Hurdles

So, I have five years to be in Israel with my family. What are the hurdles I have to overcome to pull this off?

Money and employment. I think the biggest problem people have in making Aliyah is money. For me, that may not be a problem at all. In less than three years I can retire from my present job. I'll be 50 years old and have a pension of over $100,000 annually.

Family. In five years, all my children will be out of the house. Two of the three have already expressed an interest in living in Israel or at least going to School there. One of my children should beat my wife and I by two or three years. And I don't give a crap about the rest of my family. They think I'm crazy to want to live in Israel anyway. I never see them and am estranged from most of them.

House and possessions. I have a house and a house full of crap. I need to stop buying things. And I need to get rid of the crap I own. So I see a series of garage sales in my future. And I'll be painting my house, inside and out. And I'll have to do something about the lawn I have (its all weeds). Got to get the place ready to sell.

Probably the biggest problem will be learning Hebrew. I am terrible at languages. I failed German 1 four times in college. I managed to fail Spanish 1 as well. I even went to a Ulpan in Israel and managed to know less Hebrew when I left than when I began. I know that to live in Israel as other than a glorified tourist, I have to know Hebrew. And I don't know how to go about it.

I have tried various tapes. I have several language programs that are too boring to use. I tried an Ulpan in Israel. And that didn't work either. I don't have a schedule that would allow me to do on line classes.

At this point my plan is to eventually go to an Ulpan with my wife (who has much more ability in languages than me. She does speak a little Hebrew already). I was thinking of a place like Ulpan Akiva in Netanya.

Anyone have any suggestions?

Hopefully, I'll be reporting soon on how I start on these things.