Lil B — You ask some interesting questions, and the best way to get a real feel for life here is to talk to lots of people you know who have made the move. As far as my experiences go, I’ll try to address some of your questions:
1) Missing family and friends is to me by far the hardest part of moving here. The people who I’ve spoken to who have been here longer than us also say that is one thing that just doesn’t go away — particularly at times of simchos (when you miss simchos in the U.S. and when you make your own simchos and have much fewer family members). I just keep reminding myself of the tremendous zchus I have to actually be living here, when so many great gedolim throughout the years tried so hard to get here and didn’t. It doesn’t make it hurt less, put it helps me keep my perspective!
2) As far as finding the time for mekomos kedoshim, in a sense you are right. When you live here you need to deal with all the day to day life, and it’s not like when you come visit and can spend the entire time “chaping” mekomos kedoshim. However if you make it a priority it certainly can happen. We live in Beit Shemesh, so a trip to the Kosel is even more difficult then from Yerushalayim. After our first few months here we realized that we needed to “schedule” it in or we would never end up going, so we decided to make a point of trying to go every Rosh Chodesh. Either we hire a babysitter in the evening and go ourselves, or we take off the afternoon (the kids have half day of school anyway on Rosh Chodesh) and go as a family. The point is that of course a person must make the effort, but in NY even all the effort in the world wouldn’t find us hopping on a bus or driving a car to the Kosel!
3) Financially salaries are much lower here, although if both you and your husband work there is no reason why you shouldn’t be able to do fine — although in general the standard of living here is much less. That is not necessarily a bad thing — there’s a lot less pressure to “keep up”. Costs are much higher here for almost everything, especially anything considered “luxury”, but most things are available for a price. So if it’s a few particular items that you really miss (my husband can’t stand the Israeli mustard, so we buy the American stuff), it may be worth the “splurge”.
But as far as your broader question, in a certain sense yes, “it’s just like living anywhere else”, because you still have to deal with jobs, schools, shopping, laundry, etc. But when you stop and focus on the details, it’s not the same. The very fact that the focus here is so much less materialistic makes you “suffer” much less from a materialistic perspective. Instead of feeling that you constantly need to work more and more to have “enough” money, you realize that maybe “enough” has a different meaning, and your life becomes that much easier. Additionally you are living in a society that when all is said and done is a society of Jews. The “holidays” are OUR holidays, the calendar is OUR calendar, the taxi driver and the customer service rep at the electric company are both fellow Jews. I recently bought a new frying pan and saw it was made in China. I wasn’t sure if it was produced by a Jewish company or just imported, so I called the customer service number on the package. When I got through I started trying to explain my question (in my less than perfect Hebrew), and the woman cut me off “are you asking about if it needs ‘tevilah’?” Well, I got my answer, and another reminder as to why life here is not “the same”.
And of course, the bottom line is that it is a mitzva to be here! Yes there are valid heteirim to stay in America, and everyone has their own shailah, but it certainly is a huge factor!