Small Signs of Having Arrived

Just found this little piece from way back and had to post it.

I know that we have arrived. Every so often I get a sign. Just last Shabbat, as we were walking home from shul, Shaya took my hand in his and announced, “Ima, after Shabbat, I want to write my name in the earth.”

I was surprised to hear this and after some thought, I realized where this came from. He was reading a book for English class by Sara MacLachlan. The book was about an independent woman called Sarah who is from the east coast who moves to the harsh, arid prairies to be a farmer’s wife. She struggles but cannot commit herself to this hard life. Yet one day, she takes a stick and scrawls the letters S-A-R-A-H into the land. At this moment, she has arrived and she knows that she wants to stay.

As for my little philosopher Shaya, he must be telling me that he feels Israel is his home. I am so touched by his thoughts and his ways of expression.

In fact, just a few days ago, I heard him having a talk with his little sister, Talya. Talya was saying, “Israel is my best country in the whole world.”

“No, Tilly,” Shaya replied in a voice of authority. “Israel is my favourite country in the whole wide world.” And he opened his arms as wide as wide can be.

Classic Israel Moments

“From the sublime to the caw blimey,” is that how it goes?

We are in the car turning onto a highway. We stop at a red light. It is a beautiful evening. The sun is setting and the sky is a mix of purples and pinks. We are all in a thoughtful kind of mood. The car next to us rolls down the window and the guy in the passenger seat yells out something. Two guys are in the back seat and everyone is in hysterics.

We roll down our window and stare at him: maybe he needs directions. He makes these choking sounds and yells out to the world. “Ho Hiflotz!” I recognize this word. Hmm. It takes a minute for me to find the root of this verb and then to conjugate it. Translation: He farted! Only in Israel would one not be too coy to publicize this. And these were not young teenagers – oy va voy.

Now we are biking. Just love to be out on my bike on those warm February days. We bike through some citrus groves and then across a field. We cross a gully and then connect with the road. A car was waiting to pass us just outside a farm. We pass the car and wend our way down a bumpy, dusty dirt road that is closed to traffic. Ten minutes later, we appear on the northwest side of Raanana, close to the park. We keep on biking.

A car pulls up beside Amir and drives alongside him, trying to get his attention. Amir stops and the driver hands him something. It is his bicycle pouch. In it are his house keys, car keys, office keys and his palm pilot, a record of pretty well every important phone number and contact we have.

He realizes that this pouch must have fallen off when he went down the gulley. Now for the driver to actually find this pouch on the ground and then to catch up with us was a feat – we had gone down a road that was not traversable to cars. So for this guy to get back in his car, assume the direction we were taking and then try a longer route to meet up with us is really quite something.

People here will really go out of their way to help. These are moments when we realize that we are all one big family and deep down, people really care. And since we are one big family, perhaps this is the reason there are so few cultural boundaries in Israel: case in point is the flotz scene above, performed unabashedly as if the guy were in his own house.

Postscript: Amir actually lost his phone again later on that day. We were in a store and quite a while after we had left, he realized that his phone was gone. He retraced his steps and they handed it back to us at the counter. Phew!

Dog Walking – A Perilous Pursuit

The newest addition to my morning routine: walking the children to school and taking along the dog. This sounds like a wonderful, relaxing family outing and a healthy start to one’s day - especially when the weather is ideal. Crisp sunny mornings are a February specialty here in Israel.

But first let me define the terms.

Morning
Every school day, we wake up early. But no matter how early we get up, the clock seems to race faster than us. I am always scrambling to find socks, shoes, put lunches in school bags, find the house key and Shaya is somehow always finishing his homework (a real stress additive). By the time I look at my watch, it is actually time to be at school and not to be leaving for school.

Dog
I look at our dog happily sleeping on the couch, his head propped on a pillow, his legs sprawled open. I think to myself, do I really want to wake him from his blissful morning nap? Do I really want the added time he will take away from our race to school when he has to lift his leg on every tree and bush he sees? But of course I give in; what’s a walk without the dog? It’s like going to the beach and not eating an ice cream.

Today I jingle the leash and he flies off the couch, gallops across the room and practically flings his neck into the contraption. This is actually his second walk of the day and he can’t believe his luck. We all squeeze out the door at once: children, huge backpacks on wheels, myself and a hyperventilating 60 pound golden retriever.

We live on the first floor of an apartment building, one steep set of stairs from the ground floor. TJ is strong enough to drag a sled across the Arctic Circle so we are careful to pull on his leash and hope he does not make a mad dash down. Otherwise we would start our day in a big tangled heap at the foot of the stairs. TJ starts to pant but stays with the program. Yet once outside, he makes a mad dash for the first peeing apparatus he can see.

Dog Walking
Since our family is far from normal and we like to live on the wild side, we have made dog walking an extreme sport. Holding a leash on one’s side is far too boring for us. We place the leash around the kids’ waist and then they use their body weight to control the dog. It feels a bit like water skiing without the waves.

This morning, Shaya is at the helm. I fasten the leash around his waist and off he goes, flying ahead of us. We catch up at the next pee stop and then off he goes, flying down the sidewalk. Tilly finds this very amusing and laughs the whole way to school, her sky blue Skeechers trotting along in tandem. All is well, although we are now painfully late. I try to run faster than the dog so he will overtake me and thus place Shaya back up front. (Shaya must be part turtle-part Rastafarian as he is not naturally inclined to rush anywhere, no matter how pressing.)

We get to a busy road with a pedestrian crossing, one of the main intersections in our town. It is eight o’çlock and peak traffic time. This intersection is quite beautiful with a palm-lined median separating the two lanes. It is bursting in color with freshly planted purple and pink cyclamen.

Pedestrian CrossingsNow pedestrian crossings are a tricky business in Israel. Drivers do not stop for pedestrians no matter how thick the white lines on the road. They do not discriminate between age, size or height. Most walkers are resigned to simply wait at pedestrian crossings until the traffic clears.

I actually find this behaviour to be very strange. Israel is a country where people are generally assertive and where everyone wants to go first. Why don’t Israeli pedestrians take back the pedestrian crossings for themselves? I guess a few tons of hurtling metal will put down any form of rebellion.

Emigrating from a country where people uphold the laws of the road and respect pedestrians, I am the decidedly assertive pedestrian. Each time we approach a crossing, I give my kids a play by play. “Put your foot out and make eye contact with the driver. Wait until the car stops and then go!”

On this particular morning, I bark out my commands. A woman driver stops. I shout, “Go.” I herd my troupe across the intersection. We make it half way across – to the botanical oasis in the centre. I face a second lane of traffic and a car stops for us. Tilly comes across with me and I look back only to see the dog is running in circles, madly doing his pre-poo dance, chasing his tail and doing aerobatics with his snout. Meanwhile, the traffic is piled up and honking. Tilly is across the road, I am now in the middle, shouting at Shaya. And Shaya is attached to a dog that is trying to find the most perfect cyclamen to dump on. The horns are honking.

I quickly realize that the dogs wins and I return to his paradisiacal toilet of choice, poop bag in hand, waiting for his highness to finish up. Cars are filing by slowly, watching my dog desecrate their gardens. In Israel, everyone has to give you their opinion, especially when you don’t ask for it. And of course, an old man honks his horn at me and shakes his head in disgust. If he had the time, I am sure he would have stopped traffic to get out of his car and lecture me about how vile animals are.

In fact, I have a nasty neighbour who one night passed my and my dog on the street. TJ was having a harmless yet good old sniff in the plants. The neighbour slowed down, rolled down her window and told me that my dog should not pee in the street because his urine poisons the plants. Once I realized the insanity of her comment, I did not act in a composed way. I ran after her car, waving my poop bag at her and calling her crazy. She delighted in the fact that she infuriated me. She simply rolled up her window and sped away. I must have made her day.

I am seriously working hard on being more composed but life’s events happen so quickly, they often take my by surprise.

With composure I tried to clean up after my dog,shuffling the dirt around to look like a good citizen. Why my dog should choose such a place and time is beyond reason. He had his choice of gardens and flowering bushes, all down a quiet, private street. But no, it had to be here – in the centre of town.

Needless to say, we were late for school. We were flustered and sweaty. Shaya was all tied up in the leash and Tilly was tired of laughing. As for TJ, he was grinning from floppy ear to floppy ear.

Postcards from Israel – A Passion for Pomegranates

Shana Tova from Israel. Celebrating the Jewish new year in Israel is a feast for the senses and the soul. For me it all begins with that pomegranate tree outside my kitchen window. By August, which is Elul, the fruit is already deep red and full, its 613 seeds ready to burst forth. And as Elul ends, I see more rimonim (pomegranates) appearing.

In the china section of department stores, clay, glass and plastic serving plates, candy bowls and honey pots are proudly displayed, all crafted in the signature style of rimonim. On the sidewalk, gift shops sell baskets filled with rimonim and candies, already wrapped in cellophane and tied with a bow. The corner store and the stationary store also get into the spirit, displaying their own gift baskets stuffed with chocolates, jars of honey and cookies. I see pots of honey and rimonim pop up on billboards and adorn flyers stuffed into my mail box. Accompanying them all are Shana Tova greetings.

As for shopping, the grocery stores are packed with people mulling over the produce section, filling their carts with fresh pomegranantes, red and green apples, plump dates and spindly branches dotted with date palms. And of course, oversized jars of honey are on special, proudly sitting at the entrance of the store. In the baking isle, I ran into a woman pushing a cart of Osem cakes. My daughter was crying because I would not let her push our overloaded cart (after it collided into a stack of pickle cans, I took away her 'agala' licence for the day). This lady, a perfect stranger, wiped Talya's tears away and said, "Ma kara, metuka? Have some honey cake." She then told me that if I buy two cakes, the third one is free and then continued down the aisle peddling her produce.

And so we celebrated the New Year. On Rosh Hashana afternoon, as I was sitting in my garden, I heard a shofar blowing in the distance. Tekiya, Teruah. The notes pierced the afternoon with clarity and resolve. My daughter then walked in and said she saw a man with his young son walking up and down the street blowing shofar to all who had not heard – and in our neighbourhood, that meant many. He stopped joggers in their tracks, people out for a stroll with their dogs. I bet he even found people in their cars, on their cell phones and listening to their ipods. But all took the time to stop, listen and reconnect with that deep resonant sound – a still small voice that was with us at Sinai and is, Baruch Hashem, with us today. Let it awaken our souls and inspire us for a meaningful, fulfilling, safe and healthy new year.

Postcards from Israel – Special Delivery

Special Delivery

I like the word 'postcard' because it connotes a picture of a foreign place and always contains a personal message. I would like to send out my own personal postcards to give a glimpse of life, a small peek into the wonders of living in this country.

A friend who was staying with us was due to return to return to Toronto last Wednesday night. The day before his departure, he saw an email asking if anyone flying to Toronto could bring back a sefer torah. I do not know how this message originated but if it was sent out to ten people, I imagine that within hours, it had circulated onto laptops and desks in Jewish homes and offices around the world and back again.

He called the phone number on the email and heard that the Torah was 'taken:' someone else had responded first. From this I learned that Torah deliveries must be a popular mission and all requests are snatched up fast. Our friend was despondent at not being able to fulfill this mitzvah and prepared his baggage to go to the airport.

The very evening of his flight, he received a call that the Torah was now available. Apparently, the original eager courier got the country right but the city wrong; he was going to Montreal and not Toronto. Was our friend still he interested? Of course! Addresses and phone numbers were exchanged.

At 1 am, a tiny rabbi with a long black coat and straggly white beard arrived at our home, a Sefer Torah in his arms. He had traveled in a cab from Jerusalem to our home for over an hour. We were all total strangers. He came into the house, took the Torah out of a duffle bug and laid it upon our dining room table. He then began to recite a few pasukim. He carefully rolled the torah back up, dressed it in a tallis and slipped it into a duffle bag, carefully marked with an arrow so that the Torah would not inadvertently be set upside down.

He then thanked my friend (gave us an invitation to come stay with him for a Shabbos) and slipped away into the night. My friend was left with a brand new sefer Torah probably worth about $30,000 and a long but meaningful flight ahead of him.

It is remarkable that a single email sent out into cyberspace can connect perfect strangers, enable a mitzvah and solidify the special trust that Jews have in one another. Even in these days of spiritual darkness, we trust strangers – and entrust them with something so valuable and a mission so important. .If my friend were to,
G-d forbid, drop that Torah, who knows how many Jews who would be fasting for 40 days.

And, as Jews, even in such a dog-eat-dog world, we are still very willing to (and in this case, literally) bend over backwards to help others. My friend had lots of luggage, a flight change in Munich with tortuous departure times – and yet he was thrilled to be able to put his personal needs aside and help out. We still are a very unique people.

I can just picture my friend – certainly not exhausted from a gruelling 14-hour voyage – to the contrary, elated…dancing through Canadian customs with an upright duffle bag!