Blog/September 2011/Sep 9th

Sep 9th (See this week's devar torah)

Comments or questions? Click here!

---

Hi, again!

I love Israel! Land of milk and honey, homeland of the Jewish people, a flourishing democracy -- and a newly-minted independent country, only just a bit over sixty years old!

All of us had plenty of work this week. Sarah is learning how difficult it is to be a public servant, particularly when people are confused and frustrated and testy. She's learning to control herself (an excellent skill to acquire!) in the face of irate customers, and she's also managing to learn the rather complex set of rules which apply to the various classes of new and returning immigrants. Daniela, too, has been getting acquainted with her new job taking care of her fellow inmates students. May both of them have a successful and fruitful year!

As for us, we went out to eat twice this week. Once, to catch up with our friend and fellow aliyah-mate from Seattle... who though we live only ten k"m from each other, we only see once or twice a year. The second was to catch up with my cousin, who has been travelling on business back and forth from Russia. As we were talking, the fire alarm for the building came to life and announced, "There is a fire in the building; please exit immediately". The customers just looked around quizzically, and the staff said, "don't worry, it's nothing". Then, when we got the computer-printed bill at the end, it had a line-item, "FIRE !!!!". Fortunately, that was free. I love Israel!

We also all joined our local gym, which is a ten minute walk from our house (so we can warm-up on the way, and cool-down from it). When we told the lady behind the counter that Sarah is in "national service", she told us that she would have to pay the same price as an adult. Not settling for that, we insisted -- and she asked her office-mate who told her "of course she gets a discount". I love Israel!

As I do often, I had a (long) conversation with Aḥmad who works in my building. I said to him, "Aḥmad, I have a question for you. In Saudi Arabia women aren't allowed to drive; but it seems to me that here almost all the Muslims driving are women!" To which he replied, "That's because here you have democracy -- you can't just tell people everything is forbidden; there, there's no democracy." That's the thing -- when you talk to actual people, you hear a totally different thing than what you hear when you talk to agitators and politicians.

Esther and I have decided to start a "hebrew ḥug" -- a group where all discussion is in Hebrew -- to help out people we know whose Hebrew can use help. One of the problems new immigrants have here is that they feel pressure to get a job before they've learned the language adequately, so they never do really learn the language. So we decided that something we can do, is to help the linguistically challenged improve their grasp of Hebrew. We'll let you know later on how well it's going.

What else do I love about Israel?

• I love that restaurants will let you stay as long as you want, even if you're not eating anything
• I love the fact that scary looking bald-headed muscle-men kiss the mezuza on the door as they pass through
• I love that I can walk down the street and hear twenty languages in the space of twenty meters, and all of the speakers are Jews
• I love that our dairy cows are the most productive in the world (really), proving the Torah's declaration that the Land is a "land flowing with milk and honey"
• I love that a country just over 60 years old is one of the most innovative places on the planet and one of the most diverse. I love that it works, most of the time, despite the long odds.

We'll be hosting some of my cousins for shabbat. On the menu: barbecued chicken, potato-leek soup, dolmas, roasted vegetables, rice pilaf, cholent, zucchini quiche, onion-pepper quiche, salatim

Until next week,
shabbat shalom!

---

Top: Blog

Prev: Sep 2nd

Next: Sep 16th

---