Blog/August 2008/Aug 22nd

August 22nd (See this week's devar torah)
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Hi again!

My dear wife has been complaining about a certain pain for years, and the doctors have never been able to help her. They didn't even find a reason for the pain. I'm a patient man, but I don't like hearing my wife complain about her pains - so I told her to get to a doctor, and stop complaining to me. That's what's called tough love. Anyway, her response was along the lines of, "the doctors won't find anything" (which is, of course, what her experience has been). So the doctor here in M"A examined her and sent her to a specialist. The specialist heard her tell what the doctors in the US had told her, and he nearly fell off his chair. "We have some things to teach the Americans", he said. Now she's got some tests to do, and other specialists to see -- but as our doctor here in M"A said, "It's wrong to have pain. We're going to keep on until we figure out what it is.". Score one for the Israeli medical system...

It's a bittersweet week for us. Daniela is leaving for college in the US (Stern College), and we won't see each other for quite a while. We know she will be successful and hope she attains her goals by going there. We'll miss you a lot, Daniela!

Sarah is starting school next week, but in the meantime has a friend of hers from Seattle visiting us. Maybe we can convince her to stay in Israel? Maybe...

Trying to have "family togetherness time", the ladies all went to the (separated) beach in Rishon LeTsion, where they all had a good time. Esther got her fill of dipping in the Mediterranean. The girls got their fill of sand. Later in the week, I took time off from work and we were going to go on a tour -- but it got cancelled. So instead, we went to the Science Museum at the Givat Ram branch of the Hebrew University in Jerusalem. If you've been to the Seattle Science Center, it will be quite familiar. Except for being in Hebrew. And except for there being hundreds of kids there.

This week we did more hardware shopping. This time, for a ceiling lamp for the kitchen. Until now we've had one of those (extremely) cheap fixtures which is basically just the light bulb in a socket. Which is ok, but doesn't match the kitchen we spent so much effort to redo. So we go to the hardware store and find something we think is nice (and it was half-price, to boot). Take it home and find the instructions are (literally) in Greek. Only. No English, German or French. Then I come to find out that the hanging mechanism is extremely difficult to make work (I didn't need instructions, even in Greek, to figure that out). Finally we got it hooked up and working ... and it does look nice in the kitchen!

Today we heard this story from a not-so-new immigrant: He was convinced to move to a city in the north of Israel shortly after he moved. He was told there was work, and a community. It turns out there was no work, nor much of a community. He went on lots of job interviews. At one of them, he was told that if he wanted to get a job, he would have to "shave his beard, take off his kippa and work on shabbat". He said, "if that's so, why did I move to Israel?!?". We were stunned and dismayed to hear such a story, and I told him not to worry; here in the Jerusalem area they won't make him shave to get a job. Is this really why we left the lands of our Exile? To have Jews behave like the worst Gentile anti-Semites?

This week, I saw the news that the OU is going to supervise kosher slaughter (of chickens) here in Israel. No offense intended, but "what?". There are dozens of certifying agencies here, many of whom with much higher standards than the OU (no offense to my good friend here who used to work at the OU). Who exactly is buying meat in Israel and needs to see an OU stamp? This hardly seems to me a "growth industry" here. In fact, because the OU certifies as kosher products containing grain which is "new" (relying on a minority opinion against the mishnah and later codes), I don't buy any OU certified items with grains unless they also have a "better" hechsher. Israelis don't know this about the OU (nor that they certify milk products which are not halav israel).

In further kashrut news, Rav Mahpud (whose hechsher is the only one I know of which requires the slaughterers check the knife according to the Talmud's instructions) has had some sort of medical emergency (it's not clear what). So please reserve a prayer for Shlomo ben Chamama.

Until next week,
Shabbat shalom!

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