One day or two?

I hope that all our friends in Baltimore are sitting down as they read this post (OK, so maybe it won't really shock you and I can't imagine that you read blogs standing anyway but whatever). When we came to Israel we weren't sure if we'd keep one day or two days of yom tov. We decided that we'd wait until we came to Israel to speak to a Rav about what to do. A few weeks before yom tov Shira started getting nervous about all the company we were expecting and how much food she'd need. She had to know as soon as possible how many days we were keeping. I decided to ask Rav Dovid Lau, (Rav Yisrael Meir's son) for his psak. He's the chief rabbi in Modiin, has an excellent reputation, I've heard him speak a couple times (including at Shomrei in Baltimore) and my father has developed a bit of a relationship with him. So I called and scheduled an appointment. I figured I'd ask him some other questions also while I was there.

I met with him and he asked me about our intentions. I told him that as of right now we really don't know if we're going to stay here. We still own our house in Baltimore and we're only renting here but if everything goes well then there's a chance we'll stay. He asked a few more questions about our situation and gave us the psak that for Sukkos we only had to keep one day. If we decide before Pesach that we're going back in the summer then we should keep two days but for now we can keep one. We will know one way or the other by Pesach. We've started floating the idea of staying to the kids and we've gotten a bit of a mixed reaction. I'm hoping that they'll be adjusted in school by Chanuka and then they'll want to stay. I'd really like to make a final decision by February.

We'll keep everyone posted on this blog. Speaking of which, sorry about the lack of posts lately. I hope there will be at least three new posts up before the end of the day.