Blog/April 2008/April 25th

April 25th (See this week's devar torah)
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Hi again!

Last week was just crazy; I didn't have time to put together my blog, so you'll get a double dose this week!

You know (well, you do now) that preparing for Pesach is a lot of work. Getting rid of chamets, cleaning the house, getting the supplies needed for the holiday, preparing the meals, etc. etc... Normally, Esther and I have specific tasks, and a sort of timeline we follow, to make sure everything is 100% ready. This year, however, was different! First, because I was working like a dog -- putting in very long days (22 hours, one day) to finish a project before the yom-tov. So I was out of commission simply by not being available very much (and being comatose when I was available). Then, Esther's doulee (that would be a doula's client...) chose to give birth, so Esther was out of commission for a full day and more. Fortunately, we had put in our orders for special food supplies beforehand; and only had to go pick up what we needed. But we didn't have time to pick up what we needed! Very stressful. In the end, we were successful getting rid of all our chamets, and getting the food we needed, and cleaning the house -- and we were very happy to enter shabbat and yom-tov!

Among other things, we went to the "alef" supermarket, which is an interesting experience. The store is basically only frequented by religious people; and it is quite a bit cheaper than our local Maale Adummim supermarket. In any case, as we were checking-out, the people in front of us had a huge bag of rice. When I admired the bag, the man who was buying it said, "you can't buy this" (he assumed I don't eat rice on Pesach -- an unwise assumption). So I told him, "don't judge me by the color of my skin", which elicited a chuckle from him. I didn't bother explaining to him that the entire "ban" on kitniyot during Pesach is a minhag which I assiduously avoid.

Of course, no Pesach would be complete without the Bread of Affliction. For several years, I've been intent on getting "soft matsah" for the seder. This year I finally did! But it was quite disappointing. For one thing, is was very chewy. Flexible, yes. Soft, no - not really. For another, it was very bland. Why don't the manufacturers add salt to the dough for matsah? Also I bought a 2.5 kg box (a bit more than 5lbs) of machine matsah for the week; forgetting that there are only three of us, and that I don't like matsah anyway. So, Mom: we have four boxes of machine matsah ready for you when you get here next week, B"H!

At the seder itself (only one! yeah, only one seder this year!!) we had one of our neighbors and friends -- they made aliyah on the same plane we did, and ended up living just down the street from us. So that was pleasant and the food was excellent (as you knew it would be).

While trying to clean, I noticed the following oddity. The toilet bowl cleaning liquid -- an Israeli brand -- has a notice in English on the bottle: "Usage instructions: Please refer to the Hebrew instructions, and have them explained to you before you use this product". What chutspah!

And speaking of chutspah, our downstairs neighbors (of whom we have spoken in these pages with a mixture of loathing and abhorrence) refused to let prospective new tenants view their apartment (which is required by their rental contract), and further told the new people that "you don't want to have anything to do with these landlords". I think they think stupidity is a virtue; if it were, they'd be well on the way to becoming tsaddikim.

In Israel, the chol-hamoed, or intermediate days of the festivals (Pesach and Sukkot) are basically holidays for everyone. Most businesses are either closed, or working on skeleton crews. In my case, my boss called me the Friday before Pesach to wish me a happy Pesach, and to let me know I wouldn't have to come in on chol-hamoed. So in keeping with the Israeli tradition, we decided to try to do the two most popular Israeli holiday pastimes: (1) barbecue and (2) go on day-trips (called tiyulim in the local lingo). The only complication is that we're also in the middle of a pretty significant heat wave (temperatures close to 40C (over 100F!)). But we are tough now, we can handle a little heat...

We barbecued twice, so far; and the results were uniformly excellent. The only problem, really, is that barbecuing is my job -- so I got all smoky and finger-lickin' good. We had our friend Dov-Ber over for one BBQ, and got caught up on his news (he'll be back in the Seattle area end of June, so get ready...). We ate out on our patio, which though I don't normally enjoy eating outdoors -- was a very pleasant thing to do. The only thing missing was an ice-cold beer...

For tiyulim, we made it to Herodion, which was very interesting to see. It is basically a hilltop fortress, but it doesn't look so high from "down below". Only after you climb up it, do you notice the spectacular and commanding view of the entire southern Jerusalem area it has. From there, we went to the small yishuv of Teqoa, where there is a small and new olive-pressing operation run only by Jews. We purchased a bottle of their olive oil; we'll let you know, anon, how good it is.

Another day, we figured we would take care of some governmental paperwork we needed to do, in the morning. But guess what? The government offices are closed for chol-hamoed, so we were unable to do anything we needed done. No problem, we decided to go that evening to see a special "multimedia extravaganza" being shown on the Jerusalem Old-City walls. Yes, they were projecting stuff on the walls of the old-city. So we decide to take the bus in to Jerusalem since the traffic during chol-hamoed is completely snarled. The bus normally stops very close to where we needed to go; but this time, we got a driver who rerouted the bus through who-knows-where, and we ended up having to walk 20 minutes to get where we wanted. Anyway, it was an amazing sight - Jews from every possible background, religious and not, young and old; packed into the impromptu amphitheater in front of Jaffa Gate. There were probably ten-thousand Jews packed in there when we got there, standing-room only. Then the show ended and peopled milled out; and we were able to improve our position slightly. The show itself was not particularly interesting or well done, except for the fireworks at the end. But it was really interesting to see all the people there.

Yet another day, Sarah was going to see a friend of hers in Jerusalem, so Esther and I went on what sounded like a nice, refreshing tiyul: to see a series of springs next to Jerusalem. Well, let me tell you this: only one of the springs had water in any quantity, and it was filled with screaming kids enjoying the brackish water. Given that it was 37C and we had to walk two kilometers to get to the "pool", it was much less refreshing than we had hoped. Nevertheless, it was a beautiful walk and enjoyable. The scenery there was incredible.

Until next week, Shabbat shalom!

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