Blog/March 2008/March 28th

March 28th (See this week's devar torah)
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Hi again!

In the rush to get done before Shabbat, last week, we forgot to mention our pre-Purim shopping fun.

One of the mitsvot of Purim is giving gifts of food to friends. We always make up baskets with a few items of food; and this year we decided to do a bit of shopping in "Geula" -- a so-called "ultra-Orthodox" part of Jerusalem. First problem is that I decided to go there after work, and drive in. You don't drive in Geula; not if you want to maintain your sanity. People are everywhere, literally. In the streets, on the curbs; crossing in front of you. The streets themselves are very narrow, and there is almost no parking. But, B"H! I found a parking spot and met up with the rest of my family, who were contentedly clothes-shopping (they came by bus, which is the only sane thing to do). I had been wanting to do some book-shopping (for seforim, or Jewish books) for some time; but since I made it late, I didn't have time to do much more than a quick trip to a bookstore. Man, it was great! I have to go back soon... Anyway, we did eventually get some stuff for the Purim baskets but we didn't really find what we were looking for.

So, since Esther had been invited to a shiur (lesson) at one of our friend's houses in Givat Shaul (another "very religious" part of Jerusalem), and since we knew there was an "Alef" supermarket there which is supposed to have low prices, we thought we would go there after the shiur. We did -- and it was even more crowded than Geula was! There was literally almost no room to turn a shopping cart -- but the prices were in fact lower than our supermarket in Maaleh Adummim. And the dairy products were all chalav yisrael, which is harder to find here as well. So while it was a successful trip, I don't know if I'll rush to go there again ... it was pretty draining.

I think I mentioned before that the banks charge all sorts of fees. Because we don't understand what the fees are, we decided to investigate and get the fee structure from the bank. My accountant (Esther) did the investigation, and informed me that the printout of our bank's fee structure is seven pages long! They charge for depositing, they charge for withdrawing. They charge if you use a teller, they charge if you use an ATM. They charge per line-item on the statement, and they charge if you print out your statement! Basically, it's pretty good to be a bank.

Just FYI: Israel has switched to "DST" (daylight savings time). This means we are back to a 10-hour difference from the West coast of the USA, for those of you who care (you know who you are!). It was interesting hearing DST being discussed on the radio. The "Galei Tsahal" news-person said that DST operates from this Friday through "October 3rd, which is the Friday before Yom Kippur". The guy from "Radio Kol Chai" said simply that it ends "on Shabbat Shuvah".

This week we went to a kitchen-design place, and had a kitchen "rough-designed" for the new place (keep in mind, our "new" place is not new -- just new to us -- it needs renovation). After that, the measurer came out to the new place and measured the existing space. Next week we'll have to sit with the designer again and do the precise design, now the exact measurements are known. It will only take them one day to install the kitchen, they say; but they don't hook up plumbing or do electric work or walls or remove the existing kitchen... so we have to have others do those things. Still and all, it's a whole lot less expensive than the same work in the US.

While we were at the "new house" getting the kitchen area measured, we talked with the current owner and found out a couple interesting things. First, we are paying almost twice as much as she is for the electric bill. I knew we were getting screwed over because of the bogus arrangement in our rental, but I didn't think it was as bad as that! So we can look forward to a lower electric bill, which will be very welcome. The second thing is, the house has a bunch of fruit trees: fig, pomegranate and olive; lemon, clementine, plum, kumquat and loquat. It also has very nice ornamentals, including a large group of roses bordering the neighbor's house on one side. I think the garden is the nicest feature of the house, next to the view of Jerusalem. We are really looking forward to moving in! Only now, we really have to brush up on the laws of tithing and sheviit...

And speaking of moving in, we called a moving company; next week they'll be giving us an estimate. Also, we sent our last "rent check" to the landlord, after adjusting to the new exchange rate (saving us almost 1000 shekels!) and removing the amounts we paid on our deadbeat neighbor's behalf. We did inform them that from here-on-out, we are not paying anything except our own share. If the electricity gets shut off, so be it.

Getting back into the learning curve, I announced to the local Maale Adummim email list that I was starting a shiur this coming Tuesday, whereby people can improve their Hebrew while learning halachah. About four or five people showed interest, we'll see how it goes. Then I found a shiur for me, in Hebrew, on Wednesday nights. So now everyone in the family has some sort of organized learning going on, B"H!

Shabbat shalom!

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