Danielle Berrin and Dikla Kadosh write for The Jewish Journal of Los Angeles. They collaborate on The Calendar Girls blog, which focuses on the intersection of Jewish social, cultural and religious life in L.A

“Long Distance Love” by Danielle Berrin

I’ve never lived in Israel.

The sum total of the time I’ve spent standing on the soil of a land I call my “home” doesn’t amount to more than a month.

There are many things about Israel I don’t know: how the Jerusalem air feels in winter, or the way the rain falls over the hills of Haifa, and I’ve only heard about the infamous nightlife in Tel-Aviv - which puts Israel and me in something of a long-distance relationship.

What I know about Israel stems from Jewish education, studying history, student advocacy, Israeli news, literature and film – the things that, in modern times, make that mystical place, that prophesied dream, that Promised Land, real.

I’ve learned you don’t have to live in Israel to love it.

You can love the way the word sounds when it passes between your lips, or the instant affection you feel for the frantic Israeli-expat whose cell phone conversation sounds like poetry because he’s speaking in Hebrew. You can close your eyes and pray that God will envelop the land in that “shelter of peace” when you say, Avinu Shebashamayim every Shabbat.

If love was measured by presence, then I might be lovelorn. But I’ve learned there exists a kind of love that you cannot possess, though it still possesses you.

As an American Jew, I know there is a price to pay for having the land without actually living there, which means my love for Israel cannot rest as mere feeling, but must embody purpose. If it’s as simple as planting a tree, or attending AIPAC Policy Conference, or booking my next flight on El Al – that’s what I’ll do. If it’s talking hard politics, or challenging imperfect policies or searching sideways for solutions – I’ll do that, too.

On it’s 60th birthday, we are blessed with an Israel that is a concrete place – with desert and sea, sand and stone – but it is more than land; it is a place within a Jewish soul.

Israel survives because it is an idea we cannot bear to live without, because Israel means being part of a people, who study Torah and wrestle with God.

So even though most of the time I love it from afar, Israel is always with me. Everyday when I wake up and become aware of my presence in the world, I am aware of my Judaism, of my peoplehood, and my home-away-from-home, glittering somewhere beneath the sky we share.

“Israel’s Aftertaste” by Dikla Kadosh

I am plagued by a certain mental malaise every time I return from a trip to Israel.

I feel run-down, depleted, out of sorts.

It’s not the usual back-from-vacation-I-wish-I-wasn’t-at-work sluggishness. It’s different. It’s deeper and harder to shake off.

Israel leaves an aftertaste that is a combination of fatigue, nostalgia, emptiness and expectation.

The frenzied pace of life - the fast-talking shopkeepers, the reckless drivers, the crush of people everywhere you go, the whisp of danger always swirling in the air - drains you of all reserves of energy so that it takes at least a week to recover; longer if you had a return flight at 4 a.m. with a 7-hour layover in Switzerland.

Almost as soon as I arrive at Ben Gurion airport and make my way through the long security line, I begin recalling all the things I love about Israel: the Mediterranean climate, the sweet and spicy meals, the roughly handsome men, late nights at Aroma - Israel’s improved-upon version of Starbucks, and most of all, the fullness of being surrounded by loved ones.

The intense attention and warm affection of family members who see their relatives from America once every year or two at best was coupled on this trip with the eager observation and enthusiastic embrace of my soon-to-be extended family, who will be making up 400 out of the 500 invited guests at our September wedding. A steady stream of beaming faces paraded through our ten-day trip, filling every minute of every day with banter, questions, drinking, singing, eating and laughing. After that, who wouldn’t feel empty sitting alone in their car for 45 minutes on the 101? Or getting only a handful of phone calls throughout the day? Or waking up on a Saturday morning with no one waiting for you at the kitchen table?

I always return from Israel with a sense of expectation. As if I’m waiting for something. Waiting for the next trip to Israel, that’s for certain. But also, a larger sense of waiting. Waiting to return to Israel for good. Every visit to Israel tightens the strings that connect me to my birthplace, pulling me closer to the day that I become a toshevet choseret - a “returning resident.”

Returning to Los Angeles, I feel like I left home and came home at the same time.

It’s no wonder I feel out of sorts.