A Fly and a Cockroach Shake Hands

I love the way my friend Rachael Welt sees the world, and the way she tells stories.

We learn together once a week, and our conversations always weave our Torah learning through the text of our life stories. Today’s stories illustrate one of my favorite principles.

"This is what the Holy One said to Israel: My children, what do I seek from you? I seek no more than that you love one another and honor one another; and that you have awe and reverence for one another." -- Tanna d'Bei Eliyahu Rabba, 26:6

Rachael recounts a recent trip to the Mahane Yehuda shuk.

“I have never seen at one time so many people using walkers, walking on crutches, walking with canes,” she said. “And the shuk was packed with people. And of course, walking behind all these people with walkers and so on made it very slow going. Still, not one person started screaming ‘Why are you moving so slowly? Why did you come to the shuk? Don’t you know you could fall down? Why don’t you move out of the way?’

“This is the shuk I’m talking about, where people regularly yell and scream at each other – and not one person rushed these people. Not even the shuk workers with the heavy pallets they carry everywhere. Those guys never have any patience! But that day, they did. Everyone waited patiently for the old and infirm to make their way through the shuk. It was amazing!”

Rachael’s face glows when she tells stories about the good in her fellow humans.

She tells another “only in Israel” story.

“I was in Jerusalem, getting the car repaired. I was feeling a little faint, because I hadn’t eaten enough before leaving the house; so I decided to go to a nearby supermarket. As I started in the door, the guard, a man in his sixties, put up a hand and stopped me. ‘We don’t open until ten,’ he said to me. I checked my watch and saw there would be a bit of a wait. And then I saw the line of people with shopping carts. I’m thinking, I don’t need a big shopping cart. I only need a few items.” Nonetheless, she joined the line, prepared to wait with everyone else until the guard allowed entry.

“People started to say to the guard, ‘Nu? It’s ten minutes to ten. Let us in already! It’s five minutes till. C’mon, let us in! See my watch? Let us in!’ But the guard had his orders, and he was used to this. He held his ground. ‘Ten o’clock,’ he insisted calmly.

“This one guy ahead of me, but still pretty far back in the line, decided he’d had enough. He pulled out of the line, pushed to the front, and tried to get by the guard. The guard stopped him, and the guy started yelling at him.

“The guard, still calm, said to the guy, ‘You know what? You’re a zvoov,’ a fly. And the guy yells at him, really angry now, ‘And you’re a juke!’ a cockroach.”

As Rachael tells the story, I am laughing a little, because I am convinced that these conversations, with this much invective, could never happen in America. People might yell at each other, but it is never this colorful. The two men went at this for several seconds, the guard speaking calmly, the enraged customer getting so upset, and louder and louder, to the point that Rachael was praying he didn’t have a knife. She could just see herself being witness to a terrible incident.

“The man kept yelling, and saying he was going to complain about the guard, and not only complain about him, he was going to write a letter, and he went on and on, getting more and more excited.

"The guard told him, without raising his voice, to step back. The man stepped back only a step or two. ‘Only this far,’ he said. ‘No further. I’m staying right here.’

“Suddenly, the guard walked over to the man, and stuck out his hand, and the other fellow took it. ‘Please forgive me, my friend. It will all be okay. I ask forgiveness.’ And the other guy calmed down. A moment later, at ten o’clock on the dot, the guard allowed the stream of people with their carts into the store.

“But that’s not the end of the story,” says Rachael, with her patented Rachael smile.

“Later, as I was going through the aisles, the guy came up to me. ‘You see?’ he said, ‘He apologized to me. He admitted he was wrong, and I was right.’ I said to him, ‘I think you were both a little bit wrong, and a little bit right.’ (After all, calling someone a fly was not a nice thing to do, and certainly calling someone a cockroach and threatening him is wrong.) ‘The main thing is, you made peace.’ I don’t think he really understood me, because he really thought he was right and the guard was wrong. But I saw that the guard kept calm, offered his hand, and the man took it! And the guard asked for forgiveness. What an amazing People!”

I believe that Hashem teaches us to see Him as a Parent so that we can know how to behave toward each other. As a mother, nothing makes me more distressed – dare I say enraged? – than when my kids are unkind to each other. Conversely, nothing causes me to feel more overjoyed and elated than when they get along and speak well of each other.

Rachael and I learned a lot today. But I am convinced that the holiest moments of our learning were when Rachael spoke aloud words of validation about the behavior of God’s children toward one another. If our learning together doesn’t bring Mashiach closer by itself, surely the stories of Jews rising above their pettiness to respect one another inches the Geula just a bit closer.

15 Iyar 2018.

Sukkot Reflections, 5777

Yom revi'i, 17 Tishrei 5777/19 October 2016, Chol Hamoed Sukkot.

Sitting in the sukkah, sipping coffee, wishing for the first time this year for a sweater, and appreciating how "only in Israel" is that convergence of time and temperature.

Murmuring Hallel in the early morning light, before everyone around me is awake, feels sweeter than at any other time, especially wrapped in the loving embrace of my favorite holiday ever.

Whispering a "livri'ut" to a neighbor's sneeze, listening to another neighbor calming a crying child, hearing another singing to her children a morning niggun, smiling at a late hammer, as someone repairs or adds to an already completed sukkah...

The occasional car seems as if it is from another time, a time in the future or the past.

I imagine all of us, the several families around me I can hear as if they were just in the next tent, which in fact they are, as if we were traveling in the desert together.

An unwilling voyeur, I am offered a mashal of how little we say and do is really private. I don't listen but hear with acceptance and joy that I am surrounded by loving parents and children, talking and guiding and laughing together.

My sukkah, my portable yearly Clouds of Glory dwelling, surrounds me with memory.

The coffee mug, given by my dear children. The bentcher, a recent gift from Norm and Gail, who dug it out of their memories, because they heard that I love having photos to enhance my prayer, and because there are shared memories here. The wall hangings that used to be tablecloths; the flags of our places of birth and the place we met; the pretty sukkah enhancements picked up for various holidays past. The bracelets jangling softly on my wrist, a gift from Adele right here in this sukkah a few years ago. My hands smelling still of the lingering lotion that was a gift from Shulamis on one of her visits to the Holy Land, a lotion I choose not to afford, which makes the gift even sweeter. Nearby, the purse Marilyn gave to me along with all of "her girls," thus binding with silk and leather and love my place in her family.

Hovering outside of our patented Sukkot Force Field ©, UNESCO and others are busy trying to make us vanish by using Orwellian New Speak. (If you must, see here and here -- but I'd wait until after Sukkot, if I were you.) "And the slanderers should be denied hope, all evil should be instantaneously obliterated..."

Friends drop by with enough warning for me to put out a bit of a spread, thus turning a day-without-plans into a feast of conversation, fun and sharing of their adventures, turning our sukkah briefly into a Tardis to take us with them to Ma'arat Hamachpela and to The Moshav, without having to fight traffic!

Tonight we will visit another couple's sukkah, to play music... with the sad silent echo of the yearly invitation that will not come, because that family is in aveilut, one of our cherished fellow musicians having lost a dear relative only weeks ago.

Soon, it will be Shabbat, a "full Shabbat," meaning all of the Israel-based family will crowd in with larger-than-life talking and squabbling, one-upping and teasing, and beer pong and feasting and bear-hug loving.

Each day in the sukkah brings new sounds and songs and stories. I wish it could last longer than a week. It is a precious island in time toward which I begin to look again, even before it fades into the coming winter.

Wishing one and all a 5777 full of love, good health, good news, clarity, and even more than usual joy from family and friends.

Bless the Trees!

Yom sheni, 17 Nisan 5775, Chol HaMoed Pesach.

Every year, I think I'm going to fulfill the very simple mitzvah of saying the "Birkat HaIlanot," the blessing said on flowering trees that do not yet bear fruit. It's just a simple matter of walking to one of the houses in the community that has identified its trees correctly and has posted instructions and the blessing for the ease of passersby. Not a big deal, right?

But this mitzvah is done only in Nisan... and three guesses what I and all of my fellow Jewish homemakers are up to our eyeballs doing. Invariably, the month passes, and I simply didn't get around to it.

This year, as I was doing some errands in the Ben Yehuda area of Jerusalem -- yes, I do my banking in the holiest city on the planet! -- I happened to walk a slightly different route, and discovered something very precious. Just off of Rav Kook street is a pleasant little alley where the blessing was posted near a couple of flowering trees!


After I got home, feeling very self-satisfied indeed, I discovered that our landlord had also posted the blessing near the flowering trees in our very own yard.

When it rains mitzvah opportunities, it pours.

If you're dropping by to visit for any reason and have not yet said the bracha, it's right outside! Couldn't be easier.

Yet Another "Only In Israel" Moment

Yom shishi, 24 Shevat 5775.

Several books have been written of "Only In Israel" moments... and yet we never run out of examples of the wonder of living here.

Today, a delivery man called to say that he was coming with our replacement computer. (I highly recommend Lenovo. The broken computer was picked up, weeks before the warranty expired. Apparently, it could not be repaired; so the company replaced it with a newer model. They stayed in touch with us via email and phone and SMS. And the computer was delivered a week before it was promised.)

I attempted my questionable Hebrew. In short order, the delivery man said, "Don't worry. I speak good English. I'll be there in half an hour -- but only if you tell me you're a Republican and not a Democrat." Though unsure how he would have glibly gotten himself out of it had I been a liberal, I assured him that Republicans wish they could be as Republican as I am. (Disclaimer: I'm sure that Lenovo has no partisan affiliation whatsoever, if you are worried about such things. This was a case of an Israeli who was paying attention to recent Congressional votes regarding Israel in the news. In Israel, delivery men feel perfectly comfortable sharing their politics with their customers' clients.)

So besides being a funny and friendly delivery guy who showed up a week earlier than he was scheduled, he also had a neighbor's computer with him. "Do you know the Ploni family?" he asked me. "Sure, of course I do." Well, we're a pretty small town; so even if I don't hang out with them, I can find them. "Will you give them this computer? They'll be calling you." He handed me a repaired laptop.

A few hours later, I handed the computer to its rightful owner. We both agreed that this would only happen in Israel. But then again, why not leave things with family, where you know they'll be safe?

How much can you buy with a hundred shek?

Yom sheni, 2 Tamuz 5771.

As it was the first Sunday of summer vacation, the bus was typically very full.  Soldiers, giggling girls, mothers shlepping several little ones.  I sat down next to a young female soldier who was busy texting.  (I wish I could type that fast with just my thumbs!)

At every stop, the seats filled up, until eventually a young mother sat down on the steps with two small children.  I looked back to where they sat behind me, and noticed a hundred shekel bill on the floor near them.

I picked it up, and offered it to the mother.  She said it was not hers.  No one near her claimed it either.  As it was folded the way I fold my own, I checked my purse to be sure that it was not mine.  My bill was folded right where I had left it.  So, I got up and walked to the back of the bus, trying to remember who had boarded after me.

I offered the bill to everyone as I made my way through the bus.  A young solider in the back row of seats turned to his seat mate and said with exaggerated surprise, "Ohhhhhh, you remember that hundred shek bill I dropped earlier?" Even though I knew he was playing, I held the bill out to him; but he laughingly refused it.  "Staaaam!  Just kidding."

I went back to my seat.  I asked the soldier next to me to remind me of the grammar:  "How do I say "dropped" in Hebrew?"  She quickly went through a short lesson in Hebrew grammar, working out with me if I wanted a passive verb, or an active past tense verb.  (Everyone in Israel seems ready to be a teacher, if I ask.)

I walked up and gave the bill to the bus driver, explaining that someone had dropped it.  Thanks to my soldier-teacher, he understood me, and took the bill.  Of course I cannot know what became of it after that.  Did someone come forward, grateful that money was not lost after all?  Did the bus driver pocket it, turn it into lost and found, drop it into a pushke?  I don't know, and I don't especially care.

Right now, the value of a hundred shekel bill is close to $30.  If the behavior on the bus is not something you are accustomed to in your part of the world, you will understand why I never tire of "only in Israel" stories.  If it is something you are used to, then you are very blessed.

I would like to dedicate as much of that busload of honesty as possible to a refua shelaima for my dear friend Tzuriya Kochevet bat Sara Imeinu.  May we do as many acts of kindness and honesty as possible, and may they help us to pay for a healthy, whole, completely-repaired world.

Haveil Havalim #320, the Summertime Edition, is up at Frume Sarah's World.  Yeshiva Bochur, writing as "Exiled Warrior," has an excellent post published there.  Please shep nachas with me!

"New moon, you left me standing alone..."

Yom rishon, 5 Tamuz 5770.

Because Israel is a tiny country, it is easier to know famous people personally  -- or at least to pass by them routinely in the street -- than it is in a vast country like the United States.

We are blessed to have an MK (Member of Knesset) living in our yishuv.  And he is blessed to have several security guards looking after him.

The guys who guard politicians in Israel don't look that much different than the guys I have seen in movies, which I assume is what sets the "type":  they are all physically fit specimens, without a lot of excess cranial hair, and little squiggly wires sneaking out of their ears and into their shirt collars.

But the guys in Israel are different, because they are mishpacha.

I walked by a couple of them on my way to visit a friend the other day, and overheard a few sentences of conversation.  No kipot, not particularly religious-looking -- these guys were debating a Rashi.  No kidding!

Tonight, the Dearly Beloved left shul after davening.  He walked past one of the MK's security guys on his way out the door.  The guard spoke to him in Hebrew, so it took a few seconds before my husband knew what he was suspected of.  Turns out, the guy was asking him, "Aren't they supposed to be doing Kiddush Levana now?"  The Dearly Beloved thanked him for the reminder, and waited outside until the rest of the congregation joined them for the ritual.

One of the nicest things about living in the Jewish homeland is that, more or less, the whole family is on the same page.  In ways that you just won't see in Washington DC -- and in ways the media sometimes forget to notice.

Glossary:
Yishuv: community
Mishpacha: family
Kipot: yarmulkes, skullcaps
Rashi: a famous Biblical and Talmudic commentator
Shul: synagogue
Davening: prayers
Kiddush Levana: monthly ceremony sanctifying the new moon

Sunday Sojourn #2: Gaza War Inspired, Part 2

Yom revi'i, 18 Tevet 5769.

So, where was I, David?

Oh, yes.  The fellow who was “giving his father a lift” dropped us off across the road from the base.  After a short walk, directed by our dear daughter-in-law, we were outside the gate.  In a few minutes, my son’s familiar frame with his “conquering the world” stride came into view.

We had a terrific visit with him.  He looks good.  He is strong; and his confidence and sense of humor are intact.  Baruch Hashem!  May he come out of this “adventure” whole and healthy.  I could talk about him for a long time…  but this letter is about the angels we met, coming and going.

As the sun was sinking, our brief two-hour visit had to end.  We made our farewells, with hugs and smiles, and only a few tears. 

At the bus stop, we told Executive Girl we would see her later.  “We’re going to see if we can find the camera.”  Yes, David.  My husband and I are a little bit crazy. But cameras cost money, and a quest is a quest.  We just had to try…

We wandered down the road for a bit, not sure of the distance.  After a pleasant hike, a young father offered us a ride.  His little boy’s face is the “wallpaper” on his cell phone.  He lives in the kibbutz nearby.  Former Golani, he expects to be called up soon.  “Where’s your car?” he asked.  His question made sense.  The only people who would be walking out here are folks whose car broke down, right?  We explained.  He found us amusing.  But he could not leave two people walking on the road; so he took us as far as he could.  Brachot were exchanged – for the long, healthy lives of his children, for the successful homecoming of our soldier son.
It was getting dark; and I really had given up on finding the camera.  Many cars had gone by without stopping.

And then you came along, David.


Of course you wanted to hear what the heck we were doing here.  We explained the whole story, to include the search for the camera.  You asked why we made aliyah.  Let me tell you the best reason, David.  I don’t know what your plans were for the evening.  But you spent at least 45 minutes with us.  You drove us to the place in the road at which we had lost the camera, near the “camel crossing” sign.  You shined your headlights on the road, so that we could look for white grocery bags.  You let us stop, three different times, to examine white bags by the roadside.  Each time, we told you that you had done enough; but you persisted.
The last bag had my rocks in it…  but no camera.  You waited as we searched the area, using your headlamps to light the side of the road, until we were sure it was not there.  “Thai workers drive up and down the side of the road, very slowly, to see what people may have dropped,” you explained.  As if to illustrate your point, a Thai went by on his bicycle at that moment.  We gave up on the camera.  But my husband was gratified at having found the bag with the rocks.  “See?  At least we know it wasn’t crazy to try.”  He was almost as happy as if he had found the object of our search.


I was happy to have encountered another angel.

You used your cell phone to check the bus schedule for us.  We didn’t even ask you to do that!  “There are no more buses,” you said.  “I’ll take you to the best place to tremp.”  Unbelievable.  May you have many brachot, David.  May you discover for yourself why living in Israel truly is the best way to spend your life!

Still, the night was filled with angels.  There were the two soldiers and the “hilltop youth” at the trempiada.  “Don’t take that car,” one of the soldiers warned.  “He’s an Arab.  You can tell by the black windows.”  Got it.  When a “kosher” car stopped, the “hilltop youth” gave up his place in line, and offered us the ride.  “Good luck!” they called after us.

This car felt like a tiny spaceship.  Very cool little car, with all the latest gadgets.  The Gen-X driver wore driving gloves and a Bluetooth.  He was constantly checking the news, roaming from station to station.  I could see that he was very into the drama of the war, of traveling in the south.  “The main road isn’t good.  No miklatot – no bunkers, in case of the ‘tzeva adom.’  I’ll take you to a bus stop in Ofakim with a miklat close by.”  As he dropped us off on a well-lighted street, he pointed to the bunkers on either side of the street, very serious.  “If you hear the warning, go there quickly.”  Off went the angel in his spaceship.

We enjoyed the silly, night-time teen life in Ofakim.  Young girls playing karaoke on their cell phones, singing and flirting with friends who passed by.  Yes, if they were our daughters, we would be freaking out (which is the main reason G-d didn't give us daughters, I think).  But since they were just beautiful young Jews, filled with life and normalcy and a complete disregard for the serious adult world enveloping them, we could just take pleasure being near their exuberance.  It was a comfortably cool night; and when I remarked on the worrisome lack of rain, our young soldier's father reminded me that sleeping outside in a tent, and fighting the enemy, are best done on rain-free, cool nights.  I made a silent prayer that Hashem would fill the Kinneret only after our soldiers' work is finished, may it be soon.

We reached Jerusalem at around 9 PM.  Realizing that we had not eaten since breakfast, Avi offered to take me out for a bite of lamb at Burger's Bar in the tachana.  We asked if they took credit cards, since we had never made it to an ATM machine.  The new employee said yes; so we placed our order.  Another young man came out of the kitchen to prepare the food; and I offered him my credit card.  "We don't take.  No place.  See?"  He pointed enigmatically at the cash register...  The Dearly Beloved and I had a brief moment of panic; and then my dear husband went to get money from the machine.  "The teller is unable to complete your request at this time."  [Note: refer to earlier note:  traveling on Sunday is not always the best idea...]

"Ehhhhhh...  we don't have any money; and the caspomat is not working for us today."

"Don't worry.  Pay me tomorrow," said the young man behind the counter.

Embarrassed, I accepted his offer, as the food was already on the grill, marveling at the "only in Israel" nature of the fact that he wasn't disgusted by our lack of funds. We sat down to eat, wondering why our reasonably flush US bank account was letting us down.  "I'll come in tomorrow, first thing, and pay this," The Dearly Beloved said to me.

Our 14th angel arrived in the form of our landlord's daughter, who was here for a friend's birthday party.  She loaned us the money to pay the bill.

As I was paying, I explained to the delighted young man behind the counter:  "I just want you to understand what kind of day it's been.  We went to visit our son, who is in Gaza."

("Golani?  G'dud Shteim-Esray? [12th Battalion?]  Wow!" he interrupted.  I didn't mind.  The hero image of the Barak Brigade helps to ease the fear.  A little.)

"Nu?  So we had all these angels help us up and down the road.  You and the lady who paid for dinner are just the latest.  What makes a Jew an angel?  That he has a desire -- no, a need -- to help another Jew.  This is the best place in the world to live!"

This slender kid could have looked cynical in another setting.  He said to me, with deep sincerity in his dark brown eyes:  "Thank you for saying it.  I know what you say is true.  But thank you for saying it.  It is the best place.  You are a neshama tova."

Our friend Marc says that if you scratch to just beneath the surface of any Jew in Israel, male or female, old or young, you will find a Jewish mother, who is dying to help you out.  We have found this to be true.

We took the 10:30 PM bus back to Neve Daniel.  Just so that the day wouldn't end in a boring way, the gate was broken, and the new driver was afraid to take his bus through the narrow opening.  Let off at the bottom of the hill, Avi said to me, "I have been good all day.  We have walked miles; and I have kept a remarkably good attitude.  But now I am going to piss and moan my way up this hill.  Fine.  Just fine."  I laughed, because I know him, and I know he was mostly kidding (although he really was looking forward to "slipper time").

Just then, the 15th angel arrived.  Our landlady drove up.  "Would you like a ride?" she asked, in her musical and clear school-teacher's Hebrew.

Would we ever!

David, I won't pretend that any of the encounters we had today would not have happened in Chutz l'Aretz.  Hashem made beautiful people; and He placed them all over the globe.

What makes the country of your birth so special is that people like this cross our path every day.  And not just once or twice a day.  Some days, one is blessed to meet 15 angels in 15 hours.