt each time I stepped into the huge venue. Yes, I'm ready to fly just for that event!
In the meantime some of the Chassidic books I bought there continue to encourage me with their very presence in my relocated library, here in this second "exile" even when I don't open them.