A Mahjer Makes Aliyah

2010-10-11T08:22:00.001-05:00

Well, it looks like I have some time to write today, since I took the day off. That's what happens when you take a half gainer onto a cement floor. No, no broken bones, no stitches, no concussion. I walked out from behind my desk yesterday just before quitting time and somehow managed to catch my foot on the edge of a box we use to put mail in. On my way down, my other foot got tangled in the cord from a floor fan that wasn't anywhere near my body. Hah! Nobody believes me when I say inanimate objects like tables and corners of walls and chairs jump out at me. Well, here's proof! And I had two witnesses who can vouch for me (or at least I tell myself that rather than face the humiliation of being klutzy in front of two co-workers). Anyway, last night my right knee kept swelling to the point that I could barely walk on it so I made an appointment to see a doctor this morning. When I woke up, however, the swelling seemed to be mostly gone and I could walk almost normally (bending my knees for Shemoneh Esrei, however, was a whole different ballgame), so I canceled the appointment. There are about 40 steep steps leading up to my office and I had already called my boss last night about not coming in today, so it seemed that staying home was the right thing to do on this beautiful Monday morning. Spike and Emma haven't let me out of their sight all morning, so it seems they're pretty happy to have my company.

Isn't strange how many things need to be done around the home when one doesn't leave it? Dishes, laundry, cleaning - I know I should be keeping this leg elevated, but stuff just needs to be done. Beside, if by some miracle I can get a mahj game together this afternoon, I wouldn't want to be embarrassed by the state of my apartment.

So, enough about mundane topics. Let's get on to the real stuff of living in Eretz Yisrael!

Let me take you back exactly one week. Last Monday David had his last ulpan class and wanted to celebrate. He had asked me to meet him on Emek Refaim, which is a street that you might find in Clayton, for you St. Louis readers. It's a long road filled with restaurants, funky stores, and lots of people roaming the streets. I took the #4 bus there after work - it's been so long since I've taken buses anywhere in Yerushalayim! When the bus got just to the beginning of Emek Refaim, it stopped. I realized we were in the middle of a terrific traffic jam; I could see lots of flashing lights and loud music ahead of us. To our right was Liberty Bell Park, so I assumed there was some kind of a fair going on and I debated whether to get off at the next bus stop to check it out, since I was a little early to meet David.

When we started moving again, I realized that we were passing a van decorated four feet high with all kinds of flashing lights and the music was coming from the back. The van was moving very slowly down the street, followed by a whole parade of people singing and dancing. In their midst was a chupah help by four poles that people were carrying, and it was then that I saw a beautiful, new sefer Torah under the chupah. I got off at the second bus stop which was completely hashgacha pratis (Divine providence), because the bus then turned at the next corner and I still needed to walk to the end of the street. While waiting for David, I ducked into Jungle, a pet store chain. The guy who worked there took a parrot I had been admiring out of its cage and was telling me about it (only 2500 NIS!), when I heard the music coming closer and closer. I ran outside and there was the Hachnosas Sefer Torah procession approaching with a much larger crowd. I followed the procession for about half a block, when it turned into a side street and stopped. Two really tall guys dressed in white, with white turbans, started blowing into the longest shofars I'd ever seen. It was so beautiful! The music was playing, the shofars were blowing, people were holding babies up, clapping and dancing and it felt so special to be a part of it! It was funny to see all the people holding their cell phones up to take pictures. After a few minutes, the procession started up again, and I went to find David.

We strolled all the way down one side of Emek Refaim, and back up the other side, enjoying the cool breeze (finally!) and looking in all the windows. It was hard to decide where to have dinner. I had decided beforehand that this night would be for David; whatever he wanted to do and wherever he wanted to eat would be fine with me. We ended up at an Israeli restaurant that was sort of open to the street, where we had shishlik (meat grilled on skewers). The nights we go out are few and far between, so it was SO nice to have such a relaxing evening. I hardly even thought about the dogs who had been home alone all day and who were probably sitting with their little noses pressed to the window looking down longingly at the parking lot waiting for us to alight from a car...

So now let's fast forward a few days to Shabbat. You know, we're really stick-in-the-mud people who go to work every day, come home tired, and veg in front of our computer screens at night. We rarely get invited out for Shabbat, although we love to have guests. This past Shabbat, however, we were invited to stay with a family in Bat Ayin, an agricultural yishuv on a mountaintop about 20 minutes away from Ramat Beit Shemesh. It was so much fun!

The Rebbetzin who invited us runs a midrasha (Jewish institute for women's studies) there, and we had been emailing each other all week. She and her husband and 14 year old son live on a house (a real house!) on the edge of a mountain, with a garden in front, a chicken coop full of chickens on the side, and a gorgeous view of nearby hills (mountains) in the back.

There were 24 of us for Friday night dinner, all women except for David, the Rabbi and his son, and it was a fast-paced evening. These young girls are so curious, and intelligent, and eager to learn everything about Yiddishkeit. Most were from the US, but there were a few Israelis and one from Germany. The discussions were lively as everyone had input on every topic. Shabbat was Rosh Chodesh Cheshvan (beginning of the new month of Cheshvan), a month where there are no other holidays. Each person talked about what they wanted to bring with them from Succot and Yom Kippur, and also, because Cheshvan has something to do with "smells", we all told what smell has meaning for us. Everyone said things like the esrog from Succot, or different spices. I said baby powder which made everyone laugh, especially when I said there's nothing more delicious than a baby's tushy. I was really, really missing my grandchildren, and how I missed out on the time they were babies. (My twin granddaughters are 20 months old already.) David said that the smell of the chicken coop brought back memories for him of visiting relative's farms in Minnesota when he was growing up.

Lunch the next day was just us and the family. David liked the Chabad he attended with the Rabbi. I had gone Friday night (awesome Lecha Dodi when the women spontaneously pushed all the tables aside and started dancing as happily as the men), but it wasn't my nusach (style of prayer) and I couldn't really follow in my siddur (also, I never go on Friday night so I didn't really know the order of the davening). But I totally enjoyed my davening at their home on Shabbat morning at my own pace, and including Hallel and Musaf in a leisurely and meaningful way. After lunch, David and I walked around the yishuv, enjoying the donkey tied in front of one house, the dogs running around, the kids playing in the streets and parks (no cars drive through on Shabbat), and the views of nearby mountains.

In the late afternoon, I went to the Midrasha with the Rebbetzin who was giving a class on Keshet (rainbows). This weeks's parsha (Torah reading) was Noach, so the rainbow was particularly relevant. We actually even had a little rain Friday night (at the exact moment the last guest stepped into the house for dinner), and again Shabbat morning while the sun was still shining. We looked for a rainbow, but there didn't seem to be one. After the talk, I waited for David on the road (there was a bench right in front of the house with the donkey) and then we went to a friend of my son (who is also the son of a friend) for the Third Meal. He and his wife and adorable 2 year old and baby literally live at the edge of a cliff. They rent a huge house (our apartment could probably fit into their salon) where they use two of their bedrooms for their home businesses. He bottles his own root beer (a product surprisingly not found here in Israel) and wine, and some other products. She sews colorful kipot and tzitzit. On the hill behind their house they grow all their own vegetables, and in front of their house are the herbs they planted. We watched the sun set through their window as it dipped behind the mountains far away. It was probably the most incredible sunset I've ever seen. The children were fed goat's milk that was fresh from a goat on the yishuv; the bread was made from wheat flour that they'd bought directly from the guy who grinds it on the yishuv. It would be such a perfect place to live if we had friends who lived there and if we spoke fluent Hebrew. It's a small place and there are many Americans who live there, but they probably all speak Hebrew as well. One day we'll be in that category, or at least, David will!

I'd better make some calls to see if a mahj game is in the cards (tiles?) for today.

2010-10-02T14:36:00.000-05:00

It's almost a little embarrassing to show up here again after a hiatus of a year and a half. David has been encouraging me to write again and truth be told - I've missed it. But how do I catch up on all the changes that have occurred since the last post? I guess I'll just do the best I can.

We've been back in RBS about 18 months. I've been going to the same shul we started at, sort of Young Israeli-ish - dati and Zionist. David just can't seem to find his place. He's been trying out shul after shul, but nothing is the right fit. I think a large part of the problem is that we just don't have a Rav that we can talk to and hold by. It seems to be a pervasive problem for olim in Israel, from what I hear. It's a challenge we're trying to deal with.

Since last December, we have been the proud parents of not one, but two adorable dogs. Spike (not named by me!) came to us about nine months ago. He was a small puppy when his original owners decided they couldn't keep him any more. I was actually in St. Louis to see my family when David called me to ask, "Remember when we talked about getting Emma a puppy to play with?" Spike was four months old and a real puppy in every sense of the word. Not only wasn't he house-trained yet, but he chewed everything and anything he could sink his teeth into, including four pairs of shoes (one of each pair), a chair cushion, my dining room table pads and various vases of flowers (he overturned the vases which were on the dining room table and the flowers were found strewn all over the table, chairs, couches and floor). But we persevered, and he's turning into a very affectionate pet. He and Emma play together, which gives them lots of exercise when we leave them for up to 10 hours a day during the work week. It does, however, make for very crowded sleeping conditions at night when I have to sleep on the very edge of the bed because they're both stretched out across the middle!

David got a nice surprise a year ago when, after two and a half years at Intel, he was finally hired to be a "blue badge"; a regular employee instead of a contractor. It's made a huge difference in our lives. There are all kinds of added benefits (most of which we know nothing about because it's all in Hebrew), including being able to lease a car at a very reduced cost. So we've been driving a brand-new 2010 Mazda 3 and thoroughly enjoying it. The leasing company services it, licenses it, and even washes it once a month - David just drops off the keys in the morning (the company is housed at Intel), and they return the keys to him at the end of the day. We pay for gasoline along with our lease payment, so when we go to the gas station, we just put the pump in, it reads something in the car, and after it's filled we just drive away. It's so convenient! Of course, we don't get a break on the cost of gas, but it's just nice not to have to have cash or put in on the already overworked credit card.

And what happened to the car we bought when we moved to Kochav Yaakov 3 1/2 years ago? Just sitting. In the parking lot behind our apartment building. Gathering dust. At the moment, it's not running, but that's a result of our not having started it much in the last year. We really, really have to get it going and sell it. Really, we do.

On a happier note, I made a really good friend who, together with her two adult daughters, became my new mahj partners. For awhile. Then Bracha just up and got married and moved to the Old City. But that still left Linda and Chava and we kind of got in a groove playing on Thursday mornings until everyone's work schedules got in the way, and then on Shabbos afternoons. Then they moved waaaay down to the bottom of the Rama (hill) and I walked down there every (hot) Shabbos afternoon. Until just before Rosh Hashana when my friend Linda took a job out of the country and moved away for 10 months! I couldn't believe she left me! I really miss her, and not necessarily because of mahj - she was someone I really connected with. But life's about changes, right?

Lately I've been meeting a lot of single women; some new olim and some who have been here for awhile. It's so amazing to hear people's stories - how they came to yiddishkeit, and to Israel, what their past lives were like. This past Succos was amazing. I spent time with many new friends, and with others that I've had the pleasure to get to know over the past year. On one night of chold hamoed, there was a women's entertainment program here in RBS that over 700 women attended. It was in a gymnasium with (chairs on the) bleachers on one side and a stage on the other side of the room. We heard singers, guitarists, comediennes, actresses, and watched tap dancers and modern dancers and ballet dancers (I couldn't help but think how much my mother would have enjoyed being there!). The talent was awesome. The last woman who sang brought tears to my eyes. She sang a beautiful rendition of "Hodu L'Hashem ki tov, ki l'olam chasdo (give thanks to Hashem for He is good; his kindness endures forever)" and by the end many of us were on the floor dancing as if our lives depended upon it. I can't tell you how uplifting it was!

The next evening was the Beit Shemesh Concert. Well-known singers and bands came from all over the country to play at a huge outdoor field with a bandstand. Two friends and I brought lawn chairs and nosh and settled in for the evening. Before the concert, Nuchi decided at the last minute to BBQ and supplied us with hot dogs from Rumania in Chicago and lots of other goodies. There we were, under clear skies studded with stars listening to inspiring, spiritual Jewish rock music (sometimes a little too loud even for my taste!) and thanking Hashem for the great blessing of being in Eretz Yisrael for the chagim (holidays).

And the NEXT evening I had been invited to a new friend's apartment (very nice apartment, I might add, with a view that was breathtaking) for an evening of divrei Torah (words of Torah), singing, and of course, eating. What made it interesting is that our hostess just made aliyah from "Joberg" (Johannesburg) in South Africa, and we American ladies were definitely in the minority that night. I love the South African and British accents; they're so soft-spoken and genteel. I actually felt I needed an interpreter for some of their words and we all enjoyed the diversity among us.

Yesterday morning, erev Shabbos, David and I went to a wonderful simcha - the bris of the children of good friends of ours from Kochav Yaakov. The daughter of one family married the son from the other (the wedding almost two years ago was so fun since we knew both of the families), and this was the first grandchild for each family. He's such a beautiful baby! The new parents live with her family, at least temporarily, as well as the great-grandparents who are also our good friends (not much older than we are, actually) - so that's four generations living under the same roof. Cool, huh?

So tomorrow we go back to life as we knew it before Rosh Hashana, almost 3 weeks ago. Getting up at 6 a.m., walking the dogs, driving to work together. Oh, that's something I haven't told you about yet! Kvish Echat (highway 1) is the main Tel-Aviv to Jerusalem highway (or vice versa, obviously). From Beit Shemesh, we drive up highway 38 and then enter on highway 1 going east to get to Jerusalem. But there are other ways to get there and David, who loves to study maps and roam the countryside, found a route that traverses through beautiful hills. Imagine, if you will, a twisty, windy, hilly 2-lane road with sheer drop-offs on one side and beautiful forested hills on the other. Some mornings we drive through fog or see it floating in the valley below. It's an incredible way to start the day! In case you're wondering, it's not necessarily shorter than kvish echat, but we don't have to contend with rush hour traffic starting and stopping on the highway - although sometimes we do end up behind a timid driver (or a line of them), but it just gives us more time to enjoy the beauty around us. Admittedly there are some mornings (I promise, only when David drives!) that my eyes are closed for much of the ride so I can get another half hour of rest.

David works longer days than I do, so he usually drops me off at work and I take a bus home. Sometimes he knows he has a lot of phone conferences in the evening (his "team leader" at work is in California which is 10 hours behind our time, so he's on the phone a lot at night), so I drop him off at work and then we leave together in the afternoon. It's a nice arrangement.

I'm still working for the tzedaka organization I started working at in April of 2008. There have been a lot of bumps along the way, but I work with some wonderful women and we've gotten to be very close friends. One of them is Rachel, one of the new grandmothers from Kochav Yaakov. The other is Chaya, who lives in a town called Elazar in Gush Etzion, a block of communities just south of Yerushalayim. Two nights ago, motzei Simchat Torah, Chaya called from her son's apartment just down the street from us; she and her husband and other kids had spent the holiday with her married son and his family. They were going to be taking a bus home as soon as bus service started again, about 40 minutes later. I was going to walk over to visit with her for a few minutes, but when I told David, he said, "Why don't we just take them home?" You have to understand that we NEVER go anywhere at night; normally David is working or is tired from working so much. It turned into a great evening! We took Chaya and her husband and daughter, and her other two sons (in their early 20's) tremped a ride home. Everyone "tremps" here. There are "trempiadahs"; usually a bus stop or a corner on the edge of a town where people wait to get rides, and people with cars stop to pick them up. It can be a little tricky because there have been some incidents with Arabs, but it's pretty much accepted practice here since at least half the population don't own cars. Anyway, I let Avi, Chaya's husband, sit in the front seat with David and they seemed to hit it off. When we got to their house in Elazar they invited us in. Avi pushed some palm fronds off the top of their sukkah so we could sit out there and we visited for awhile. Then we heard some really loud music and walked around the yishuv until we got to the shul where a live band was playing. Apparently all over the country people were celebrating "Hakafos sheini", kind of a second day Simchat Torah. Chaya and I danced over on the women's side for a few minutes and then we walked Chaya and Avi back to their home before we left. It was such fun to do something spur-of-the-moment like taking them home and spending time getting to know them.

So you're probably thinking, "Well, Vickie's been living in Israel nearly 4 1/2 years, she's probably fluent in Hebrew by now." Nope. Not at all.

David, on the other hand, is learning by leaps and bounds. Intel actually paid for him to take a pretty intensive ulpan; his last two classes are tomorrow and Monday. It was in 3 parts - for one month he learned one-on-one with an instructor on the computer through Skype two nights a week for 45 minutes. He had a workbook and an MP4 player they had given him pre-loaded with all the lessons so there was audio for each lesson that he was supposed to listen to 3 times every day. Then he had a one week immersion - every morning for 5 days he met an instructor somewhere in Yerushalayim - the Old City, the shuk, Nachlaot, wherever and they spent several hours speaking only in Hebrew from the lessons he was supposed to have learned on his own or from the day before. Then they went to the office where the ulpan was housed and he spent 1/2 an hour with an instructor, 1/2 an hour in the learning room, 1/2 an hour back with the instructor, etc for 2 1/2 hours. The last module consists of two days a week from 4-6:30 pm back at the ulpan office learning one on one. This week is the last week. It's really been forcing David to learn and he's enjoyed it immensely. We can't afford for me to take this ulpan, but when he's finished he'll give me the workbooks and the audio for me to work on. I need to be a little more optimistic that I can actually do it - as long as I have friends who interpret for me and tell me what my mail says, I've been pretty lax about learning it. It would make life so much easier if I knew what people were saying, or to be able to read the flyers I get or the bills or the newspapers or the posters that advertise everything!

I've been sitting here writing for over two hours! It was so nice not to have to do any dishes after Shabbat this week; that's never happened before. My friend, Nuchi, who eats with us many weeks for Shabbat, decided that this week we would come to her for BOTH meals. It was awesome! Then she decided that as long as we were coming, she may as well invite other people, so there was a crowd for both meals. Nuchi is a wonderful hostess; she sets the most beautiful table and makes way too many dishes! The problem is that she's such a good cook, it's hard not to sample everything. I heard it got up to 102 degrees today, the hottest it's been in several weeks. Once we got back home this afternoon, we napped for awhile and then Shabbat was almost over. It's been a long time since we've been so relaxed.

I really have to thank Hashem over and over for all the blessings he so liberally showers on me - my husband to share my life with - as well as all the times we get to laugh together, our dogs who bring us so much happiness, the opportunity to live in Eretz Yisrael, the wonderful people He brings into our lives, our parnassa (livelihood), the great community we live in, my children, grandchildren and siblings (so very far away physically but always in my thoughts), my health, my computer, my books, our apartment, our car, my clothes, my desk, the fact that He led me to a path of Torah - EVERY SINGLE THING IN MY LIFE - even those things that frustrate me or make me angry or hurt me. I'm so appreciative just being alive! Are there things I wish were different? You bet. The worst for me is having my family so far away; not being able to have them all for Shabbat or watching my grandchildren grow. I can only daven for everyone's health and safety, and pray that somehow we'll get to see each other soon.

I need to go make my lunch for work tomorrow and iron some clothes - vacation is over!

2009-05-30T15:31:00.000-05:00

Allow me to introduce myself. Hmmm. How to do that accurately?

I am a child of Hashem. I'm a changed person from whence last we met, these six months past. Where to begin? What to say? How to say it?

Just the facts, ma'am: We moved back to Ramat Beit Shemesh just before Pesach, two months ago. As much as I loved the yishuv, we feel as if we've come home. Just to sit in our garden (and I use that term loosely) and be able to look out again at the green hills, filled with blooming flowers and grass and trees; to be able to walk on the streets with hundreds of other people – and hear English spoken from all sides; to walk out the front door of our apartment building and reach a shul in any direction in five minutes or less; to walk 100 steps across the sidewalk into the door of the makolet (grocery store) or just around the corner to the bus stop or produce market; to have friends EVERYWHERE telling us how glad they are that we've returned and spending every Shabbos and Yom Tov (holiday) with different families either at their home or ours; these things in themselves are enough to make David and I so very, very grateful and so very, very happy to be here.

But it's more than all these wonderful things. It's the bottomless joy in feeling Hashem's presence in my life every second of every day. It's not that I didn't feel Him on the yishuv. It's that in the past two months I've “opened wide my mouth” and He has filled it – with strength and understanding and love. Yeah, it sounds corny, but what can I say? It's how I feel. There's growth in everything I read and everything I do because I'm concentrating on the learning and the growing. And while I've gone through periods like this in the past 16 years of becoming observant, it's never been to this degree or with this much sensitivity. Part of it is having the zchut (merit) of being able to live in this holy land, and part of it is that I'm more amenable to opening my eyes and my mind to all that He's showing me.

And knowing that my husband is right there with me, feeling the same awe and growth as well. We feel so blessed! We thank Hashem that he's given us a decent parnassa (livelihood) that enables us to have not only what we need, but even a little extra to be able to help others.

I'm not saying it's all perfect and rosy. We live in a VERY small apartment – not even large enough to invite more than 6 people to have a meal with us. We're in an apartment building with young, Hebrew-speaking families with many (very many) small children who can be quite noisy at times (see, I'm smiling). The people upstairs decided to add a few rooms to their apartment, causing among other things, sparks to fly down into our yard and starting a fire; burning the glider we brought with us from St. Louis into total ashes (Baruch Hashem they got the fire out before it burned anything else). The bus commute to work can take an hour and a half or more EACH way. And for some reason, there are some tiny little ants who seem to be crawling on my desk right now – wonder where they came from?

But these things are NOTHING. They're so unimportant in the scheme of things! We have a place to live in a great location, near shuls and friends and with a small yard for Emma and our patio furniture where we can sit in the evenings and look out at the twinkling lights on the hills of Gush Etzion. We feel an inner peace and excitement here that I'm not sure we've ever felt before.

The political situation here doesn't lend itself to feeling peace and security, but that's a whole other thing. I'm not willing to look into that so deeply right now.

Only two things make me sad. The first is that there are so many Jews out there who just simply don't know the joy of living a Torah life. They don't understand, they don't want to know or understand, or they just don't care. They don't understand why we're here on this earth or what they're living for, and they've never even questioned why. I should know – that's how I was for the first 38 years of my life! The world is spinning slowly and slowly out of control: recessions and foreclosures and job losses and immorality and nuclear threats. What should be obvious (blatant anti-Semitism) is looked at as normal – even by Jews! Defending our land, defending our right to live in our land and to populate every inch of our land is looked at as evil, while real evil – terrorism – is overlooked and even condoned! The fact that Torah-observant Jews don't even know that they should be here; that they don't want to give up their comfortable existence because of the challenges they'll certainly encounter here makes me so sad. Hashem is taking away people's savings and their homes and sending disease and storms and other disasters – and no one's taking notice.

The second disheartening situation is that my sons live some 6000 miles away and the older one is one of those Jews who doesn't know what it means to be Jewish. He and his (non-Jewish) girlfriend of eleven years just had twins 3 months ago, which brings the number of their progeny up to four. He's thankfully working full time (as a cook in a treif restaurant) and they seem to be handling the added stress well. I may never get to meet my new granddaughters; their brother was only eleven months old when we made aliyah, and the oldest rarely wants to speak to me on the phone. It breaks my heart. I've been hearing rumors that my younger son may be making aliyah within the next year, but he hasn't said a word to me (his friends told me at a wedding we attended about three months ago). I can only pray...

I heard Rabbi Lazer Brody speak recently. He reminded me of Stevie Wonder, sitting in front of the crowd with his eyes closed and a wide smile on his face, swaying in his chair and speaking about Hashem's love for us. He said we needn't be afraid, that this time before Moshiach's arrival (the Messiah) is simply leading us to our greatest joy. He said it's like taking a tablecloth and shaking off all the crumbs and dirt to get it clean. Hashem is “shaking the world clean.” Those with emuna (faith) will be able to hang on, while those who don't have emuna will unfortunately be shaken off. He reminded us that everything that Hashem makes happen in our lives not only has a purpose, but is ultimately for our own good. We just have to have emuna in Hashem and do our best to work through our challenges. Hashem never gives us more than we can handle, and each challenge is tailor-made for each of us. He was so inspiring!

David has decided that we're going to drive into Yerushalayim for work tomorrow instead of taking the bus, so I should try to get some sleep because he likes to leave early. It's motzi Shabbat (Saturday night), and Shavuot was the day before Shabbat. We ate with different friends for 3 out of the 4 Yom Tov meals, and this afternoon as David and I were walking Emma I stopped at a woman's house who I used to play mah jongg with and both of her daughters were also home. David took Emma home and I had a wonderful afternoon playing mah jongg for the first time in over two months. Life is good!

2008-11-01T14:05:00.000-05:00

Is this an awesome picture or what? Last week we had our first really steady rain of the year. When I left for work the sun was shining and I left the patio door open a few inches for Emma, as usual. AND left my umbrella at home. It started raining sometime mid-morning and was pretty consistent throughout the day. When I left work mid-afternoon it had stopped for awhile and after I descended the thirty or so stairs out my office door and turned to the right to head to the bus stop, I totally stopped in my tracks. There was the most perfectly formed rainbow I had ever seen, stretched from one end of the sky to the other. Even though I know we're not supposed to stare at a rainbow, I couldn't help it; it was so stunningly beautiful.

As I walked to the bus stop, I tried to call David but he didn't answer. Later he called me and said he'd been in a meeting, but his office has lots of windows (not just in the computers) (I know, that wasn't so funny) and he and all his co-workers went out to the atrium to see it. David asked, "But did you see the second rainbow?" I was disappointed that I hadn't; probably I was so intent on the first one that it hadn't occurred to me to look past it.

When we got home that evening David found the picture above that a co-worker had taken from his cell phone and emailed to everyone. Can you believe a cell phone can take such a beautiful picture? Our phones don't have that capability so I've never experienced taking pictures with one. Can you see the seond one above the first? I just tried to look up on Google what rainbows mean in Jewish thought - did you know that Double Rainbow is a brand of ice cream? Or that rainbows are associated with Jewish gays? I sure didn't. I couldn't find anything about double rainbows, but I found this from MyJewishLearning.com:

The Talmud (Hagigah 16a) states that one who gazes too intently at the rainbow will suffer a diminution of his eyesight. In the Kabbalah, the colors of the rainbow represent the various shades of the Sefirot. The rainbow has thus become in Jewish thought the symbol of both God's glory as manifest in the universe and God's faithfulness to His covenant to mankind and to the people of Israel.

Now let me tell you about the rest of that rainy day.

It was almost the end of the month and we needed to buy our new chofshi chodshi (monthly bus pass) for November. David had given me his ID card that morning, so I went to the bus stop headed for the takanah merkazit. I left work at 3:30 (the earliest I'd gotten off in a week) and by the time I got to the bus stop it was spitting rain. There was an overhang at this particular stop, and about 42 million people (more or less) crowding under it. After about 20 minutes no #11 or # 35 had come by so I jumped on a #56 and got off in Geulah. By then it was POURING. I took a back street and stopped at the first store I found to buy an umbrella; it was probably a record day in umbrella sales for stores that day. All the streets were flooding like crazy but I managed to make it to the #15 bus stop and the bus came just seconds after I got there. I kept thanking Hashem for keeping me surprisingly and mostly dry at this point. With all the streets under construction (they are literally working on almost all the streets of the city right now; mostly for the new rail system) and the driving rain, everything was a mess. It took another half an hour to make it to the bus station and it wasn't very far away from where I got on the bus. As I dashed across the street to get in the security line, I stepped right into the flooding waters and got drenched up to my knees. I couldn't believe I made it to within a few feet of my destination and then got soaked.

Actually I wasn't so worried because I knew I'd get a good seat on the bus back to Kochav Yaakov since I would be getting on at the beginning of the route. Lucky for me the ticket window was practically empty and after I purchased my pessa flora (passion fruit) slushie, the #143 was waiting for me.

That's when the fun started. Well, not fun exactly. More like a lesson in savlanut (patience). I got on the bus at 4:45 PM. Right at 4:50 PM the bus pulled out of its parking spot on the upper level - and then stopped. There were three lanes of buses trying to get out of the one-lane exit. We were literally moving about one inch every few minutes. Every time the buses pulled forward a little bit, the bus drivers jockeyed for position to get to the exit first - three lanes of Israeli drivers merging into one is not a pretty sight.

The nice thing was that there were probably all of ten people on the bus and it happened to be a brand-new, clean one so I was pretty comfy. The bad thing was that I didn't have a book with me and a normally 45 minute ride took two hours and fifteen minutes! All I could think about was those poor people waiting at bus stops with the rain drowning them and no buses coming. The traffic on the streets was almost totally stopped in all directions; it took us an hour and a half to get out of the bus terminal and around the corner on Yirmeyahu to the intersection at Sarai Yisroel, which normally takes about five minutes. Once we got past that point, it only took another half hour or so to get home.

Did I mention that I bought a slushie before getting on the bus? And that it took another two and half hours before I walked (ran, actually) into my house? I think you can guess the implication of that. Suffice it to say that I didn't even notice the little tiny mud prints all over my house and couch and bed until long after I came out of the bathroom...

David is delighted that I'm blogging tonight. He wants me to be sure to write about him. Hmmm. I can't say that. And that would be loshon hora. Oh, yeah! Well, no, it wouldn't be right to talk about that, either. I know! It turns out that David had a SEVERE B12 deficiency. It caused him to be anemic and also low in vitamin D. Now he's giving himself B12 shots three times a week and is on iron tablets and vitamin D drops, and life (for both of us) is so much better now! He's happier, has more energy, has a more positive outlook - it's wonderful. Now if we can just find a vitamin that helps with procrastination...

2008-10-01T12:50:00.000-05:00

G'mar chasima tova! I hope you had a meaningful Rosh Hashana and that the next ten days before Yom Kippur will be introspective and full of conversation with the Almighty. I know mine will be!

I read 2020 Vision this week - what a story to make one think! It just seems so obvious that the coming of Moshiach is just around the corner. Look what's been happening in the US with the financial situation. Is it a coincidence that the stock market plunged in its biggest drop in history on erev Rosh Hashana?! That Hurricane Ike did so much damage in the days following Olmert's unconscionable assertions that we're going to give so much of our land to the Arabs - land that many of us are living on, I might add? All over the world things are spiraling out of control - why don't more people see it?! And what if, G-d forbid, Obama makes it to office? It can only spell more disaster for both Israel and the US.

The only things we can do at this point is to pray, do teshuva, and give tzedaka. We Jews have to do what we're supposed to in order to fix the world. We must all of us ask ourselves - what am I doing or not doing that's causing evil to run rampant in the world? We can't look at other people and say, "Look how terrible he is"; we have to look in the mirror and tell ourselves, "Look at the difference between what I am and what I have the potential to be. WHY AREN'T I TRYING HARDER? What's preventing me from being a kinder, more sensitive person? What do I need to do to get back on track?" Hashem doesn't care if we reach our goals; he's only interested in the effort we're putting in to try to reach them. If we start off this new year already stuck in the bad and lazy habits we had last year, what's the point in going on this way unless we resolve to be more productive?

Now I guess I have to explain that last paragraph. Kindly substitute all those "we's" for "I's" because it's really a pep talk I'm giving to myself. I KNOW that I can be much more productive than I currently am. I KNOW that I have to stop looking at the faults of other people when mine are so numerous. I KNOW that I'm not making realistic goals and a plan to reach them. Recently I read something that said that all you (I) have to do is make one small change and Hashem helps it grow exponentially. For instance, if you decide you're going to give your spouse one compliment and a smile every single day, you'll soon find that you're smiling much of your day and becoming a more relaxed, happy person. If you decide that instead of yelling at your kids when you get annoyed, you're going to stop, count to five, and then hug that child - you'll soon find that he misbehaves less and becomes more loving to you.

It's our job as the Children of Israel to make the world a better place; from wherever we are in our lives; in whatever situation Hashem places us - our attitude and countenance comes from within. So let's (me) get healthy and happy and productive and cheerful and giving this new year! May Hashem bless you (yes, YOU!) and your family with a sweet and healthy and constantly-changing-for-the-good New Year!

2008-08-30T17:15:00.000-05:00

Been reading Angela's Ashes thought it was a holocaust story turned out to be a memoir about a boy named Frankie grew up poor in Ireland around the time of world war II. How can anyone live on tea and fried bread three of his siblings starved to death didn't make it until the age of three. Frankie must have made it somehow grew up to write the book. Here in Israel too much poverty one third of all children with growling stomachs when they go to bed wake up in the morning and nothing in the frig. No food patches on their clothes shame in their hearts.

They don't know no shame in not having G-d gives to each of us our own. Those who have think it's theirs we fill our stomachs eat too much don't think about who lack. We overeat our stomachs full our neshamas gasping growling nothing to put in.

Sitting on chair with hand outstretched their eyes beseech guilty we reach for a coin. Avoid the eyes drop in the money don't see the arm attached to a body like you and me. Does G-d drop gifts and walk away not wait and worry and soothe. He sits besides us gives and gives and gives smiles hugs and comforts shows us how.

I learn struggle to understand nothing mine. Share the gifts food money smile shake the hand look into their eyes. Fill my neshama stomachs don't need much hearts yearning. Make Him proud.

2008-08-24T14:47:00.000-05:00

Did I ever mention how beautiful it is in Jerusalem after dark? Tonight I worked until 8:45. When I walked out of the building, there was a wonderfully cool breeze blowing. Walking through the back streets of Bais Yisroel, a pretty hareidi (religious) neighborhood, I saw many people out in the streets: groups of girls with their heads bent together, giggling and talking as they walked; young men and boys striding purposefully, husbands sitting or standing outside their back doors speaking loudly into their cell phones as their arms gesticulated wildly; young mothers pushing baby strollers, pre-adolescents playing on the sidewalks. As I wound my way onto the bustling street of Shmuel Hanavi, I saw that many of the shops along the street were still open for business at this late hour. Some were closing up, but the aromas of falafel and pizza from every third doorway was still in the air. Here, too, the sidewalks were bustling with people and there was a constant stream of traffic in both directions.

I approached a bus stop where I frequently wait for a connecting bus to the one that will take me home. Normally, in the heat of the day I wait fruitlessly for a #2 or a #10 that never come in time to get me to where I need to go when I need to get there. This time, however, the #10 pulled up just as I was sauntering past. Even though I knew my bus home wouldn't be leaving the takanah merkazit until 9:15 and would take at least ten minutes to get to the bus stop I would be waiting at, I still jumped on the #10 and arrived at my destination two minutes later. Taking a chance, I called David at home and asked him to look up the bus schedule for me. I knew that they had changed some of the times and added more frequent bus service recently and Baruch Hashem! A 9 PM bus had been added. Within a few minutes a nearly empty 143 pulled up to take me home.

Once we get past the machson (checkpoint) at Pisgat Ze'ev, the driver turns off the inner lights of the bus, and once again I marvel at the clear, starry skies (that we have every single night from early Spring until late Autumn). There are so many sparkling lights from the different communities on all the hilltops as we wend our way home. It's hard to believe that so many people live out here in the desert hills north of Yerushalayim. Wherever I might be living in this Land, I will always believe that it's the most beautiful place in the world. And I will always be grateful to my Creator for blessing me with the schus (merit) to live here.

2008-08-23T14:28:00.000-05:00

I neglected to mention that David's blog is located at www.noshwithfriends.com. He's just starting out, but I think his first (real) post is pretty good!

2008-08-23T13:46:00.000-05:00

Surprise! I'm already back again. It's late motzei Shabbat and I have a little more energy than I did yesterday before Shabbos started. After two days of running to the bathroom with the "d" word, and running a slight fever on and off, I feel much better. It might have helped that Miryam and Rachel showed up this afternoon and we played about 3 hours of mahj!

So there's a lot of excitement in the air in my neck of the woods. I can't really say what it is yet but suffice it to say that someone's son we know is about to propose to someone's daughter we know. Everyone knows it but the soon-to-be-kallah (bride). The soon-to-be chosson (groom) went to the girl's parents and actually asked their permission! As if everyone didn't already know that it was just a matter of time. So now two families that we're friends with are going to be related and everybody is happy (including Miryam who will have a new grandson-in-law). Okay, enough said. Or maybe too much.

Getting back to the topic at the end of yesterday's post - last week a family on the yishuv sponsored Rabbi Pinchas Winston to come speak. There were about 25 of us who went to hear him (this was the evening before the Bloggers Convention - we actually went out two nights in a row!). If you've never read any of Rav Winston's books or heard him speak, he's absolutely amazing. His new book Geulah B'Rachamim is a MUST READ for every Jew. It's published by Shaar Nun Publishers and it's a small but powerful paperback.

Rav Winston says that the time of geulah (redemption) is very close. He says the geulah can come b'rachamim (with compassion or mercy) or by a very terrible war called the war of Gog v'Magog where very many people will die. He said that no matter how many mitzvot we have accumulated, in the latter scenario they will not save us as individuals. But - we as the Jewish people have the power to bring the geulah b'rachamim! All it takes is a change of heart! There are many places in our teachings that tell us we have to yearn for redemption. We don't have to necessarily make aliyah. but we have to want the land more than we want our expensive and comfortable cars and homes and clothes and status. He says that the Jews in chutz l'aretz (outside the land of Israel) are sometimes so far away from Yiddishkeit that they don't even know they should be yearning! I know I'm not doing his talk justice - please buy this book and read it for yourselves. It's 60 lessons (one short page a day) for turning around what could be a terrible and frightening war for ALL OF US.

Okay, tomorrow is the start of a new week so I need to get to bed. Hopefully I'll be up to going to Curves tomorrow morning, and then get to work by 1 (tomorrow's my late night). Have a wonderful week!

2008-08-22T08:21:00.000-05:00

Jewish bloggers everywhere - unite! That was the feeling Wednesday night at the first International Jewish Bloggers Convention held at the Nefesh B'Nefesh office in Givat Shaul. Although the convention lasted only a few short hours, it packed a punch heard the world over (well, maybe not the entire world but a good part of the western side of it). There were 201 live partcipants and we were told there were 1000 more linked to a live web feed. I say 201 because they announced that there were 200 and we managed to get them to allow David in even though they didn't have his registration.

David is a blogger? you ask in amazement. Why have we never heard of this phenomenom before? The answer is that, although he professes to be the owner of three such sites, he has as yet only written one post for one blog. Sad, but true. Although, this very moment as we speak my DH (that's blog talk for "Dear Husband") (I don't know any of the other shorthand initials so don't be so impressed) (I learned that from my friend, Shifra from reading it on her blog and asking her what it meant) (I should get back to the original subject), my DH is right now writing his second ever blog post.

Okay, now back to the original original topic. David left work and hopped on a #35 bus while I walked a long, hot way down Shmuel Hanavi Street and picked up the #11 (which had no air conditioning even though it was 87º). We ended up getting to the same bus stop on Kanfei Nesharim within two minutes of each other! From there we walked the few blocks to the convention. David's name was not on the registration list even though I had emailed back to the person who confirmed my registration that he also wanted to come. After a lot of hemming and hawing, and having the person in charge tell us that registration was closed and there really wasn't any room, etc., etc., we just stood our ground and very politely reiterated that we had come a long way in the traffic and were both interested in participating, etc., etc. We've come a long way, baby! We felt like true Israelis when they conceded that they could probably fit one more person.

The convention was amazing! You can see the video on the Nefesh website: www.nefeshbnefesh.org and then click on the blogger convention on the right side. I had a private interview at about 9 1/2 minutes into the video. {Please note that the screen is wide, so objects are much smaller than they appear} Once the video starts playing, DO NOT move your cursor or you'll lose the picture (at least that's what happened to me). If you lose the picture, minimize the screen and then open again. Jacob Richman, who takes lots of pictures at Nefesh events, has posted pictures at of the event at:

http://www.jr.co.il/pictures/israel/jerusalem/2008/jer173.htm

We're in pictures 2024, 2030, 2032, 2064, and 2068. (I'm typing this post in something called ScribeFire and I have no idea how to use it, so the font and font size keeps changing on me.)

I'm writing this now on erev Shabbos and I can't even think straight any more. I'm running a fever and I don't feel so hot (actually, I feel very hot); we had to disinvite Miryam and Shaya for Shabbos. But we were sharing the cooking, so I've still had to make my stuff and David will take their share over before candle-lighting and get our share of what they cooked. David is in the kitchen now making the curry chicken - Yudit at work gave me this very easy recipe and we made it a few weeks ago - so yummy! And so easy! David was going to BBQ chicken for tomorrow's lunch, but we decided to just make all the chicken the same in the interest of simplicity. I feel bad that he's working so hard on his only day off (besides Shabbat), but I'm thankful that he's doing it.

There's SO much more to tell you about the convention, but more importantly, about the talk we heard by Pinchas Winston the night before. It's imperative that I pass on that information, but unfortunately my popsicle is melting all over me and it's difficult typing with one hand so it will have to wait until after Shabbat. May you all be blessed with Shabbos joy and rest (and mahj, if you get a chance!).

2008-07-23T13:06:00.000-05:00

When I first started keeping a blog I couldn't wait to write every day. After two years (yes, we've lived in Israel for two years now!), it's getting harder and harder to find the time to write. It's not that I don't have what to write about (that's Jewish lingo); the problem is that there's so much to say and I've just been too tired to write it all down. It seems as if I've been leaving for work earlier and staying longer - and enjoying every minute of it.

On the other hand, poor Emma is home alone for up to ten or twelve hours, in the barely bearable heat and how silly is that, to feel guilty over leaving your dog? I guess if you have a pet and you know how important they are to you, then you understand how I feel. But it's also a wonderful feeling to work for an organization that feeds so many hungry children every day, and supplies clothes and blankets and heaters and backpacks, and helps their parents train for better jobs and then helps them find jobs.

A group of about 30 girls from England came to Yad Ezra V'Shulamit this afternoon and I accompanied Bassya as she spoke to them about what we do. When she showed them the video I had tears in my eyes. Rav Ariel Lurie, who founded the organization, is such a special person. He grew up hungry on the streets of Jerusalem and vowed that he would do everything in his power to make sure that other children have enough to eat. But feeding them isn't all; he knew the stigma of being poor and going to school in ragged clothing and dowdy hand-me-downs. Every Fall, the kids we provide assistance for get to pick out their own book bags and school supplies from all the donated supplies we get. Besides giving out 2500 food baskets every single week in locations all around the country, we also have Children's Centers in six different locations where children can come after school and get a nourishing lunch, get help with homework, and play in a safe environment. They're even sent home with food for supper and breakfast the next morning. It's an amazing organization. I think I'd like to eventually do some fundraising for the organization. Not that I like asking people for money, but it's such a worthy cause. If anyone's interested in learning more, check out our website at www.yadezra.net. If you make a donation, please put my name in the comments line so I can get a commission!

We have friends in town from St. Louis. Last Thursday they took a bus to our yishuv and we visited for a couple of hours. Then we drove into town and met David at one of our favorite fleish restaurants when he got off work. We just sat and talked for several hours; it was so nice to see them. They're in Israel for their grandson's bar mitzvah. Two nights ago was the celebration at a hall on Ezras Torah. There were other St. Louisans there - what a shock! Several girls who I knew as kids were there - married with babies! When did they grow up? and why am I continually surprised by it?! I didn't mind at all getting to play with all the babies.

We interrupt this irregularly scheduled blog writing with a totally unscheduled but not unexpected mitzvah request from a neighbor -------

Okay, I'm back. Emergency averted. Mini-version: 9:30 PM and a 10 year neighbor's son is having a tantrum, screaming on the street, trying to get down to the bus stop to go into town. He was yelling into the open window at a friend who was on his computer playing what was apparently a pretty cool computer game, but the friend's father had "disinvited" this kid from being there. Three younger siblings were joining in the commotion. Mom called with an SOS. I got three of the kids to come to my house for 20 minutes to play the stress game on my computer. (It's a great computer game but please don't ask how to download it; my niece, nephew and another friend's son have been begging for it and I don't think the website is around anymore). Anyway, he calmed down enough that when I walked them back home, everyone was in a good mood and Mom was able to relax a little. Unfortunately, they're all planning to come back tomorrow AND IT'S MY DAY OFF AND I NEED TIME TO MYSELF.

In case you thought I might have been yelling that last line, you are perfectly correct, although it wasn't so loud that anyone else could hear. Can we say stress? Strain? Pressure? Anxiety? Worry? I'm not really at liberty to explain all that, due to the constraints of loshon hara. Suffice it to see that I REALLY need some time away from the constant SOS's of several situations.

Until tomorrow afternoon. I pick David up around 5 and we head into Beit Shemesh for a another Bar Mitzvah celebration of friends also from St. Louis (go, Josh!). Oh, maybe I need to go earlier and buy him a present. I wonder if Manny's bookstore in Geulah sells gift certificates?

We would love to have a quiet Shabbat. We said that last week and we ended up with ten for dinner (as of 2:30 PM erev Shabbat) and overnight guests for Friday through Sunday night (we didn't know we were having guests Sunday night until we were awakened at midnight by a knock on the front door and Emma barking madly). So, please Hashem, can this one be a quiet one?

2008-07-05T14:59:00.000-05:00

Miss me?

Ever get the feeling that life is running you over? That's how this last month has been. Soooo many things have happened and nothing I can write in public about. Suffice it to say that David and I have been dealing with a lot of other peoples' issues; we have literally felt that our lives are not our own. This past week things have gotten a little better - not for the other people, but for us. Two of the situations deal with extended family and one pertains to a friend who we've been trying to support through a nasty divorce. The divorce is not final and for some strange, unexplainable reason (unknown to any sane person), no one is making this couple separate and the husband won't leave the house. There is a lot of emotional abuse going on and we fear for the wife's sanity as well as the mental health of the children. I finally had to tell her last week that David and I had to take a step back for our own sanity. We didn't see her or any of the kids this past week or over Shabbat; after seeing them (at least her and the baby) almost daily for months, we felt like we were having withdrawal! But I must admit, it was a more stress-free Shabbat.

It was, in fact, a most pleasant Shabbat. On Friday night it was just the four of us: Miryam and Shaya, David and I. I made chicken shish kebobs and baked potatoes, which was a nice change. For lunch, Penina and Pinchas and their teenagers joined the four of us. I had cut up lettuce, celery, red, yellow and green peppers, green onions, tomatoes and cilantro, plus made some Spanish rice, refried beans and spicy ground beef for an awesome Mexican lunch. We had tortilla chips and taco shells and everyone made what they wanted. After lunch, we took the leaves out of the dining room table and the six guys played cards while we four women played mahj - ALL afternoon. Miryam and Shaya stayed for Seudat Shlishli (the 3rd Shabbat meal) and for the last 45 minutes of Shabbat the four us sat outside and enjoyed the cool night air. It's been pretty darn hot the last couple of weeks. When I'm at work it's no big deal, but on days I don't work the house can get pretty hot. We have ceiling fans and floor fans in every room so it's bearable, and by 6:00 PM or so it starts to cool off considerably.

Last week's terrorist attack was pretty ghastly. I had taken a bus into town that morning and instead of getting off at my usual bus stop went all the way to the takanah merkazit. From there I switched to another bus which came straight down Jaffa street past the shuk, and then turned up King George (I had to drop off a check at our car insurance office). I had gotten on the 2nd bus at 10 a.m., and got to work around 11. At about 12:20, one of the Rabbis who works at our office came in to tell us there had just been a pigua (terrorist attack) on Jaffa Street by an Arab who was driving a construction tractor with a huge serrated crane. He drove the tractor down Jaffa running over cars and smashing vehicles with the crane. We listened to the news all afternoon. It was sickening. And then we heard that the murderer's father said, "My son was not a terrorist; he was a drug addict." Who cares?! He got ticked off and decided to see how many Jews he could mow down? That's a terrorist in my book! It's such an old story; Jews being the scapegoat. I know that our defense forces have stopped literally hundreds more of these terrorist attacks from happening, but every time it does happen, it's just too much. We're supposed to be living in civilized times, but what kind of animals have zero regard for human life? Even their own children are persuaded to give their lives as martyrs, and then they celebrate when their children die killing other people. There's just nothing sicker.

Let's go on to more pleasant subjects.

I'm still working out three days a week. Work is very enjoyable, although the computer situation hasn't changed. By the time I leave for the day I've been on every computer in the office. Only one computer has every program in working order. My computer doesn't have the database and isn't connected to the color printer. Another one has the database but doesn't have any Microsoft programs. I can only get my office email on another one. It's crazy! Hopefully we've made enough requests of the organizations's computer person that he'll do something about it this week.

We're trying to find a good dog sitter. Friends of ours in Ramat Beit Shemesh are making a bar mitzvah in a couple of weeks and they want us to come to the Thursday night siyum and dinner as well as to the Bar Mitzvah on Shabbat. Other friends invited us to stay with them, but they already have a dog and he's very territorial. Penina and Pinchas, who watched Emma before, are moving that same weekend to Nofei Aviv in Beit Shemesh. Shayna and Yonaton, who also watched Emma one Shabbat, are going to be in the states. We may just have to go Thursday night and come home.

It's almost midnight and tomorrow starts the work week. Have a good one!

2008-05-24T14:17:00.000-05:00

What a great Shabbat! Nothing exciting - just relaxing, enjoying friends, great weather, playing some mahj - what could be better?

And tomorrow starts another work week. I have to be there at 1 p.m. for a two-hour staff meeting. It's actually nice to get there later in the day. After everybody leaves I have the office to myself. The only thing I don't like is that only two computers have the database on them, and mine isn't one of them. Hopefully in June we'll be getting a third, updated copy of the database so I can stop "computer-hopping."

Lat week I went to Curves four mornings; hopefully I'll do the same this week. With four of us going from our yishuv, it makes it easier to get out of bed and go. I usually get to work between 10 and 10:15 a.m. which works out well, because then I only have to wait a couple of hours for someone to go home so I can get on the database on their computer.

Last week I went to the Writer's Seminar. It was pretty inspiring to have so many published writers there; some of them were speakers. There were writers and editors from Hamodia, Binah, Mishpacha, Feldheim, as well as other publishing houses and women who have written books. I really need to sit down for an hour every evening and work on my writing; I have so many ideas but no energy at the end of the day to put pen to paper (or fingers to keyboard). The Writer's Journal they published this year was awesome; they're selling copies of it for $50 in the states. The book had different sections in it and two of my pieces were the first ones in each of their sections. I haven't even had a chance to read the whole book yet; it's pretty thick. Leah, the organizer of the seminar, was taking submissions for several months. I think the booklet is twice as big as last year's.

We're talking about selling the car. It's a big expense and we really don't NEED it as much as we just like having it. It's not a decision I want to make right now. Just knowing we have it is such a comfort. I always worry that if we need to get anywhere in a hurry (like a hospital, chas vashalom {G-d forbid}) we'd be lost without transportation. Lots of people get along perfectly well without one; my mind just has to get used to the idea for awhile.

Shavua Tov (have a good week)!

2008-05-10T14:36:00.000-05:00

Shavua Tov!

The strangest thing happened over Shabbat. David always fixes my Shabbat lights for me before candlelighting on Friday afternoons. First he fills seven little glass cups halfway with colored water, and the other half he fills with olive oil. Then he puts them on the candelabra, adds the wicks, and I'm ready to go. Usually the candles burn anywhere from four to six hours. This morning when we sat down to lunch around 11 AM, David noticed that one of the candles was still burning. It stayed lit until 11:30 - almost 16 hours!

That would seem to be almost impossible. What would keep that flame going for so long? It didn't have any more oil in it than any of the other candles, or for that matter, any more than it usually contained. How could it possibly have burned for so long?! Burning sixteen hours isn't even close to burning for eight days, but still ... very strange, indeed.

Today was also my husband's English birthday. Happy Birthday to David! We didn't do anything special. The two of us had Shabbat lunch at home alone, which is what he wanted, and then David took a long Shabbat nap while I went down to Penina's to play mahj. I came back in time to share Seudat Shlishi (the third meal) with him.

Mahj was really fun. It was also the second time this week we played. Thursday was the celebration of Israel's 60th birthday, and Yom Hatzmaut is a very important holiday for most Israelis (Hareidi Jews don't celebrate Israel Independence Day because they don't believe that we should be celebrating a state when 1) Moshiach hasn't yet come and 2) there's a secular government not based on Torah values. We personally celebrate because Jews have a homeland to come home to IN SPITE OF having a secular government. So David, Miryam, Shaya and I planned to go to Migron which is a settlement on the next hill from ours. It's basically home to about 60 families, most of them living in caravans (trailers). Migron is in the news frequently because the government is always threatening to dismantle it. Someone planned a whole day of festivities there, with moonwalks and activities for the kids, booths, speeches, the whole bit. They wouldn't let anyone drive up there because there's nowhere to park, so we went to the shopping area where the shuttle buses were leaving from. There were hundreds of people waiting for rides; families with strollers and a million kids with backpacks and coolers. After half an hour of milling around and not making it onto any of the buses, we finally left. We old folk just aren't up to
all that excitement anymore.

So we headed home, picked up Emma and some food we had waiting, and headed to Penina and Pinchus' where we were expected for a BBQ. Pinchus and David barbequed the chicken and we got the rest of the food ready. It was just like the 4th of July (although if it was really the 4th of July, I'd be sad that I wasn't celebrating it with my older son back in chutz l'aretz whose birthday happens to be on that day). After we cleaned up the tables, we women pulled out the mahj game, while the menfolk were at the next table playing Spades. Emma had fun playing with Choco, even though Choco wouldn't let Emma have one of the two rawhide bones I brought for them. We didn't come home until late that evening. What a fun day!

And tomorrow starts the work week. I have an office staff meeting at noon, and then another meeting with the fundraisers at 1 pm. Tomorrow's my day to work in the evening, but if I have to go in early I don't think I'll stay until 10 PM. I'm looking forward to Tuesday - there's an all day writer's conference in Bayit Vegan that I signed up for. I went to this last year and really enjoyed it. Plus - Leah, the woman who organizes it, puts out a Writer's Journal and I have two pieces that are being published in it. I can't wait to get my copy!

2008-05-06T13:19:00.000-05:00

What a day! I'm emotionally and physically just plumb tuckered out.

David was told our car would be ready today - new windshield, new driver's door, plus all the things we needed to have done to pass inspection: new back bumper, new brakes, new battery. We also had a total tune-up and oil change. Then there was the cost to re-license it for another year, plus the inspection fee. PLUS - we had to pay the deductible on our insurance and supposedly it's our insurance company's obligation to recover that money from the guy who hit us. Total bill? Over 4000 shekels!! We weren't expecting that!

So we drove in together this morning in the rental car our insurance company has supplied us with and David dropped me off at a bus stop near where he works so I could catch either the #35 or the #11 into Givat Shaul for a doctor appointment. We left our house at 7:30 am and I didn't get to my 9:15 appointment until 9:25. I don't know where all the traffic came from but it was horrible; it took us over an hour to get into town. I rushed into the clinic only to wait over an hour until I was seen. Apparently they scheduled THREE people for 9:00 appointments and two of us for 9:15, and the doctor wasn't even up to the 9:00 appointments when I got there.

Yesterday morning I also left the house early (by bus) to get to a 10:00 therapy appointment, and didn't arrive until 10:15. The funny part was, the appointment was for today, not yesterday! I told them I didn't think I'd be able to make it because of my 9:15 appointment fairly far away but I didn't actually cancel it (because they told me to "try" to get there). So when I called them at 9:45 this morning to say I couldn't get there, the receptionist yelled at me and told me they were going to charge me for the appointment anyway. When I tried to explain my position, she just kept saying, "Ani lo mavina" meaning "I don't understand" (I use that phrase a lot). So that's another 75 wasted shekels.

By the time I got to work it was 11:30. I spent the next 5 1/2 hours sitting in front of the computer entering donations that had come in in April. I've been the only person there for the week before Pesach and the week since, and there's a HUGE backlog. Tefilla, the director of the department, was in today and she apologized a couple of time to me for having me do that kind of "grunt" work (should I have told her that I actually like doing it?). She told me that she has other plans for me that don't include data entry. Last week she spoke to me about taking over the office manager's job so she can concentrate on fundraising, but I know Bassya doesn't want to do that. She also wants me to work with the fundraisers by doling out who gets which donors and keeping them organized. On Sundays I'm going to work in the evenings when they're in the office making calls, which works out great for me because David has a shiur that he goes to on Sunday nights. Actually, I just found out that the shiur is for both men and women and I'd actually like to hear this rabbi speak, so I may have to work that out sometime.

Tefilla and Bassya are pretty laid back kind of people. There are three other young women and me (I'm young at heart) who work there, and everyone pretty much makes their own hours as long as the work gets done. I already told Tefilla that I wouldn't work on Thursdays. I really need a day to catch up on laundry and straightening up the house and getting ready for Shabbat. I love the job, though. My coworkers are great and the work is right up my alley.

I didn't get home until 7 tonight (long story having to do with waiting 45 minutes for a bus that never came) and for some reason I decided to call my old office manager at Aish. I rarely call Aish any more; I don't know why I decided to tonight except that I wanted to tell him I wrote my first Thank You donation letter today and started it off with "I hope this letter finds you and your family in the best of health" which is how he starts off every single letter he ever writes. I was going to tell him that he taught me well, but when I called I found out his wife, Shifra (my very good friend and longtime mahj partner), lost her father yesterday. And to make things worse, as she was checking in her luggage at the airport today to go to her hometown for the levaya (funeral), she got a call that her 16 year old, who's developmentally disabled and living in a group home, needed emergency hernia surgery. I felt so bad for her! We who have made aliyah know all too well the pain of not being able to be there for our loved ones or feeling like we need to be in two places at one time. Of course she had to be there for her son, and her mother understood. I called Shifra at her son's hospital room and we talked until it was time for them to take him down for surgery. The operation is only supposed to take an hour, so I'm going to call again before I go to bed. Bli ayin hara, the surgery should go well and have him feeling better quickly.

So, back to the car business. David had to lose a few hours pay when he took the paperwork to the garage after they towed the car in last week. The car rental place they sent him to wasn't easily accessible and he had to take a cab (the buses cost us practically nothing so this is probably the first cab either of us has taken since we moved here) to pick it up. So he missed several hours of work that day. Today he left work in the middle of the day to take the rental car back near the Old City and then take another cab into Talpiyot. There was a whole balagan with paying for the car because he didn't take a check with him (we've probably written 10 checks since we've moved here; everything comes off the credit card that gets paid off each month - as per bank rules) and the credit card company wouldn't let him put the whole amount on the card. He finally got all the financial stuff taken care of and went back to work. Except the car overheated on his way back! He called the garage and they told him to bring the car back tomorrow. David was ready to pull his hair out (the one or two that are left - sorry; couldn't resist).

You see, tonight started Yom Hazikaron (a holiday commemorating Israel's fallen soldiers and the victims of terror), and tomorrow night starts Yom Hatzmaut (a holiday much like the 4th of July, celebrating the state of Israel) - so David will have to get the car there first thing in the morning and probably wait until they can find out what's wrong with it. He left it at work and took a bus home tonight, so he's going to have to leave pretty early in the morning to get there when the garage opens. And he only works 5 hours tomorrow because of the holiday. When he doesn't work, he doesn't get paid. It's not fair that this kid negligently left the back doors of his truck unlatched which then crashed into our car - and he drives away while we have to suffer the lost wages, the time spent dealing with the garage and the insurance, and the outlay of cash that we may or may not be reimbursed for. Again, there's a lesson in this for us, but right now my head is spinning from exhaustion so I'll have to figure it out another time.

2008-04-24T09:17:00.000-05:00

Just a quick note to let you know we're both feeling okay - no neck or back pain from the accident so far. Neither of us thought to take the camera down and take a picture of the car before it got towed off yesterday morning. Too bad! One might have wondered how we had sustained no injuries when the car looked the way it did.

Did I ever tell you my husband's nickname? Around here we call him "Tim, the Tool Man, Taylor." For those of you who don't know about old tv shows, Tim Taylor was a real fix-it kind of guy with his own cable Home Improvement show. The problem was, Tim was always getting himself in trouble by fixing things in rather unusual and overboard measures, and usually hurting himself in the process.

We're having guests for Shabbos/Pesach lunch and I decided to make a nice dessert today. Most Pesach dessert recipes start off with "beat eggs until stiff." Unfortunately, our Pesadik mixer didn't make it to Israel with us and it never occured to me to buy one before Pesach started. Instead of letting me knock on neighbor's doors, my own personal Time The Tool Man Taylor rigged up a mixer by melting a plastic knife into a different shape and attaching it to his cordless drill. As you can see from the picture above, it worked rather well. (And the lemon meringue pie looks absolutely scrumptious!)

2008-04-22T13:21:00.000-05:00

Ever have a door slam in your face? What about into the windshield of your car? While you were in it.

Baruch Hashem, David and I are all right. Talk about a freak accident! It's surprising to new olim to learn that Israelis have to take 28 driving lessons before they can take the driving test for their driver's license. Judging by the way many people drive, it's hard to believe that they've had any lessons. So many people take chances on the road, like passing on the shoulder or around a curve, or driving right up behind someone and honking. They just don't seem to realize that driving is a serious matter.

Today we decided to pack our lunches and head into Yerushalayim along with, literally, a million other people. The accident happened before we ever left the yishuv (Baruch Hashem). We were on the main road of the yishuv, and all was quiet. Today was a gorgeous day, in the upper 80's, with not a cloud in the sky. We were both in great moods, enjoying this second day of chol hamoed. A truck was driving towards us and when it was just a few feet away, the back door suddenly swung open and was in our lane! David stopped the car but there was no time to do anything else before the door slammed into our windshield. Baruch Hashem a thousand times over that even though we were covered with tiny bits of glass, neither of us were hurt. The car, of course, is another matter. The driver's door will need to be replaced, and the frame surrounding the windshield will have to be fixed or replaced along with the glass. The driver of the truck, a young guy, was apologetic but didn't seem to really understand that his being careless about latching the back door could have cost us our lives.

All day David and I have been wondering what Hashem's message for us might be. Obviously we weren't meant to be hurt, but to learn something. All suggestions welcome!

2008-04-20T14:28:00.000-05:00

If we were in chutz l'aretz right now, we'd be in the middle of our second seder.

But the one we had last night was quite enjoyable. David and I had planned to have a quiet seder with just the two of us, and several books of commentaries to aid in our enjoyment and understanding. As it turned out, our friend who just had her baby a couple of weeks ago joined us. It was kind of a strange seder - she came over with a red and runny nose from allergies (David and I have been taking allergy medicine for weeks; everyone's sneezing and blowing their nose around here) and I gave her a Benedryl. Duh! It wasn't the smartest thing to do. She had the first cup of wine and was out for the count! While she snoozed on the couch I got to hold and rock and walk the baby, which was an unexpected reward for the evening. She's such a cuddly little sweetie. Nathan's had to endure my repeated pleas this past month to find a nice, Jewish girl already and give me some Jewish grandchildren (and, of course, move back here to Israel to do it). He tends to change the subject a lot.

Anyway, David had a very interesting haggadah with some great commentary and we learned a lot of interesting stuff. It's the first time we had the seder at home in several years so I got to unpack all my stuff. We have about 10 boxes of Pesach dishes, serving pieces, etc. so opening everything up after a year is like getting new presents. We have an excess of everything because in St. Louis we used to have big sedarim. Someday we'll have a bigger house so we can have more space to store our things and more room to entertain.

After the seder I went across the street to let Rusty out. He's Miryam and Shaya's 150 pound dog. When we walked over, we could hear singing from open windows on the street. I absolutely love living on a street in a community in a country where practically everyone is celebrating the exact same thing you are. Supposedly 85% of Israelis profess to having a Pesach seder whether they're religious or not. This re-telling of our story year after year for three thousand years is a miracle in itself. As slaves under the ruthless ruler of the biggest empire of all time, our lives and our futures were utterly hopeless - and yet Hashem redeemed and took us out of slavery to bring us to a land "flowing with milk and honey." Every year the story has more meaning for me. So many times in my life I've been off-course, either floundering or just plain headed in the wrong direction, and He's taken me by the hand and shown me a better way.

Sara Yocheved Rigler wrote an excellent piece in this week's Binah magazine. She said that as a nation and a people things are looking pretty hopeless for us right now: the constant bombardment of kassem rockets into Sderot and southern Israel that are maiming and killing, the tragic loss of lives like the yeshiva boys in Mercaz HaRav, the rampant anti-Semitism all over the world, the assimilation that's eating away at our numbers as well as the number of teenagers "off the derech" (path of Torah) and young singles who can't find their mates, our government's ineptness, and worse of all, the threat of physical annihilation by Iran. Her message was to always remember that even when the situation seems hopeless, we have to remember yitzias Mitzraim, the redemption from Egypt, and know that all is in Hashem's hands. Pretty powerful stuff.

I had a lot of fun the past couple of weeks cleaning for Pesach in between working at my new job. I really enjoy working at my new job. Tefilla, the director, wants me full time after Pesach but I told her I was only interested in three days a week. I might work four; David wants me to work as much as I can because we tend to overspend our budget. I'm a little curious how Tefilla plans to work this out. There's already four people and four desks (the fourth person shares an office with Tefilla), so I don't know where I'd work, but Tefilla was adamant that she would work it out. I suspect she's going to try to talk me into some fundraising, and I absolutely don't want to do that. Give me computer work, even if it's inputting donations in the database, and I'll be happy, but I HATE asking people for money.

So I worked five days the first week, and last week just Sunday and Monday so I could finish cleaning and start cooking. All the cleaning was finished by Tuesday night, including covering all the counter tops and tables - first time I've ever been able to finish so early. I didn't get to do a lot of spring cleaning which I usually do; things like washing the windows and cleaning out drawers, but you have to remember this is a tiny house and we don't have kids here so I got done what I needed to. Plus I helped our friend who just had the baby. I did all her Pesach grocery shopping for her and also helped in her kitchen a little. Thank G-d she had some teenage girls who cleaned her frig and did some other cleaning for her.

It was really fun the last few days before the holiday started. Everywhere on the yishuv were people outside cleaning windows and vacuuming out cars and kids scrubbing lawn furniture or toys. I think they actually emptied out the dumpsters all over the yishuv every single day. First I'd see them overflowing and an hour later they'd be empty again.

David took off all of Chol Hamoed. He really needs this vacation. The only bad thing is - EVERYONE takes off this week, so going anywhere will be very crowded. He basically just wants to veg out in his computer/Beit Medrash room, but we'll do some sightseeing. And one night we'll have a BBQ with Shaya and Miryam; we have some rib steaks in the freezer that are calling our names.

Today we had the last seuda (festive meal) with Penina and Pinchus and their kids. Miryam and Shaya were already there; they'd walked down for the seder the night before and spent the night. After lunch we women played mah jongg on our new 2008 cards. Kind of interesting how we got our cards. We ordered them back in January by sending our checks to Shifra in St. Louis. She added them to the orders from my old mahj group. The cards arrived in St. Louis in the mail about three weeks ago. It turned out that Avi from Nefesh B'Nefesh was in St. Louis to speak to prospective olim, and he stayed at Shifra and Albert's house. It was someone who had lived around the corner from us in Ramat Beit Shemesh, so Shifra gave the cards to Avi to bring to Israel. David had the great idea to ask Avi to take them work and give them to Casriel, another guy who works there who lives on our yishuv. And Casriel delivered them to my door. Is it a small world or what? We're hoping to play over Chol Hamoed as well.

David went to bed half an hour ago, and my mind is kind of mushy by now (it's almost midnight). Later, friends!

2008-04-06T12:37:00.000-05:00

It's a girl! And I helped! My friend down the street called me and another friend of hers who's a certified midwife to come to the hospital with her last week when she went to have her baby. The hospital is only about 20 minutes away and we got there by 9 PM. J's first four kids were all born within a couple of hours, but this last one decided to take her time. By the time T and I got to the hospital (I need to be more mindful of people's privacy), J was not a happy camper. When she had seen the doctor earlier that morning, he had accidentally broken her water during the exam, and then sent her to the hospital. Unfortunately, she wasn't yet having contractions and it had already been 8 hours. The midwife on call (they're the ones who deliver the babies in Israel) was pushing her to get started on pictocin and she was adamant that she didn't want it. To make a long story short (although it would be such a fun story to tell if it wouldn't be invading someone else's privacy), T encouraged her to have both the pitocin and an epidural and by 10 am the next morning Sofia Libi was born. I had never been at a birth other than my sons' and I had been too preoccupied at those to really witness the miracle. It was so incredible! This baby had more hair on the top of her head than my sheitel (wig)! She was almost 9 pounds and sooo cute! That 11-hour time slot definitely makes the top ten of my most memorable experiences.

And I got a job today! It's actually only temporary until Pesach, so I'm kind of thinking that I MUST HAVE LOST MY MIND! I've barely started cleaning for Pesach yet, not to mention the cooking and the shopping, and I'm going to be out of the house for 7 or 8 hours a day for the next two weeks? At least it will help defray some of the costs of the chag (holiday). The job entails entering donation information into a database for a not-for-profit. Not particularly inspiring but I've always liked working for a non profit organization.

It's 9 PM and I MUST get back to work. I'm cleaning out my office (guest room), so that when it's finished we can put some stuff from the kitchen in here to make room for the Pesach supplies. Have I ever mentioned what a teeny tiny house we have? Baruch Hashem, it makes Pesach cleaning easy! Well - let's just say, easier. Ladies, we need to keep in mind that every swipe of the rag, every sweep of the broom, and every swish of the antiseptic spray is a mitzvah we're doing for Hashem. I must admit; I really do enjoy Pesach cleaning. I know I'm nuts, but I'm more nuts for taking on a job 12 days before the chag starts!

2008-03-22T13:10:00.000-05:00

Whew - Purim, then Shabbat. Quite a mouthful - literally!

The week started with a women's Purim party at Chaya's house. Now tell me, if you were invited to a Purim party, wouldn't you think that everyone was coming in costume? Yeah, me too! But apparently not these women at this particular party... I was the only one who showed up looking distinctly not like me. I was wearing an old suit of David's with suspenders that held the pants well above my waistline - Steve Erkel would have been proud. I also had a painted-on moustache, a blue afro covered by a Borselino, and a bright red bow tie. Almost all of the other 17 party-ers commented on my lovely appearance. I didn't really mind. When Malka finally showed up, she changed into a similar get-up and we provided the entertainment for the evening by doing a rendition of "Abbott and Costello Learn Hebrew." We each held an ulpan book while she (Abbott) taught me (Costello) the rudiments of Hebrew. You know: מי is who and היא is she and הוא is he and מה is what and דג is fish. I thought most people had heard the routine before, but apparently not - they seemed to enjoy it. Another woman gave an enlightening dvar Torah and we played a game called Yankee swap which was kind of fun - I won a beautiful haggadah with a lot of Marc Chagall paintings.

Early Wednesday morning found me on a bus to Yerushalayim for a therapy appointment. That's the day that all the school children had their Purim parties. The sidewalks were filled with kids (and some adults) dressed up in the cutest costumes! There was a party atmosphere in the air and everyone looked so happy as they headed to their destinations. After all the tragedies lately, it was good to see people feeling happy.

After I got home later that day - surprise, surprise - I started feeling not so great, and all that night I kept waking up with a terrible sore throat. By the time Thursday morning rolled around, I had a raging upper respiratory problem - a mere three weeks after surviving the last round. What is going on here?! I never used to get sick - or stay sick - this often in my life. We did have a pretty bad dust storm for two days earlier in the week and allergy season has definitely started, so those could be contributing factors. The fact that I can't just close the windows and turn on the air conditioning as I've always been able to do in the past could also have something to do with it.

Anyway, I had a To Do list a mile long for each day this past week and somehow managed to get the whole list completed in time. Baruch Hashem David had decided to take Thursday off (he hates working on fast days) and he helped tremendously. I actually didn't even make it to the Megillah reading Thursday night and even though someone offered to call someone else to come read it to me at home, I wasn't even up to that. On Friday morning the cold medicines started kicking in and I was able to get to shul and then come home to prepare for our seuda (festive meal). Three families came over (we had all contributed to the meal), the temperature was in the low to mid 70's with not a cloud in the sky, and we all had a great time. David had set up tables outside and we had a cooler filled with wine. Penina's oldest son brought two friends along, and the boys had a guitar which I personally enjoyed (some of the other adults thought they were rather loud). Pinchas (Penina's husband) joined them with his flute and together with the sounds of our neighbors enjoying their own seudas, a fun time was had by all.

I tried to relax in the afternoon, but we had nine people coming for dinner and there were things I needed to finish up before then, although the cooking was already done. We had Thanksgiving fare: turkey breast, stuffing, mashed potatoes, green beans, cranberry sauce and pumpkin pie. It's the least expensive way to feed a crowd and everybody seems to like it. Miryam and Shaya were the only ones who came for lunch today, and we had plenty of leftovers - that's when it really felt like Thanksgiving!

We did have some bad news this week. Our friend, Tobi (whose husband, Zvi, we stayed with last Shabbat in Ramat Beit Shemesh), lost her sister after a five month struggle with lung cancer. All the family that was with her in New York flew back to Israel Wednesday night with the body and the levaya (funeral) was very late Thursday night in Yerushalayim. There was no way I was up to going, but David went. We're going to pay a shiva call on Monday night.

You just have to wonder sometimes at the way things work out. To have to bury a beloved (50 year old) family member on Purim - a holiday of joy? What is that all about? I find myself asking Hashem "why?" so often these days. I wish we had a Rav that we could go to at times like this. It's not that I'm looking for answers, because I know that no one has answers for situations like this, and I know that there are certain things that Hashem wants from us: that we recognize Him, that we live by His mitzvot, that we learn to love and respect each other. But I want to see the Big Picture; I want to see the front of the quilt instead of all the individual knots and pieces on the back. It's said that there will come a time when we'll all be able to see how everything fits together. I guess I just need some סבלנות (patience).

2008-03-16T11:10:00.000-05:00

I accomplished a lot today. The temperature was probably near 70 and I was energized. You may remember pictures I posted from last summer of our yard without any greenery. Well, it seems that grass - and lots of weeds - grow in the winter due to the rain. We have weeds almost a foot high in some places in our yard; I'm afraid Emma will get lost out there. Today I borrowed a weed whacker and just worked on the front of our house (which is actually on the side of our house; go figure). First I pulled up around twenty palm fronds that we had laid on the dirt in the yard for Emma to have a place to walk when the ground was wet. They had been part of our schach, the top of our sukkah, back in October. Grass and weeds had grown through and around them, so I had to really pull to get them up. Then I dragged them, three or four at a time, down to the end of our road where the houses end, and piled them up outside the gate. After I got rid of those, I used some big garden clippers to get rid of the thickest of the weeds, before I started whacking away with the weed eater. It actually looks like a real yard now! I only worked on about fifteen feet but it took a long time. A lawn mower would have been a whole lot easier, but I doubt if more than a handful of people on the yishuv own one. All I needed was an area big enough to set up some tables for our Purim seuda (meal) this Friday. We have to finalize plans, but I think Penina is making the Purim meal and Miryam & I are doing Friday night.

I also cleaned out the frig today. It wasn't so dirty, but it still took a long time. I think I'm getting in the Pesach cleaning mode. Our guest room is being painted as we speak by our landlord, a young Israeli guy named Eran. He's putting on the anti-mildew paint which should cut down (although not eliminate) the mold problem. Now that I know better, we'll keep the metal window doors open as much as possible and keep a fan running in the room. Even though the weather is nice, I'm sure we haven't seen the last of the rain this season.

Shabbat was wonderful. We left early Friday morning and headed to Ramat Beit Shemesh. Emma was a basket case in the car. She's probably only ridden in a car about five times in her life, and she doesn't like new things. She sat in my lap panting and shaking the entire way. But once we got to our old home, she seemed to remember it. David walked her in the grassy area in front of the apartment building we used to live in, and she couldn't get enough of the sights and smells. Yonatan and Coco were waiting for us inside, and Emma and Coco got pretty excited when they saw each other. Since Yonatan was cleaning the floors for Shabbat, we went out into their little garden with the dogs and let them get used to each other. When Shaina got home from running errands, she shooed us away and told us not to worry about Emma; she was in good hands. I'll probably say this several times, but it was so nice to see them again, and to be back in Ramat Beit Shemesh.

We spent the rest of the day going to the bank, grabbing a falafel for lunch, and visiting with Ellen and Kalmon. We miss them so much. It's amazing how in sync we two couples are. We're about the same age and have the same memories of all the stuff going on in the world when we were growing up. Plus, Kalmon and David have the same weird sense of humor, and Ellen and I run our households (and marriages...) the same way. It's nice to know there are people who "get" you. {Of course I'm talking about here in Israel; there are lots of people who "get" us back in chutz l'aretz.}

We had a great time with Zvi and Daniella. They cooked enough food for their entire apartment building, but we were their only guests. We also feel very comfortable with them. David came home from shul Friday night with a wistful look on his face and told me how good it was to be back at our old shul. We miss that the most on our yishuv. Shabbos morning was Parshas Zachor and I actually got to shul in time for the Shacharit Shemoneh Esrei.

Parshas Zachor is always the Shabbat before Purim. In the Purim story, Haman is this evil guy who tries to get the king to annihilate all the Jews. Familiar story line. Amalek was Haman's predecessor, and encompasses ANYONE who hates us and wants to kill us. We are commanded to hear the following from Deuteronomy on Parshas Zachor: Remember what Amalek did to you, on the way when you were leaving Egypt, that he happened upon you on the way, and he struck those of you who were hindmost, all the weaklings at your rear, when you were faint and exhausted, and he did not fear G-d. It shall be that when Hashem, you G-d, gives you rest from all your enemies all around, in the Land that Hashem, your G-d, gives you as an inheritance to possess it, you shall wipe out the memory of Amalek from under the heaven - you shall not forget!

Wow. The Jewish People have been reading that on Parshas Zachor for thousands of years. It sure has new meaning now, doesn't it? Do you think any of our esteemed leaders in our country (the Land that Hashem, our G-d, gave us as an inheritance) have ever read that line?

Sorry for the political interruption. And now back to our regularly scheduled story.

So it was pretty weird walking into our old shul, I have to say. There are a group of women in their 60's from the "senior" group who I had been semi-friendly with; they had us for Shabbat a number of times. None of them were friendly to me Shabbat morning. I don't know if it was because we didn't reciprocate the Shabbos invitations or if we didn't become involved in the senior group or because we moved away, but I'm sure I felt I coldness from them which was uncomfortable. On the other hand, there were two or three other women who were happy to see me, and after we filed outside, David and Zvi were waiting. David even got an aliyah (he was called to the Torah to read the blessings for one of the seven sections of this week's portion that were read)! After lunch I went to an interesting women's shiur (talk) where I saw Ellen and Michal, the woman who had given us Emma. Ellen and I walked around afterwards and sat on a bench in one of the parks. Josef and Joke (Yo-ka), another couple from our ulpan we were friends with, walked by and we all spent some time catching up. Then I headed over to Yonatan and Shaina's for Seudat Shlishi, the last meal of Shabbat. Emma seemed glad to see us for the first thirty seconds, but then she was off chewing a bone and trying to steal Coco's.

On the way back to the yishuv, I thought about how much more, observance-wise, Shabbat was there. More learning (there were other shiurim I could have gone to), a shul we feel comfortable in. The rabbi there is also very personable, and his drosha (sermon) was in English. On the other hand, if I were to make a list of pros and cons for each community it would probably come out pretty even. There are certainly things we like better about living in a house versus an apartment - like having our own yard with grass (granted, the grass is only around for about three months of the year). I do remember, though, how special it was to be in an apartment building where we could knock on doors to borrow things or to drop Emma off for a couple hours. Not that we can't do that here. Like I said, there are positive things about living in a yishuv as well as in a larger community. A lot of times when I'm walking around Yerushalayim I think how wonderful it would be to live there if we could afford it, where there's so much to see and do. Come to think of it, there's probably not many types of communities that I wouldn't be happy living in here! One thing I know for sure - if we're not living IN Yerushalayim, we need to live pretty close to it.

It's been a long day!

2008-03-13T14:34:00.000-05:00

It's late on a Thursday night. No cooking this week - we're going to Ramat Beit Shemesh for Shabbat. Last night our friend, Zvi, called to invite us to spend Shabbat with him and his daughter. His wife, Tobi, has been in the states most of the last six months to be with her sister who was diagnosed with advanced lung cancer just after Yom Kippur, and I think he's craving the companionship. It would have been nice to invite him here instead, but our guest room is being painted on Sunday with anti-mildew paint and the furniture from that room is all over the place. Emma's going to stay with Yonatan and Shaina, our former neighbors there. I hope she remembers their dog, Coco, and that they used to be good friends. We'll have Seudat Shlishli (the third meal) with them, but the other two will be at Zvi's. The plan is to leave early tomorrow morning so we can spend the day visiting other friends there and shopping for things we can't get here, like instant oatmeal and Ken's salad dressings.

We also need to go to the bank there, although we've been puttiing it off as long as possible. David gets his Air Force retirement directly deposited to a bank back in Minnesota, and every month he cashes a check from that account at Cheerfully Changed so we can put the money in our account here. Unfortunately, the exchange rate is down to 3.4, which is the lowest I've ever seen it. Normally, it's around 4.0 or thereabouts. That means that the 2000 shekels we would usually get (minus the fee) is now about 1400 shekels. That hurts! For people who get paid in dollars or have to pay their rent or mortgage in dollars, it's a big blow to the monthly budget. Thank G-d we have a set shekel rate for our rent, but most people we know pay in dollars that they have to convert from shekels. It's a real problem here; I don't know why anything is charged with dollars - no other foreign currency is used.

I went to the Kotel twice this week. Kind of a record for me since I rarely go. My friend, Ellen, and I were discussing last week the fact that both of us felt less spiritual of late. We met there on Monday afternoon and amidst a crowd of both Israelis and zillions of tourists (I took a little poetic license there) we davened and said Tehillim. Being me, I had left my sheets of names of people to daven for at home but I was able to remember at least my family's names and those of cholim (sick) I daven for every morning.

Yesterday morning I had a 10:50 am appointment for my back therapy (Alexander Technique). My plan was to go straight home afterwards, but I was so near to the Old City that I just started walking there after the appointment. On the way, I called a friend of mine who lives there, Ariel, to see what she was up to. She was delighted that I called and asked if I was up for a shiva (condolence) call. The family of one of the murdered boys from the yeshiva massacre last week lives in the Muslim Quarter of the Old City. I had never been in the Muslim Quarter before; I hadn't even known that Jews lived there. Apparently a company buys homes in all the Quarters and sells them to Jewish families so that we can have a presence throughout the Old City. We followed the signs to the home - there were people spilling out into the alleyway. Ariel and I only stayed for a few minutes. We never found the parents, but we able to find one of the sisters who was surrounded by her friends, and we gave her our condolences. I felt so honored to have been able to just be a presence in their home, to let them know that their grief is also my grief, that their sadness is shared by their larger Jewish family all over the world.

After Ariel and I visited in a cafe for awhile, she went home and I again went down to the Kotel. I pulled a chair as close as I could to the Wall, then closed my eyes and had a heart-to-heart talk with Hakodesh Borchu Hu (G-d). I talked to Him about what happened at the yeshiva, about all the sick people I know, about the divorces of my friends, about the terror down in Sderot, about living our lives in this Holy Land, about each one of my children, siblings, nieces and nephews, and about my husband and I. It was kind of a long conversation. I felt bad that I was asking for so much, more than I'd ever requested at one time before, but I knew He understood why I had to ask.

I used to feel guilty that I felt so blessed; that I had so much more than anyone else, but I figured out (somewhat) why it's so. We can't really afford our car, but a lot of times I use it to take someone to the store or to the doctor or pharmacy so we can't afford NOT to keep it. A woman down the street is counting on me to take her to the hospital in the coming weeks when she goes into labor. We haven't been able to give miser (10% of our income to charity) the last few months because our bills are higher than our income, but I always take a handful of shekels when I go into town to give to the many people on the streets who ask, and I try to be a good neighbor and friend by taking soup to someone who's sick or getting some groceries for someone who needs. I'm astounded sometimes by some of the awesome people I've met or heard of who don't have much of anything and still give part of it away to someone who has less, or who spend hours physically helping other people. I know I'm still way too attached to my "things" - to my computer and my dining room furniture and all the things that make up a household. One day Hashem may just take these things away from me, like He did to the people in Gush Katif, just to show me that I can live without them. I ask myself, could I deal with that? With losing all my photo albums and my books and my clothes and all the rest of my "stuff"? I know I'm willing to make a stand here, on this yishuv, on our land, in this place that Hashem promised us. My heart knows this, but I wonder - can my head make peace with it? Sooooooo many things to contemplate.

Guess I kind of rambled a bit tonight.

2008-03-11T13:22:00.000-05:00

I came across this and thought ut was worth sharing:

Sunday, March 09, 2008
from http://thinkingtorah.blogspot.com/

The news of just so many teenagers killed in the Mercaz HaRav pigua has been heartbreaking. Moreover, with two kids killed from the Gush, one in Efrat and another in Neve Daniel, it has been very close to home. Israel is so small, that everyone knows someone involved. The boy killed in Neve Daniel has a sister in my daughter's class. The boy from Kochav Hashachar is the son of the Mohel who performed my son's Brit Mila. On Friday, I attended the Lavaya (funeral) of Avraham David Moses. Only when at the funeral did I realise that I knew both the father and the step-father of this child. But this email that I received today took this all to a new level. It is from someone that I work with at Nefesh B'Nefesh:

Every morning I take the 35 bus line to work. It's a quick ride and usually takes no more than 12 minutes. The third stop after I get on by the shuk is directly in front of Yeshivat Merkaz HaRav. This morning I found myself a bit anxious, unsure of what I was going to see as we passed by. As I looked around, I saw death notices pasted all over the street and flowers that had been brought lined the entrance to the Yeshiva. When the bus pulled up to the stop, the driver shut off the engine and stood. With tears in his eyes he told everyone sitting on the bus that one of the boys killed on Thursday night was his nephew. He asked if everyone on the bus would mind if he spoke for a few minutes in memory of his nephew and the other boys that were killed. After seeing head nods all over the bus he began to speak. With a clear and proud voice, he spoke beautifully about his nephew and said that he was a person who was constantly on the lookout for how to help out anyone in need. He was always searching for a way to make things better. He loved learning, and had a passion for working out the intricacies of the Gemara. He was excited to join the army in a few years, and wanted to eventually work in informal education.

As he continued to speak, I noticed that the elderly woman sitting next to me was crying. I looked into my bag, reached for a tissue and passed it to her. She looked at me and told me that she too had lost someone she knew in the attack. Her neighbors child was another one of the boys killed. As she held my hand tightly, she stood up and asked if she too could say a few words in memory of her neighbor. She spoke of a young man filled with a zest for life. Every friday he would visit her with a few flowers for shabbat and a short dvar torah that he had learned that week in Yeshiva. This past shabbat, she had no flowers.

When I got to work, one of my colleagues who lives in Efrat told me that her son was friends with 2 of the boys who had been killed. One of those boys was the stepson of a man who used to teach in Brovenders and comes to my shul in Riverdale every Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur to be a chazan for one of the minyanim. We are all affected by what goes on in Israel. Whether you know someone who was killed or know someone who knows someone or even if you don't know anyone at all, you are affected. The 8 boys who were killed will continue to impact us all individually and as a nation. Each one of us has the ability to make a profound impact on our world. This coming wednesday morning,

I will be at Ben Gurion airport at 7 am with Nefesh B'Nefesh welcoming 40 new olim to Israel. We will not deter. We can not give up. We will continue to live our lives and hope and work for change, understanding and peace.

A second point is about the dignity and restraint which everyone has been exhibiting here. At the Levaya there were tears but no anger, no calls for vengeance. Just silence, tears and palpable grief. In fact, more than that. The mother of Avraham David Moses thanked God for "the 16 years we had the privilege of raising him, 16 years of purity of heart and honesty." How can a mother in her grief respond in that way? It is simply incredible.

On the night of the pigua, a few people stood opposite Mercaz Harav calling chants for vengeance and "Death to Arabs." The Rosh Yeshiva went to them and aske dthem to leave. "This is not our way," he told them. "We respond with love of the land, love of Torah, love of Israel. we will rebuild our land, our nation and remain attached to Torah."How starkly different we are to our enemies. May we always be filled with gentle dignity, love and hope, even when our enemies exploit those "weaknesses" to frighten and hurt us.

2008-03-11T08:03:00.001-05:00

Here's a link to a youtube video about Sderot.

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=5732992335777942086

2008-03-11T06:15:00.000-05:00

For the past several days I've been wondering what I could write here. There's the weather, which has suddenly turned into a beautiful Spring. There's the melava malka we had last motzi Shabbat at Aish in the Old City with former and current St. Louisans that was a lot of fun. There's the unbelievably wonderful conversation I had last night with a long-estranged relative. There's a lot of chatty, unimportant stories I could relate to you. We're in the Jewish month of Adar now, a time of joy for the Jewish people.

But my heart isn't in it. The tears won't stop flowing and my heart weighs a ton. What is happening in the world these days? This is what's in my life these days:

Cancer. Five friends are dealing with this in their families; only one is in remission and the rest are critically ill.
Divorce. Four couples we know are going through horrendous divorces, and two others have discussed it due to the constant dissension in their homes. These are all friends of ours; all but one couple are religious.
Poverty. Many people who have made aliyah are struggling to make ends meet. They're either working non-stop for little money or they can't find work at all. We're personally doing okay, but we try to help our friends out and it's tough.
Depression. People are emailing me and calling me and speaking to me in person about personal issues that they're having trouble dealing with. Some of the issues are the same for different people. But instead of trying to find solutions, or possibly even failing to find solutions after putting in the effort, some of them are simply giving up.
Tragedy. Oh, my G-d, the tragedies! A) Last month a family down in Gush Etzion had an explosion and fire early one morning. The father was able to get the two small children out of their home, but he has burns over 35% of his body and his wife has burns over 80%. B) Last Friday morning there was a head-on collision about ten minutes down the highway from us and a 23 year old woman and her one year old baby were killed; everyone's davening for the young husband who's in the hospital. This girl has family in St. Louis; her 21 year old first cousin died just a few years ago. C) Sderot down in Southern Israel is bombarded with missiles every single day; when the siren goes off they only have fifteen seconds to find a safe place to go so they always have to be aware of where they are and where they could take refuge. Everyone in the town is traumatized. Now the rockets are reaching as far north as Ashkelon, a city of 250,000. The missiles are coming from Gaza; from land that was torn away from 80,000 Israelis two years ago so the Palestinians would give us peace. What happened instead? They destroyed the beautiful homes and greenhouses and synagogues and began firing into Israel - at a much closer range. D) And the mercaz yeshiva massacre last Thursday night. Teenage boys and young men gunned down as they were studying Torah in preparation for Adar; eight souls murdered, six more still in the hospital with bullet wounds. Blood and bodies everywhere in a library filled with sefarim. And Hamas celebrating down in Gaza. News reports saying it was in retaliation for Israeli troops killing terrorists in Gaza - without mentioning the daily barrage of missiles shot from Gaza at schools and homes and businesses.

Some people would say that all these things happen all the time. There's always forest fires and earthquakes and tornadoes and sickness and people not getting along. I understand that, but it's different now. It seems to me that events are happening on a much larger scale than before; more catastrophic things are happening and at a faster and faster rate, and less people are caring about them. No one sees the "larger picture." So many people are seeing black as white, and white as black. There's no perspective, only moral relativism.

I can't help but feel that as awful as all these things are (and there are so many other things happening as well), it's all careening towards a purpose. There's a reason for all of it. I'm no Torah scholar, or even close, but this is my blog so I'm going to state my opinion.

The Torah is really only about one thing: Treat other people the way you want to be treated. If we all lived by that maxim, if we all truly believed that Hashem is our Creator and that He loves us and wants what's best for us - none of this would be happening, at least not on this scale. We would still have our challenges, of course, because that's how we grow. But because we, the Jewish people, have not learned to tolerate each other or treat each other with respect, Hashem has to bring Moshiach to us the hard way. Right now he's telling us to stop what we're doing, talk to Him, count our blessings, start doing chesed, and care about each other. We have to get the message!

I truly believe that when we do what we're supposed to do, He'll do what he promised. I believe that He's going to give us the cure for cancer, put gentle words in our mouths when speaking to our spouses and children, and find a way to eradicate the evil surrounding us. At some point he's going to stop hardening the hearts of our leaders/enemies/news reporters. Then, as in the Pesach story, He'll redeem us, this time by bringing Moshiach to lead us out of the chaos into a world of emmet - truth. The question is - are we going to make it through the present crises if we don't make some changes?

2008-02-28T09:25:00.000-06:00

It's late afternoon on a Thursday, end of February. I've been doing a little cooking for Shabbat. Today was so beautiful, I actually hung my laundry outside to dry. It was sunny and in the 60's, with more to come for several days. I guess our oil heater broke at just the right time; it will take about ten days to get it fixed.

I went back to the doctor this afternoon. After a week of antibiotics, nose spray, cough medicine, and ear drops, my earache has gotten worse. I haven't been able to hear out of it for several days. It seems that the infection is now in my ears, so I'm back on (a different) antibiotic plus all the other stuff. The 11th was the first I realized I wasn't feeling well, and now it's February 28! It seems like everyone (both here and in chutz l'aretz) are sick with the same stuff. Enough is enough already!

I actually left the house for the first time in two weeks late Tuesday afternoon. Miryam and I hopped (perhaps stumbled would be a more apt description) onto the 5:05 bus into Yerushalayim and went to a taping of the Tuesday Nite Live in Jerusalem show. It was so enjoyable. First of all, I ran into two friends from Ramat Beit Shemesh that I hadn't seen in awhile. Also, my non-Jewish cleaning lady from St. Louis came to Israel at the beginning of the month to volunteer for six months at a humanitarian aid organization, and she was also there. Pam loves everything Jewish; she just believes in you-know-who.

The show itself was fabulous. The first half was dedicated to the people of Sderot (pronounced stay-rote). Sderot is a town down south within shooting distance from Gaza, and they've been under attack now for seven years. Qassam rockets fall daily there; the entire town (those who've stayed) are traumatized. When the siren sounds, they have no more than 15 seconds to get to a bomb shelter. Most of the schools and homes don't even have bomb shelters, so there isn't even a safe place to go. People can't sell their homes so most of them can't leave. Our government isn't doing anything to help them - private organizations and non-profits are the ones stepping up to bat. So the Palestinians can do anything they want, but Olmert is negotiating with them to give even MORE land back. They're shooting from the homes of the Jews who were ripped out of their homes over two years ago, and what has that accomplished? Certainly not peace! Now they can - and do - shoot at Israelis from a closer distance. And the government wants to give them part of our holy city of Jerusalem, and all of the west bank (where we are living, by the way). David and I read a very scary article saying that the government is contemplating just pulling the IDF out of the west bank and giving it to the Palestinians while leaving us all here for the terrorists. They (the government) intends to start a campaign to "show" that the Jews living across the green line are just a bunch of crazy religious nuts, so the world won't condemn them when the Palestinians start to murder us. They have no idea who lives here! We're just regular people living and working in our neighborhoods; there are tens of thousands of Jews that the government would rather leave to the terrorists than to have to protect us or pay us to move. There are very few (if any) "illegal outposts." Nearly all of these towns and cities and neighborhoods were all built with government approval. Sorry, I've gone off on a very long and passionate tangent. This blog was started as a light-hearted attempt to keep my family and friends posted about our lives here; it's sometimes hard to do that when the survival of our people and our land is at stake.

Anyway, the second half of Tuesday Night Live was also great. Rabbi David Aron of Isralight spoke. His message was interesting: G-d loves us. He said that most people think of that as a Christian concept and they think of the Jewish G-d as demanding and to be feared, but in reality Hashem really loves us and wants what's best for us. The show also had the musical guest Chaim Dovid and his band. I had never heard him before (and my plugged-up ear made it hard to hear him that night as well) and he was fantastic. He used to play with Shlomo Carlebach, and played a lot of his songs. After the show, he stayed and gave a short concert for whoever wanted to stay. Just so you know, all the Tuesday Nite Live shows can be watched at either http://www.landofisrael.com/ or http://www.israelnationalradio.com/. The Sderot prgram airs late tonight (Israel time) and the Rabbi Aron/Chaim Dovid show can be watched next Thursday night online.

Yesterday morning I had to go back into Yerushalayim for my Alexander Technique therapy; I've missed three appointments over the last couple weeks. It was such a beautiful day and I hadn't been out in so long that I walked from the Takanah Merkazit (central bus station) to my appointment at the very end of Jaffa. I have no idea how far that was. (Maybe two miles? Maybe less.) On the way back to the bus station I stopped at the Village Green, a vegetarian restaurant, and had a bowl of soup. Altogether I was gone about four hours, although when I got home Emma acted as if I'd been gone for a year!

It was so funny when I walked in the door - on our couch we have two comforters, five pillows and lots of sheets from our mahmad (sealed room) that have been cleaned and bleached. We're waiting for our landlord to paint the sealed room so the beds are up on end, and there's nowhere to put the linens. Emma has discovered that if she climbs to the top of this very soft pile, she can be high enough to look out the window and bask in the sunlight. Also, when I was in the kitchen making dinner, she had a perfect view to keep an eye on me (you know, in case something really good falls to the floor; sometimes she gets there so fast the food hasn't even landed yet!). I'll see if I can't post a picture of her on top of the heap.

Guess I'd better get some dinner together for the breadwinner of the family.

2008-02-23T12:21:00.000-06:00

It's motzi Shabbat and David just finished moving my computer from the sealed room (aka guest room, aka my office) to the dining room table. We also took apart the two single beds that were in there and I'm washing all the bed linens. Yesterday I had actually opened the window for the first time in months since the weather was pretty warm and I wanted to get some light into the room. Just before Shabbat as I was closing them up, I found - to my horror - that the two walls on the outside part of the house were totally covered in black mold! It was all over the front end of the beds, the back of the filing cabinet, on the cords plugged into the outlet, and halfway up the walls. Now my being sick so often makes sense. I tested positive for mold allergies as a kid. Penina told me tonight that prolonged exposure to something you're allergic to lowers your immune system, and it seems that's what's happened. I've been sitting in that room at my computer for hours every day!

Okay, enough of the doom and gloom. As of this morning the antibiotics seemed to have started working. I still have the earache and a disgusting cough, but I can now breathe through my nose. We didn't have any guests for Shabbat, and David and I went to bed at 9:30 last night. I got up at 7:30 this morning, but David didn't stumble out of bed until 8:30. I'm sure my coughing has been keeping him up the last few nights, so we both needed the sleep.

Today was a gorgeous day. We opened up all the windows and after lunch the three of us (Emma was so excited!) took a leisurely walk. We didn't even wear jackets. It was with considerable reluctance that we closed the windows at Shalos Seudas. Darn! I just looked at the weather and it looks like it will be partly cloudy and 59 tomorrow, and then two days of rain. Oh well. I'm going into town Tuesday night (for Tuesday Night Live) and again Wednesday morning for my Alexander Technique appointment. Did I explain that already? I must have.

So let's go back in time, shall we? How about three weeks ago, February 1st? Emma got to stay with Choco and Vanil (Penina's dog and cat) while David and I went to Beit Shemesh for Shabbat. We left early in the morning that Friday and visited with Ellen and Kalmon, and the Turner family from St. Louis. Just before Shabbat we dropped our bags off at a friends' parents (what a house - it looked like it had been transplanted from the states), changed our clothes, and headed down the street.

David went to shul and I went to the home where we were having dinner - along with our friends from Connecticut, Peggy and Avi, who had come to Israel for Avi's son's wedding. They were staying with friends of Peggy's from college, and we had such a wonderful time the entire Shabbat. Being at shul the next morning for the auf ruf was the icing on the cake - I haven't been to shul since Simchat Torah and I miss it so much! (There just aren't any shuls that work for us where we live.)

That Tuesday I met Peggy in town and took her to Geula, Mea Shearim and Mahane Yehuda shuk. She's never been to Eretz Yisrael before, and because of the upcoming nuptials, no one had had a chance to show her anything yet. Thursday night was the wedding at the Great Synagogue in Yerushalayim. Whoo-ee! What an affair! It was definitely not an Israeli-type wedding. The kallah's family lives in Ramot and daddy started some kind of bio-tech company so they have money. The wedding had a smorgasbord kabalas panim with some weird colored liquors at the bar and a sit-down dinner for 400. The best part was - everyone spoke English! I loved it! Okay, sorry - the best part was really the very sweet choson and his beautiful kallah. The choson came to Israel a year ago on his own to fight in the IDF, and all his soldier friends were there. You can't imagine what it's like to watch these young people who are defending our country dancing with wild abandon out of love for their friend. We all felt extremely safe that night, actually, because it looked like an overwhelming majority of the men there were carrying firearms. David felt very left out.

We were invited to sheva brachot the following Sunday. Avi's brother-in-law and niece cooked up a delicious dairy meal and they had it at their shul (a very lovely shul in Baka, I must add. Baka is one of the neighborhoods in Yerushalayim). Unfortunately, the kallah didn't seem to be feeling well and we heard she woke up the next morning with a fever and they had to cancel the last sheva brachot (unless the choson went without her; I don't really know the outcome).

Peggy and Avi were leaving the next evening, but I met them (and Peggy's beautiful niece, Rivka, from St. Louis) for lunch and a little bit of shopping. It was wonderful to spend so much time with Peggy; they were actually our last stop on our "Farewell Tour" in July 2006 just before we hopped on our El Al flight to make aliyah. Could it already be 2008?

At the end of December 1999, I was vacationing in Boro Park with the then single Peggy, sharing the last night before Y2K hit. It was a Friday night, and we barely made it to midnight to watch some fireworks out the window and to make sure that the electricity and plumbing still worked before we went to sleep.

You know, before David and I got married in 1998, I had hardly gone ANYwhere. In the first few months after the wedding, we went to San Francisco and to Eretz Yisrael for the first time. Since that time I've been to Fargo, North Dakota; Moorhead and Minneapolis, Minnesota; Portland, Oregon; Washington, DC; Postville, Iowa; Atlanta, Georgia; Baltimore, Maryland, New York City; and Fairfield, Connecticut. And now I live in Eretz Yisrael!

And what I wish so much, at times almost overwhelmingly, is that my parents were still alive to have shared it with. They both were niftar in 1996, breast cancer and congestive heart failure, and both in their 60's. I would say that my outlook for long life doesn't look so rosy, but my father's mother lived until 97 - plus we all know that Hashem's plans don't preclude anything. It's amazing sometimes how many of my father's mannerisms I see in my husband. Kind of gives me the chilly willies...

2008-02-20T14:14:00.000-06:00

I haven't blogged even once this month?

The nutshell version is: spent a week and a half with my friend, Peggy, who was visiting from Connecticut, and have spent the last week and a half sick. Does that cover it? No? You want more? I'm always happy to supply every minute facet of my life in excruciating detail, but right now I have the mother of all earaches and a nose so stuffed that the simple act of swallowing makes me feel as if all my insides are being sucked up into my head. What? Too much information? You can't have it both ways, boys and girls - either you get the gruesome details or you get nothing. Since I'm shivering under my warm jammies covered by a robe covered by a huge, thick sweater and my fingers are like icicles on the keyboard, I think we're going to have to end here and hope that I have more energy and wit tomorrow; day 11 of this unfortunate malady (of which many people are currently suffering). So I bid you adieu, buenos noches, laila tov, dosvidanya (sp?) and good night until we speak again...

2008-01-31T04:57:00.001-06:00

More snow pictures! Above is our street, with Telzion (apartments) in the distance.
Here's our house. Actually, we're the downstairs of the house; another family rents the upstairs. That's our car in the driveway with a bag of trash on the trunk. David walked it down to the dumpster at the end of the street.
We walked down to the end of the street this morning to get a good look. We could see that the highway was clear. Yea! We can go to Beit Shemesh for Shabbat tomorrow. It's in the 30's today and everything seems to be melting and slushy. We just don't know how the hill will be going down to highway 60. Hopefully the sun will stay out all day.
Emma LOVED the snow today. She practically runs on top of it because she's so light.
This is looking down our street from the very end. That's not our white car on the left, but you can see our house just behind it (the one with the stairs).
This is another view looking down at the rest of the yishuv from the end of our street. Remember, we're the highest street (of houses) in Kochav Yaakov. There are caravans (trailers) higher up on the hill.

Okay, now I can finish cleaning the house and packing. Hot mahj game in two hours!

2008-01-30T07:50:00.000-06:00

It's later the same day - what a day! Emma wasn't sure what to do in the snow this morning. She walked around gingerly, shivering. Another dog had apparently been in our yard (huge paw prints everywhere) so Emma had check those out. Whenever she was standing still, she held one back paw up in the air so it wouldn't have to touch the snow. At around 11, Miryam called to see what we were doing. The electricity had been off for awhile by then. I was actually having a lot of fun reading about my 11th grade angst, but David said to invite them over. He actually went out and shoveled a path up our steps, across the street, and up Shaya and Miryam's steps to their front door. They were pretty surprised when they stepped out and had a clear path to our front door!

Their house doesn't get as much light as ours because it's an attached house (duplex), plus it seems to stay colder than ours. Baruch Hashem we could light our gas stove with matches, so we had hot tea. The four of us played mahj jongg for awhile, then I heated up the chili I had made yesterday - what a great lunch on a day like today! The sun actually came out for a little while and the electricity came back on around 1. After lunch we played Hearts, and the guys beat the girls pretty soundly. They left around 2:30, but we all agreed that it was a fun way to spend a cold, snowy afternoon.

David just read the news online and he said that highway 60, the road leading up to our yishuv (and many others, including Beit El) is closed to traffic because of the snow! Parts of it had up to 8 inches, and the road winds around a lot of hills. And we're only halfway through the snowstorm - they're predicting that by the end of tomorrow (Thursday) we're going to have twice as much as we have now. Our chances of getting to Beit Shemesh on Friday are looking more grim by the moment.

David's team leader at work just called to tell him not to come in again tomorrow. Sounds good except that he probably has to take two days of vacation for these snow days and he only gets ten for the whole year (which has to include chol hamoed). David really has needed this time off, though, so he's not unhappy. It's almost 5 and so far the electricity has stayed on, but I'm sure it will be off most of this evening. We're all bundled in layers of clothing, and Emma has burrowed under her blankie on the bed in the guest room (where my computer is). I sure hope it doesn't get too cold tonight!

2008-01-30T00:34:00.000-06:00

We're living in a winter wonderland! Snow, snow, everywhere is snow. And it's still coming down!

What's so special about snow you may be asking? Because it's not a usual occurrence around these here parts. The weather forecasters here are much more accurate than in the states - the country's been preparing for this since Sunday and it really happened!

Yesterday (Tuesday) it poured all day, but more than that, the winds were unbelievable. By the middle of the afternoon the rain had slowed down to just drizzles here and there (badly needed in this country), but by 4:30 they started again. Thank G-d David got home from work about 5:30 p.m. According to the news, the snow started in Yerushalayim at about 9, but here in Kochav Yaakov the first flakes started around 10:30. Our electricity went out several times last night, so I did some reading by candle-light, and we had flashlights by our sides. When David's alarm went off this morning, I told him it had started snowing before he went to bed, so he just turned off the alarm and stayed in bed. There isn't any way to get off the hill where our yishuv is located - no way are any salt trucks coming around here; we're pretty much off the beaten track. I'm just wondering if the yishuv has some sort of truck to clear off the streets here in the yishuv.

It's supposed to continue snowing today AND tomorrow, which doesn't bode well for us going to Beit Shemesh for Shabbat. My friend, Peggy, is coming from Connecticut (landing today!) with her husband, Avi, for Avi's son's wedding. This weekend is the aufruf. Emma is staying here with Penina's family, and we're staying with a friend's parents in Beit Shemesh - if we can get there!

Last night I was reading my 10th grade diary by candle-light and reading some things out loud to David. It was so funny! For instance, I was so excited one night when I made $3.75 babysitting; I thought I was rich! I said such (secular) teen-aged things. Here's what I wrote for September 29, 1971:

Howdy. No school today - it's Yom Kippur. I fasted all day and all last night. I even lost two pounds! (But I probably gained it back at dinner.) It was hot today. Didn't seem like the end of September. We got up at 8:45 this morning and went to 10:00 services. We didn't get home till 12:30. The services were okay but I just didn't feel like atoning for my sins. I don't like "institutionalized religion." Religion means something different to everyone and I don't think everyone should pray from one prayerbook. I didn't agree with 3/4 of the stuff in the book. Bye!

My, how my outlook has changed! Or maybe I just didn't buy into the Reform outlook of Yiddishkeit even back then. Somewhere inside me I must have known that there was so much more to what our religion has to offer. Baruch Hashem I'm much more agreeable to atoning for my sins these days!

2008-01-24T16:15:00.000-06:00

Here's some pictures I just uploaded. The first one is our sukkah from October. You can only see the top of it under the stairs; see the palm fronds? As you walk down the stairs to our front door, you get to the door of the sukkah. It really shielded us from the wind, as it was kind of "built-in".

The next picture was taken from the car driving from Yerushalayim towards our yishuv. You can see Sha'ar Binyamin, kind of the "county seat". It's an industrial center with the mishta'ar (police station), and Rami Levi, our grocery store. There's also a great hardware store there and spice store (among others), and they're building some mehadrin restaraunts that should be open in the next couple of months. If you look on the top left you can see our yishuv on the hill.

The next picture is of David with Emma. I've never owned a dog that got cold before, but Emma seems not to like the cold weather. She shivers a lot of the time. I myself wouldn't have picked out the green sweater (it definitely clashes with her coloring), but we didn't want to shell out more money for another one after we already got this one. She doesn't like it, but it keeps her warm.

The next picture is of the highway leading to our yishuv. It's a little blurry, but you can see that we live in a desert climate.

The next picture is the main street of the yishuv. It's really a very pleasant place to live!

2008-01-24T16:08:00.000-06:00

Here's four pictures from the sheva brachot. The top one is Penina's salon. Aren't the tables gorgeous? The second one is the happy couple. The third one is me with my friends. On the bottom is Rachel on the left and Penina on the right, and Miryam is standing beside me (I'm on the right). In the bottom picture, starting from the left, is Shlomo, Shaya and David.

2008-01-24T13:29:00.000-06:00

I've been telling myself for days to write in my blog, but I don't seem to listen to myself very well. It's the same problem when I say (actually, when I think) to myself, "Vickie, you need to exercise" or "Vickie, you need to dust." Sound familiar?

We keep a white board on the wall by the kitchen to write down things we need to buy or things we don't want to forget. Yes, it is a very large board. Anyway, there's been a list there for a week that reads Red Heifer, goats, guns. Those are three things that I didn't want to forget to blog about. (You may have noticed how the word "blog" is used as a noun in the first paragraph and a verb in the second. According to Wikipedia, both are correct. I thought it important to mention that in case either a teacher or an English major might happen to be reading this.) (It's also possible that you're in for a very long blog tonight.) (Or a weird one.)

There are more things that I plan to blog about than those three items; however those are three more "only in Israel' stories I want to relate. The first item concerns a couple, Tzivia Rivka and Shlomo Chizkiyahu, who got married on our yishuv last week after a 2 1/2 week engagement. Perhaps I already told you about this? Ah, yes, I just read my last blog. I ended up going to the girls' high school on the afternoon of the wedding to help set up instead of going to the kotel with the kallah (bride). The women who formed the committee that planned the entire wedding, from kabbalas panim to chupa to seuda to dancing to sheva brachot did a fabulous job; everything turned out perfect.

The night after the wedding the couple went out to dinner with the kallah's family who had come from America. They went to a very nice restaurant, the Red Heifer. (editor's note: This place has great ambiance and delicious steaks!) At the conclusion of the meal, the choson (groom) stood up and announced that he and his wife were newly married and could the men in the restaurant join in their bentching for the second sheva brachot? Shlomo and Tzivia (pronounced Tzvee-ah) Rivka told us that all the men and the waiters came to the table and enthusiastically joined in. After they bentched, all the men started singing Mazel tov usiman tov, and dancing all around the restaurant! Possibly this same scenario could have played out in Brooklyn or Lakewood or Monsey, but since I've never lived in any of those places, I would have to add it to my "Only in Israel" stories.

Penina and Pinchas hosted the third sheva brachot in their home. Penina did a fabulous job, not just with the food but also with the decor. It looked like we were at a fancy restaurant! And the fact that they'd had no water for six days (half of the "dudes" - hot water heaters that are located on the roofs of most houses - on our yishuv had frozen and burst the previous Shabbos - thank G-d ours was not one of them) didn't deter her from using her best china for the nineteen people who fit comfortably in her salon. I'll put some pictures in a separate blog because the pictures never go where they're supposed to when I add them.

Penina's family came for Shabbos lunch. Her oldest son, Daniel, is in the army. Hold on - here comes the second Only in Israel story. You know, I think we're going to shorten that - whenever I have one of these kind of stories, I'll label it an Oi (shortened from OiI. Then I can write, "Oi, do I have a story for you!").

Hmm. As I was saying, when Daniel walked in the door I was surprised to see him carrying his M-16. It seems (Oi, here it comes) that the gun has to be disassembled in order for the soldiers to be able to leave it at home. If they forget to do that , then even if it's Shabbos they have to keep the gun with them at all times. The funny thing was that my friend, Rachel's, son showed up later with his gun also slung over his shoulder. My only surprise was that they could carry them on Shabbos. It's commonplace to be anywhere in Israel - bus stops, walking down the street, in restaurants and stores, the central bus station - and see many young men and women in their army fatigues carrying guns that are sometimes longer than they are. Some of these kids don't look old enough or strong enough or even knowledgeable enough to have one, but in a country where war is a possibility twenty-four hours a day, the military is always in a state of readiness. When I think about the maturity level of the eighteen and nineteen year olds back in chutz l'aretz, I'm amazed at the difference. I guess it's all about what you're raised to believe and know what's expected of you.

Erev Shabbos last week (Friday afternoon) (Oi, here comes another one), I was driving up the hill to the yishuv when I had to slow down because there was a huge herd of goats about to cross the road in front of me. There were two young Arab boys holding them back so that my car and the one behind me could get by before they crossed. You know, that doesn't sound as exciting now as it was when it actually happened. Maybe YHTBT (you had to be there...)

The last week has been extremely interesting for me. I pulled three diaries of mine out of my file cabinet; diaries I don't think I've ever read since writing them thirty-seven years ago. Can I really be this old?! The diaries start January 1, 1971 when I was 15 1/2 years old in 10th grade, and I wrote one page every single night until December 31, 1973 when I was 18 1/2 in the middle of my freshman year of college. It's fascinating reading, although I suppose not for anyone other than me. The first diary is mostly about classes and school and friends and boys and fitting in and things I did with my family and all the fun I had in BBYO (B'nai B'rith Youth Organization), which was my whole life back then. I was a pretty secular teenager (I didn't become observant until I was 38). It's amazing how similar my writing style was back then to how I write now. My only connection to Yiddishkeit back then was BBYO and going to a reform Sunday School and getting confirmed in 10th grade. It sickens me to read how each week we went to a different church to learn "comparative religions." Why would they do that? Why not teach us about our OWN religion? I couldn't wait to get confirmed and have a party and get presents, and most of all - never have to go back to Sunday School again! There's so much to learn about Judaism; one can learn for hours every single day (and many do) and still not learn it all. And yet, people who don't know any better aren't engaging our young people to ask questions, to encourage them to keep learning, to teach them our traditions and laws. One day in my first diary I actually wrote (after reading Mila 18 by Leon Uris - my all-time favorite novelist - for the 5th time) that I wanted to be an orthodox Jew and move to Israel and fight for our country. It only took me 36 years to do it!

I've only read through August of the first diary and about half of the last one. I've actually started typing certain days and am thinking of writing a book with the theme something like How I Got Here From There or possibly How Did A Girl Like That End Up In A Place This This? G-d willing.

Did I tell you about our new hot water pot? For the past year and a half we've had a water urn plugged in 24 hours a day so we can have hot tea and coffee, but we never had an electric hot pot. It's so cool! You add water to it, turn it on, and in two minutes or less you have boiling water, much hotter than the urn which we'll now use just for Shabbos. You know, there are certain things I still miss from back "there", but there are definitely things here that are pretty useful and actually work well.

All right, time to end this blog and post some pictures.

2008-01-12T14:03:00.000-06:00

Busy, busy, busy:

1) The writing seminar this past week was terrific. Oops - I can already see that I started off on the wrong foot. Instead of a boring sentence, "The writing seminar was terrific" (which doesn't tell you anything), I should have written, "There was a feeling of excitement as I walked into the room where the writing seminar was being held. Women were crowding around the registration desk, and another crowd by the coffee bar was also buzzing. Four dynamic speakers enchanted a group of about fifty women for the better part of a day, keeping our pens busy as we tried to capture every glimmer of knowledge the professionals imparted. The warmth in the room belied the chill of the insistent rain drumming against the windowpanes throughout the day." Much better, no?

2) Yesterday (erev Shabbat) I felt as if I was getting the flu again; as the day wore on I began to feel ache-y (is there a correct spelling for that word?) all over, and extremely fatigued; then I became so chilled that no amount of warm clothes could help. Miryam and Shaya left right after dinner instead of staying to play cards, which has been our usual Friday night minhag (custom) for the past few weeks. David and I both went to bed early and slept late this morning. Baruch Hashem, when I woke up the pain, chills and fatigue were gone. I walked down to Penina's a little after 1 for the Shabbat Kallah for Tzivi Rivka who's getting married on Tuesday - after a 2 1/2 week engagement. We only expected about eight to ten women, but twenty-two showed up, not including children. Beth, who seems to be Tzivi Rivka's closest friend, spoke first and then whoever wanted to gave a bracha (blessing) to the Kallah (bride). I loved looking around the room and realizing that I knew all but two of the women, and I made sure to introduce myself before they left. There really is a nice community of English-speakers here.

2) Tomorrow Miryam and I are going into town (yea! Bush is gone!). I have to get an ultrasound for possible kidney stones (do you think they're actually serious that I have to drink a glass of water every 15 minutes for an hour and half before the procedure and I can't go to the bathroom until after the test? Do they understand that I go every hour as it is, and that holding all the water in for that long after drinking that much will lead to an extremely humiliating disaster? I'm pretty sure they don't have a realistic opinion of my bodily abilities). After this little procedure, I'm going to help Miryam find a crafts store in Geula (I know of a couple), and then we're going to a florist shop in Ramat Eshkol. Miryam was a wedding planner in the states and is making some of the decorations for the simcha (happy event).

3) Monday - day off - a breather day.

4) Tuesday 1 PM; the kallah in her wedding dress and several of her friends will go to the Kotel to daven and say Tehillim for her, leading up to the kabbalos panim at 3:45 and chupa at 4:30 PM. Yikes! I don't know how we'll get back in time. David won't make it for the chupa, but there's dancing for the entire community from 8-10:30 that night at the moadan (community center).

5) Wednesday night in Beit Shemesh - one year anniversary dinner for everyone who made aliyah in 2006. It's supposed to be fancy and a really nice evening. We haven't signed up yet; David hasn't decided if he wants to go. Our friends from Ramat Beit Shemesh, Zvi and Tobi, will be there and I'd love to see them. Tobi's sister was diagnosed with lung cancer just after Yom Kippur, and Tobi's been in New York more than she's been in Israel since then.

6) Thursday night we're going to sheva brachot at Penina and Pinchas'.

Next Monday, 14 Shevat, is my father's 12th yartzeit. It just amazes me that so many years have gone by; it seems like yesterday. There are so many things my parents missed by being niftar (deceased) so young. They never met my husband, David, or my nephew, Daniel; they never saw me grow in Yiddishkeit or got to see their six grandchildren grow. I've been sitting here for some time trying to put more thoughts about my parents into some coherent way to share it, but it doesn't seem to be possible this late at night motzi Shabbat (Saturday night).

NEWS FLASH: There is a product in Israel that is better - yes, folks, I say BETTER - than coke slurpees. I know; hard to believe, huh? But I have found a place at the takanah merkazit that sells an amazing passion fruit slushy. It's little pricey at 10 shekels but well worth every argarot. When I head back home from town I take one on the bus with me; it makes the ride home pass by so much more pleasantly!

2008-01-05T10:42:00.000-06:00

What a week! So much going on these days; nothing important or earth-shattering, just stuff happening.

On Tuesday, Miryam, Shaya, Penina, Pinchas and I got on the 3:35 PM bus into Yerushalayim. They all bought their chofshi chodeshi (monthly bus pass) at the takanah merkazit (central bus station) since it was the first day of the month. I had been to town the day before so I already had mine. Then we all hopped on the #18 and headed down to Ben Yehuda Street, where we had dinner on the meat side of Cafe Rimon. Dov and Lisa came a little later (they had to be home when their kids got home from school), and David met up with us as well when he got off work. After dinner, the eight of us walked up King George to the Hechal Shlomo building (it may have been a shul; I'm not sure) for the very first live show of Tuesday Night Live in Jerusalem. We had gotten free tickets to be in the studio audience of this new television show that will be broadcast on Shalom TV and another non-Jewish cable network, broadcast around the world. It is also shown on Arutzsheva.com. It was so much fun!

David was stressed out from work and ended up leaving before the show started. There were a lot of seminary girls in the audience who were screaming seemingly without end (everyone was pretty excited) and he didn't think he wanted to sit through that. The other seven of us enjoyed the show immensely. They actually taped two shows - the first half you can see on Arutz Sheva now and the next week's show will be on the website next Thursday. I just watched the first show and the taping didn't turn out so well. They're going to have to learn a whole lot about lighting and where to place microphones. The taped version doesn't do justice to the excitement of being in the audience. Everyone in the audience (from kids to a 92 year old woman) were Anglos who had either made aliyah or were studying here or just visiting from other countries, but we all had one thing in common - we were Jews who love Israel! We can't go to the next show because there's a wedding on our yishuv in two weeks, but I'm hoping to go to the following taping at the end of January.

On Wednesday I got the urge to clean (finally! I was wondering when this house was ever going to get clean again) and spent most of the day sweeping, mopping, washing, etc. Then, for some reason, I decided to do all my Shabbat cooking on Thursday. Somehow my neshama (soul) must have known that I needed to do that because late in the afternoon I got an email from a friend of Nathan's who lives in Ramot inviting us to the pidyon haben of his son the following day. A pidyon haben is a ceremony that you have on the 30th day after the birth of a son. But there's a lot of conditions of who can actually have one: it has to be the first pregnancy and the first born has to be a boy. The ceremony involves the father "redeeming" his first born son from a Kohain; he has to say that he either wants the baby or five silver coins; the Kohain gets whichever one he doesn't want. The rabbi (when speaking later) said that he hadn't met a father yet who wanted the money instead of his child (Baruch Hashem)!

The nice part about it is that Yishai (who's been a friend of my son's since they were in eighth grade) also went to the same to yeshivas in Israel that Nathan attended, so all the rabbaim (rabbis) who came knew my son, plus there were other friends and relatives of Yishai that I knew as well. They held it at a dairy restaurant in Har Nof. It had been called for 11, and of course David and I were the only ones who showed up then. We just can't get it through our heads that everyone here goes not just by Jewish time, but by Israeli time so you can always add at least a half hour to the "suggested" start time of any event. The ceremony didn't actually start until after noon, which was followed by lunch, and Shabbos started at 4:25 PM yesterday. We left the restaurant at 1:30 and got home in plenty of time, even though --

We drove all the way into town and all the way back with no problems. We've known for at least 2-3 weeks that our car was not feeling well so David has been taking the bus to work every day and I've only been using it to get groceries and to pick David up from the bus stop at night. When we got back to the yishuv, we stopped by the mailboxes to get our mail and as we were pulling out onto the main street we heard a loud noise under the front end and a clanging noise. David very slowly backed into the empty lot behind us and we took out our belongings and locked it up. We kept saying, Thank you Hashem for letting us get all the way there and back before it fell apart. We had passed several accidents on the way home, and all we could think of as we walked home from where the car was parked was how grateful we were to be back on the yishuv, safe and sound - especially two hours before Shabbat. Hashem really looks after us; we are so, so blessed in so many ways. There's so much to be grateful for, every single day!

Yesterday (Friday) was the first time that it's rained in awhile (which explains all the accidents), and by dinner time it was really coming down. Miryam and Shaya joined us as usual, and we enjoyed their company. At 8:00 PM we were supposed to go to a vort/dessert reception at Dov and Lisa's for the couple getting married a week from Tuesday. Shaya walks with a cane and David is still limping from his knee, and the vort was down at the bottom of the yishuv (remember, we're on the very highest street). But we went! And it was really nice! David's never really had a chance to meet other English speakers on the yishuv. I've been meeting the women because of the Shabbat afternoon shiur every week, and because we all do things for each other and help each other out. Not a lot of people came in the rain, but enough did that it was an enjoyable evening. At least it wasn't raining on the way home, but we had to stop pretty frequently so Shaya could catch his breath. This was the second time this week we made him walk a pretty good distance.

Today the rain was kind of on-again, off-again. It didn't stop ten ladies from coming to the shiur at my house late this afternoon. There are two rebbetzins (rabbi's wives) who take turns speaking every other week about the parsha (weekly Torah portion). This was the first time I've hosted it. I actually made Rice Krispies treats which a lot of people remember from the "old" country; I even took some to the vort last night. They don't have real Rice Krispies here, but they do have another American off-brand which is better than the Israeli version. Also, the only bags of marshmallows I've found in this country are a mixture of strawberry and regular, so I had to use marshmallow fluff which didn't hold the squares together too well. But I think people liked them anyway.

The daughter of the rabbi who paved the way for my becoming observant lives here in Israel and just had her first baby. Her mother, Brocha, came to Israel just before Shabbat so I'm hoping to see her sometime while she's here. Leah and her husband just moved to Kiryat Sefer which is north and west of Yerushalayim, but Brocha's sister lives in Ramat Shlomo which is fairly close to us. Unfortunately, and I say this for a number of reasons, President Bush is coming to Israel on Wednesday.

Besides a number of major roads in Jerusalem being closed down for three days, his agenda in coming here makes me sick. I HATE reading the news. I can't stand to read what Bush and Olmert and Rice and all the other politicians have to say about giving away our holy land or dividing up Jerusalem or trying to pretend that Israel isn't a Jewish country. It's sickening to hear Olmert blame Israelis when we get attacked by terrorists or to hear people say that the only way to have peace is to give and give and give without getting anything in return. It doesn't make sense that people can be so blind. How can they not see that the Arabs don't want to make peace? How can they not see that they want to wipe us off the face of the earth? How can they continue to give them arms, to release the terrorists from jail, to give them our precious land that Hashem gave to US, to the Jews? The only answer that makes any sense is that Hashem is hardening their hearts, like he did to Pharaoh when we were slaves in Mitzrayim (Egypt). He must be setting the stage for Moshiach to come and finally bring peace and understanding to us humans. Please may it be so!

I'm very thankful that the writer's seminar I'm going to is on Tuesday, before Bush gets here. Unless it's to see Brocha, I'm not going into town after Tuesday!

2007-12-30T05:57:00.000-06:00

I had two really great "Only in Israel" stories to relate, but now that I'm sitting down at my keyboard, I can only remember one. Maybe that's another story in and of itself - you know, the whole swiss-cheese-for-brains kind of thing. Not!

We'll get to one of the stories eventually. First I'll try to remember what's been going on in my life.

Last week I went into Yerushalayim three days in a row. I just felt like I needed to get out of the house and off the yishuv. The first day, Miryam and I first drove to Pisgat Ze'ev where we took a zillion (more or less) empty soda and water bottles to the recyclable bin, and then to the pet store (she needed bird food). We had fun taking the #8 bus into Yerushalayim; I love riding different buses and seeing what their routes are. After changing buses at the takanah merkazit (central bus station), we headed down Yaffo Street intending to go up King George and head to Talpiot. Instead, we got off the bus right as it turned onto King George so Miryam could get some American bills changed into shekels. Once we were there, I asked her if she was up for some walking and we decided to try to find Yosi Peking, which used to be a fabulous restaurant when David and I would come to Israel as tourists. I say "used to be" because they've switched locations three times, and I knew that they were just a small carry-out place now. My dentist's receptionist had told me they were now on Keren Hayemet, so we headed down King George to find it. It was supposed to be a fairly warm day, but it was overcast which kept it kind of chilly and I had just worn a light jacket. It was still SO nice to be walking in the fresh air. We found the restaurant without any trouble, but I have to say that the meal was very disappointing, especially considering how fabulous it used to be. There were just five tables inside and a few more outside; it was definitely too chilly to eat outside. The menu was small, and the food was already on a warming table ready to be ladled up. The soup was delicious but I don't think we'll be eating there again.

After lunch we just walked around. We found a great used book store where Miryam bought a couple of books. Lately it seems as if there are a lot of book stores with English books opening up. I remember when Nathan was going to yeshiva here he was always looking for bookstores with used English books (much less expensive than new ones) and now they're all over the place. Most of the bookstores even buy back the books at 70% of what you paid for them. Many of the books, though, look as if they've been packed away since the 40's and 50's, although you can always find whatever authors you're looking for and the latest bestsellers.

The following day, I jumped on a late afternoon bus and browsed around Geulah (a religious neighborhood with lots of stores) until David got off work and joined me. Waiting for him at the bus stop I ran into Karen, a friend from Ramat Beit Shemesh. It was nice to talk to her for a few minutes until David's bus came. Karen and her husband, Al, are going to the states for three weeks in January. I wish we could afford to go for a visit. All I really want to do is go play mahj with my old group! For a week straight!

David and I just walked around for a little while until we went to the takanah merkazit to catch the #143 back to Kochav Yaakov. We got there just as the bus pulled up. If David hadn't had to get home to study for ulpan the next evening, we would have stayed in town later.

The following day, my friend Ellen in Ramat Beit Shemesh and I each got on the 9 AM bus in our respective communities, and met at the takanah merkazit. We arrived at practically the same time! It was so nice to spend some time with Ellen again; we have so much in common. She doesn't get into Yerushalayim so much, so we decided to go exploring. This time we took the #14 to Talpiot. Talpiot is where most of the shopping is - for cars, furniture, household items, you name it. Every block has another mall or car lot. This day was absolutely gorgeous - 60's and not a cloud in the sky. We went through a couple of malls and then ended up walking all the way back to Emek Refaim in the German Colony. It wasn't actually so far and we both enjoyed the walk. There are a lot of restaurants on Emek Refaim, even a lot of mehadrin ones, but Ellen didn't hold by any of the hechsharim. It's amazing to me how religious people hold so differently in what they'll eat. We ended up going back in to Cafe Rimon which pretty much everyone holds by, and we split a salad. Afterwards we walked up Strauss and I got Ellen to the bus stop for the #417 back to Ramat Beit Shemesh, while I grabbed a #56 down to Shmuel Hanavi and Bar Ilan where I waited for the #143.

It's always iffy not getting on the #143 at the starting point, which is the takanah merkazit. But it was 3:15 in the afternoon so I thought I had a good chance of getting a seat. While I was waiting for the bus, I heard someone saying, "Mrs. Lecy, Mrs. Lecy" and I looked up to see Chaim, a boy who lives on my yishuv with his mother and sister. I greeted him, and then he ran back to play with his two friends; they'd obviously just gotten off school. Within two minutes, the #143 showed up and it was totally packed. All of us (and there were many) who got on at this bus stop were totally squeezed together in the aisle. I had four bags, my purse and my jacket in my arms, so I was extremely appreciative when a young girl offered me her seat (there are SOME positive aspects to getting old, it seems).

While I was getting situated in my seat, I realized that the bus driver was continually yelling, "Yeladim! Yeladim! (Children! Children!) out the door. (Get ready - this is the "Only in Israel" part.) When I looked out the window, I could see Chaim and his two friends racing around each other, oblivious to the fact that the bus had been loading for the past few minutes. They continued playing while the bus driver continued to call for them. Now where else would a driver of a packed bus be concerned about three kids who would have to wait for an even more crowded bus a half hour later? And to be cognizant of the fact that they probably rode his bus every day at that same time? The boys finally realized he was yelling for them, and they raced into the bus, having to stand in the doorway for the 40 minute drive home.

It's so wonderful to see people who care about others, whether it's bus drivers or just people on the street, and you see it every day. On one city bus I was on last week, an elderly man was still walking down the aisle to a seat when the bus driver took off, making him lose his balance. A secular girl sitting near the man grabbed his hand to help him get his balance, and they both smiled at each other as he nodded his thanks to her. I just love seeing those kind of exchanges.

It's now several hours later and I still can't remember the other story I wanted to relate. Guess I'll have to blog again when I think of it!

2007-12-17T11:38:00.000-06:00

What an awesome, warm, sunny, cloudless, G-dfilled day!

I woke up to the doctor calling me with the results of my lab test from last week. He told me that I had a pretty virulent whatever-it-was and warned me to keep taking the antibiotics. He said no bacteria showed up but he's pretty certain it's still there and said my white blood cell count was off the charts (or way too low, I can't remember which). After I dressed and davened and ate a filling breakfast (these are all firsts for the last week, you should know), I said goodbye to Emma and walked down to the bus stop. And rode the #143 all the way to the takanah merkazeet (central bus station) without feeling sick at all! I had an ophthomologist appointment in Givat Shaul that took over two hours, counting waiting in the waiting room for my turn and for my eyes to dilate. By the time I got back to Kochav Yaakov, I'd been gone six hours! Never ever ever underestimate the value of a) a car that works and b) time.

By the time I got home the sky was totally cloudy and everyone in the bus was probably wondering about the crazy lady in the sunglasses (remember - dilated eyes). Poor Emma was very glad to see me (after my not being out of her sight for the past ten days), and was especially happy to uncross her legs and make a mad dash for the yard.

Now it's 7:45 PM and about an hour ago, I HIT THE WALL. If I weren't here typing, I'd be sacked out on the couch with my blankie. Why aren't I, you may be asking? Because I have an ulpan class here in forty-five minutes and I already cancelled on them last week. Rachel can't have it at her house because she has little kids, and Penina can't have it at her house because her second lift arrived this morning and I'd be willing to bet her house is in total pandemonium right about now. I tried to study my verbs from last year's ulpan, but the words kept swimming in front of me (to swim: לשחות)(I cheated; I just looked that up...).

David started back to ulpan after work tonight, too, after his Chanukah break. He finishes at 8:30, when we start, but by the time he grabs the #14 to the bus station and catches the 9:15 bus home, he doesn't get home until almost 10. Long day for him. Sometimes he gets tired from all the hours away from home, but sometimes he's actually energized by it. I wonder how much more energy we would have had if we'd made aliyah sooner?

By the way, did I mention we now have grass? Let me re-phrase that: WE HAVE GRASS!!! Since we've had a few rains now, grass has been sprouting like crazy in our yard. Okay, I admit there's more than a few weeds mixed in - and green onions, for some reason, but I'll take 'em! Now I have to find out, come Spring, if I can water and mow the yard. During Shemitta year there's a lot you can't do, especially to promote growth, but there are some things you can do to keep it from dying a slow, dry death. I'll keep you informed.

2007-12-16T00:50:00.000-06:00

What a week! If I'd had to give odds at any point last week that I would still be alive today, it would only have been 50/50, chas vashalom. And I wouldn't have been sure about odds that high. In a nutshell: chills, fever of 103, cramps, (shhh - this is a whisper) diarrhea, unrelenting nausea, exhaustion. Nausea still. Get the picture? No details; enough said. Although - I wonder if I can keep those seven pounds off?

I missed so much last week! A writer's workshop with a well-known Jewish writer, a workshop on kashrut and hecsharim, a yishuv Chanukah party for all the English speakers, doctor's visits. Time to get back in the swing of things.

A friend I'd met at the dog park in St. Louis reconnected with me last week. She's originally from South America, moved to the US for awhile, and then moved to Toronto when David and I moved to Israel. What a mobile society we have! We actually met through a bit of inadvertent "bageling." One day when I had my dog, Anton, at the park and Deborah was there with her dog, Jake, we began talking (this was about three or four years ago). When I mentioned that Anton liked to pish all around the perimeter of the park, Deborah took the bait on the bagel and we established our Jewish connection. So, Deb - this blog's for you!

I just realized you have absolutely no idea what I meant when I said Deborah and I bageled each other. Please go to aish.com and search for an article called "The Bagel Theory." In a nutshell, the article explains how Jewish souls yearn to connect and so when we meet a fellow Jew and want them to know that we, too, are Jewish (or vice versa), we make a comment or use body language to convey that point. For instance: when I worked at Aish in St. Louis, the bathrooms for the building were upstairs. Once when I was in there, a woman from another office walked in with a dirty air conditioner vent and proceeded to wash it off at one of the faucets. She glanced at me, then looked down and said in a loud voice, "Oy! I don't know how I'll get all this shmutz off this thing. There's so much shmutz on here." That's bageling.

I thought I would get to take the car into Yerushalayim tomorrow for my ophthamologist appointment, but when David got home from work today he said there was a serious problem with the steering. I don't know if I can make that bus trip in if I'm still feeling nauseated tomorrow. And even though rain wasn't predicted (we haven't found any accurate forecasts here), it rained today. I HAVE TO GET OUT OF THIS HOUSE TOMORROW! I've been in this little house for the past ten days (four of them in pajamas...) and I'm beginning to think just being here is poisoning me. Rationally I know there's a squirmy bacteria eating its way through my intestines (I really gross myself out sometimes) (Is that really rational?) (Do I use too many parenthesis?). Maybe NOW you'll believe me when I say I need to get dressed and go somewhere tomorrow!

2007-11-28T14:11:00.000-06:00

Living in Israel means:

א) Seeing Arab boys on donkeys by the side of the road, herding goats (or sheep).

ב) having dust and/or sand cover every surface in your house, even if you dust and sweep on a daily basis.

ג) having a car stop suddenly in front of you in the middle of the street, to either pick up people "tremping" or discharging passengers.

ד) not minding a work commute to Tel Aviv from Jerusalem, or from Tel Aviv to Haifa, or from Ramat Beit Shemesh to Jerusalem, or from Beersheva to Tel Aviv, on a daily basis.

ה) having a doctor's appointment on a Sunday night at 7:oo PM, or an MRI at midnight.

ו) sitting in an ulpan class with people from twelve different countries.

ז) seeing a boy with purple spiked hair and a ring in his nose jump off his seat to help a religious woman maneuver her stroller onto the bus.

ח) hearing an entire crowd of people at a bus stop answer "Amen" to someone's bracha.

ט) knowing where twenty falafel shops are within a one kilometer area in Jerusalem.

י) never having to hear or see anything about xmas, but having xmas decorations available at Succot.

כ) walking down the street and seeing people slinging live chickens around their heads on every street corner for a few days in the Fall.

ל) striking up conversations with other English-speakers and ALWAYS either knowing someone they know or having them know or be related to someone you know.

מ) turning on the radio and the only songs in English are from the 50's and 60's.

נ) walking a whole lot more than you used to.

ס) hearing the rooster down the street crow at all hours of the day.

ע) watching a mother be stopped on the street by an older woman telling her either to put a sweater on her child or take a sweater off her child - and thanking her for the advice.

פ) being on a bus taking an alternate route because a child forgot to get off at the right bus stop.

צ) all of the above

I just googled "Only in Israel" and there's an actual website with a whole lot of wonderful stories! Check it out!

2007-11-27T13:14:00.000-06:00

I just had to write again. The past couple of days have been some of those "only in Israel" experiences that I want to share.

Last night at 7 PM I had an appointment in Yerushalayim with a pain management specialist. I've had neck and back pain for years, probably from a combination of sitting at a computer for seventeen years, bad posture, and osteoporosis. I've had massages, physical therapy and chiropractic care, so when my doctor suggested this, I thought "why not?" So I got on the 4:20 PM bus into town (David had driven in to work). I absolutely LOVE switching buses and knowing where I'm going! I wasn't exactly sure where the office was, so I gave myself plenty of time to get there. David has ulpan on Monday nights and finishes by 8:30, so we figured we drive home together. It was actually not so cold when the sun went down and I ended up walking from 5:15 until I got to my appointment at 6:45. There were, as usual, a lot of people out on the streets and it was fun to just be part of the crowd. That's not to say I didn't stop at various shops along the way and tried on a few clothes... One of the streets I walked down was Hillel, off King George, where David's ulpan is. I think maybe on one of our previous trips to Israel as tourists we might have walked on part of that street, but it was so beautiful! There were a lot of restaurants, bars, chic little clothing stores, coffee shops - even a tatto parlor!

They took me into my appointment early, and I had over an hour to wait for David, so I meandered through some side streets and ended up on Ben Yehuda, a long and popular outdoor pedestrian mall. I figured I'd be safer sitting still for awhile rather then doing any shopping, so I headed to the Koursin for a bowl of hot 'n sour soup. As I was walking towards the (small) restaurant, a policeman started yelling at me. Okay, ready for the first "only in Israel" story? I looked around and realized that there were lots of policeman herding hundreds of people (mostly kids) away from the spot I was standing on. I ducked into the restaurant, ordered my soup and then took it to one of the outside tables that was enclosed by glass. As I looked around, I realized that the entire area outside had totally cleared of people. A policeman saw me through the glass and waved his arms to motion that I should move to the inside part of the restaurant. There was one other English-speaking family in the restaurant at the time (young couple with a toddler, and parents obviously visiting from the states), and together with the two girls who worked there, we all crowded at the door to watch the robot in the middle of the street head for a plastic bag sitting by the side of a stone sculpture. We watched as it circled around and then took pictures (X rays?). After a few minutes, the robot lifted the bag in the air as hundreds of people watched from the windows of nearby shops. Then it flipped the bag upside down, and out dropped what looked like - a tablecloth wrapped in plastic. There were cheers as policemen converged to get the bag and tablecloth and put it in an official vehicle, and within seconds there were people everywhere once again. It was interesting to see all the tourists and yeshiva boys crowding around the robot with their camera phones taking pictures!

This morning I had to be back in Har Nof at 8:35 AM for another appointment. This is the other yearly event for us "mature" women where sadistic people in white coats make you take off all your clothes from the waist up in a freezing room, after which they position your body in positions that they must have learned from contortionists. Then they flatten certain female body parts in a vise while you stand on your toes trying not to writhe in pain - at which point they tell you, "Oh, looks like the computer isn't ready yet. Hang on; it'll just be a minute."

I know - you're thinking, "But Vickie, that happens in chutz l'aretz too." So, okay, that was just the background, that wasn't part of the story. Here it comes.

David and I drove in together this morning and then I took two buses from Har Hotzvim (free parking!). I took the #11 up Yehezkel and then switched to the #15 in Geulah because it got me closer to my appointment than the 11 would have. I had never taken the 15 and it was a newer bus and not so crowded. As we headed up Malachi Yisrael, I realized that the bus driver had an Elvis Presley tape playing, and boy, was he enjoying himself! He was whistling and clapping and dancing in his seat - I don't think I've ever seen a happier bus driver! I have to admit, that's the first time I've heard Elvis in Israel!

Fast forward a couple of hours. I've already had my mammogram but I'm now sitting in the "back" waiting room for the second part of the exam. (This clinic is very popular because they're very thorough and have the best equipment. They do an ultrasound with every exam, and they tell you up front to expect to be there for about three hours.) Anyway, I was reading the book I'd brought with me when I looked up and saw an older woman (much older than me) getting a neck massage by another woman. After a few minutes, the massagee got up and moved to another chair and the massager asked, "Who's next?" By this time, everyone in the room was watching with interest, and after the second woman got up, I rushed over to take her place. It turned out the massager (and pretty much everyone else in the room) spoke English, so I told her about my appointment with the pain management specialist the night before and how he had suggested that I get some massages. She said, "See how Hashem takes care of us?" When I asked her if she worked for the clinic, she just laughed and said, "No. I'm a patient, too. I'm also a massage therapist and I was bored just sitting here, so you're all helping me pass the time." I was flabbergasted! We all thought it was a perk provided by the clinic, and she was just doing it out of the goodness of her heart! She must have worked on five or six of us before they called her name.

Okay, those are my stories. I could tell you that Penina and Miryam came over this afternoon for a couple of hours of mahj, but that's probably not as exciting for you as it is for us. Although - the last time we played, I mahjed on the 75 cent hand which is the hardest one on the card. If you're not a mahj player that means nothing to you, but if you ARE a mahj player, you know what I'm sayin'.

And tonight I surprised David with a really great dinner. I was so proud of myself! (I have to admit, I like being a homemaker for the first time in my life...) We still have leftover turkey and today I decided to make a turkey pot pie - from scratch. I made two pie crusts which turned out much better than the ones I made for the pies last week. There's no parve cream of mushroom soup in this country (that I've found), so I enlisted the help of Vanessa who works at the makolet and speaks fairly good English. She found me a cream sauce and read the directions to me. Then I found a bag of mixed veggies - not just plain 'ole peas and carrots, but peas and carrots with corn and green beans and potatoes. I seasoned it with parsley and oregano and basil, and it looked and tasted יפה (be-yoo-ti-ful); just like a pro! Perhaps you're thinking that I'm tooting my horn a little too loudly. The truth is that most of the time I'm my own worst critic. This is one of the few times that I actually think the end product really did turn out well. Ask my husband - he had two helpings!

2007-11-25T06:26:00.000-06:00

I just spent about half an hour reading the recent posts on my blog. It's difficult to remember what I've written or even when I've written (it's actually difficult to remember what I did an hour ago or what I said five minutes ago, but we won't get into that right now).

It's actually sunny and hopefully will continue to be so all week. After so many months of sun and warm weather, fall finally arrived with cloudy skies, wind, and temperatures between 15-20 degrees (that's Celcius in case you were shivering as you read that). We've also had enough rain to keep our yard muddy for the past week. Emma's so funny; she knows when she comes in from outside I'm going to grab her and wash her paws in the sink, so she just stands there when I open the door, hoping I'll back up enough for her to rush by me. I've had to resort to holding treats out, but she doesn't fall for that any more. Now we just have a standoff, with me closing the door in her face a few times, and even then I have to let her come all the way in and close the door before I try to grab her. She, of course, runs for the couch (light beige in color) and by the time I get to her she's run the length of it before jumping off, leaving a trail of muddy paw prints. It's going to be a long winter.

You're probably wondering what Israeli Americans do at Thanksgiving time. I would have to say that everyone does things differently but I actually have very good memories of Thanksgiving and enjoy celebrating it. We joined forces with our friends, and had a Thanksgiving feast on Friday night. Miryam made the turkey (rather well, I might add), Penina made the stuffing and green bean casserole, and I made the candied sweet potatoes and a deep dish apple pie, pumpkin pie, ice cream pie, and the whipped cream. Oh yeah, and I opened a can of cranberry sauce. There were ten of us, and even though we were extremely crowded in our dining room, we all had a great time. I read a great article from aish.com called "It's my Party" about being thankful for what we have, and not feeling entitled to have anything. We sang lots of zemiros; Penina's family have great voices, and it was very uplifting.

I planned to go into Yerushalayim this afternoon to meet up with a friend's husband and stepson visiting from St. Louis (looking into yeshivot), but he never answered his cell phone. I have to go into town tomorrow and again on Tuesday, so I'm not so disappointed. Tonight is my ulpan class. Did I tell you about that? Four of us (all women) are learning with an Israeli woman at my house one night a week. Unfortunately, we're all at very different levels so the teacher has her work cut out for her. I've actually been surprised at how much I remember from ulpan last year, or have learned throughout this past year. I really think new olim shouldn't take ulpan until they've been in the country for at least six months. After you've heard Ivrit spoken a lot, and you get used to hearing it, learning it gets a whole lot easier. Right now we're just going over the basics, but we want her to teach us conversational Hebrew so we can talk to the people at the post office, the grocery store, the bus station, and things we need in our everyday lives. B'seder?

Let's see, what else is new?

Penina's daughter, Rachel, who's going to seminary in Bayit Vegan, told us Friday night of another "only in Israel" story. She related that she and some friends were at a bus stop near their school when they struck up a conversation with a young mother. The woman invited them all to Seudat Shlishi that week! I told about a time when I was at a crowded bus stop when a very pregnant woman walked up and people made room for her to sit on the bench. The woman then started searching through her backpack and finally pulled out an apple. She held the fruit out in front of her and very deliberately, enunciating every word, made the blessing ha'adamah. Everyone said "Amen." It was so beautiful! And then, last Wednesday (in the pouring rain) I had to go into Yerushalayim for a doctor's appointment. Afterwards I got on the #11 bus (the seats were drenched) to go to Givat Shaul where I went shopping at the Cheaper Kol. This is a grocery store that has a lot of American products. I was looking for mandarin oranges, chow mein noodles, canned pumpkin, and cranberry sauce. While there, another woman heard me on the phone with my friend, Lisa, who was trying to direct me to the correct aisle where the chow mein noodles were located. She helped me find several products that I was looking for. Before I went to check out, I thanked her for her help and we began playing the Jewish Geography game. It turns out I know her mother-in-law, who is a big supporter of Aish St. Louis, and I had even seen her mother-in-law when I was in St. Louis in August (she lives in El Paso but was in St. Louis for the same bat mitzvah I had attended). She ended up inviting David and I for Shabbos whenever we wanted, and we exchanged phone numbers. I LOVE being part of a world-wide extended family where everybody knows somebody you know!

2007-11-14T04:15:00.000-06:00

Some people call it "luck" or "fate" or "coincidence." People with faith call it Hashgacha Pratis (Divine Providence). All would probably agree that it's "being in the right place at the right time."

So, first, some background.

David has really been going through some angst lately, trying to figure out his life. He's been working for almost ten months now, without any clear cut goals. Before we made aliyah David told me several times that he didn't want to stay in the field of IT (Information Technology) when we got here. But once we got here and he began looking for work, he realized that in order for us to stay afloat it only made sense to work in the field he had experience in. So many people are finding it hard to find any kind of work at all. We were blessed that he found a job so quickly - except that he had the attitude that since it wasn't what he wanted, he was going to be unhappy. In his mind he felt that, once again, his job was taking over his life and he was resentful. There was commuting time and then 9 hour work days. Add to that ulpan two nights a week, and then studying for ulpan class on other nights. Two nights a week is learning by phone with a chavrusa (study partner). And when was down time? Or time with his wife (that would be me)? And between the time he gets home at night and the time he has for sleeping there's a lot to cram in, so sleep gets sacrificed. When you get up at 4:30 AM but don't make it to bed until 11 or 11:30 at night on a consistent basis, you tend to get grumpy and dissatisfied.

So David decided to talk to me about it last night at dinner; I had actually cooked and we sat down to eat our meal together. He told me about his frustrations and anxieties. I knew he'd been upset and unhappy; now I understood why. You see, David is a computer person. He needs to compartmentalize his life - everything fits in a specific slot and needs to be dealt with separately. He's slow about certain things, but only because he's sorting it all out in his mind; almost 100% of the time the end result is a perfect answer (which sometimes drives me crazy because how can you live with a person who always knows everything? Not that it doesn't occasionally {or usually} come in handy...).

Anyway, the conclusion he came to after much thought is that he has to concentrate on just one thing and do that thing to the best of his ability instead of trying to spread himself so thin that he can't be good at anything. He's decided that he's going to change his attitude. Of course he'd like to make learning Torah his #1 priority but right now, since he's not yet retired and has to make a parnassah, he's going to be the guy at work who volunteers for extra projects, who contributes during staff meetings, who goes the extra mile. He wants to show the company what his talents are and show them what his vast experience can offer them. Until now he deliberately has just laid back and not been part of the team, and he hasn't felt very good about that. In order to go from being a consultant who just works at Intel, he's going for the blue badge - which means that he's going to show Intel that they need to hire him directly and promote him according to his talents.

Ulpan is part of that. In order to get ahead he's got to learn the language, so he's going to concentrate (for now) on ulpan and work. He'll still learn with his chavrusa and whatever he can do on Shabbat, but our tzedakah money will have to support other people's Torah learning for now.

So this morning he woke up with a new attitude and a new purpose. We had a bris to go to this morning in Yerushalayim, right down the street from where David works. It was for the new grandson of friends of ours from Ramat Beit Shemesh, Tzvi and Tobi. Tzvi is the one who almost hired me to work for him at Aish, but he just doesn't have the money in the budget right now to pay a new person (a pretty repetitive theme for a not-for-profit). Anyway, it was mostly family and friends of the couple who had the baby, but I found myself sitting next to a woman at the seuda (festive meal) who was very sweet. She lives in Ramat Shlomo, her husband works at Aish, and of course we knew people in common, yada yada yada. You know how it goes. Then she asked what my husband does. I answered, "What does he do now or what is he capable of doing?" I explained that he was a software tester but that back in the states he designed computer networks for large companies. She became thoughtful and then said, "I have a friend whose husband works at XXX (don't want to give out too much info yet and jump the gun, but it's a nice company right around the corner from where David currently works) and I think they're looking for people right now." Then she asked for my cell phone and called her friend, Karen, and put me on the phone. It seems Karen's husband's computer company is conducting interviews right now for senior managers. They want people with experience, not these young people right out of college. It's also a great place (so says Karen) for religious people; the cafeteria is kosher with a good hechsher and they have daily minyamin (prayer services) in the building. Karen said even if her husband's department didn't need David's specific skill sets, he could steer him to a another department that could use him. She gave me her husband's phone numbers and email address, and said she would tell him to expect a call and an email with David's resume. WOW!

Does Hashem listen to us or what? Now that David finally made up his mind to change his attitude, it feels like Hashem is saying, "I've been waiting for you. Just walk though the door."

***********************

It's now late evening. David called Yisroel, but the position he was looking to fill in his department was in an area that David is not qualified for. He still told David to send him his CV and he would forward it to other applicable departments in the company. Oh, well. David and I talked about it tonight and we decided that we're just happy he has a job. I played mahj with two friends this afternoon (first time in a LONG time), and neither one of their families are doing well financially. One woman has four kids and her husband still hasn't found work after 11 months here; they're scraping together meals from donated canned goods and pasta. The other woman related that the electric company was on the verge of turning off their power. Another family in Ramat Beit Shemesh we're close with have been here over two years and they've both just done odd jobs to bring in some money. We are SO blessed. Now we're just trying to figure out what we can do to help without being intrusive.

At least now David has some perspective; he said going to work today with a changed attitude made all the difference. Baruch Hashem!

{printed with permission from subject}

2007-10-31T13:15:00.000-05:00

I had an interesting? strange? experience this afternoon. It shouldn't really have meant anything, after living in this country over a year already, but it was a first for me.

We live side by side with Arabs. To leave our yishuv and head to Yerushalayim, or pretty much anywhere, we share the road with inhabitants of many other settlements on all the various hilltops surrounding us. Some of those settlements are Jewish and some are Arab. The grocery store where Miryam and I shop once a week always has Arab shoppers, although they've gotten stricter about not letting in non-Israeli Arabs. Today I had a doctor appointment in Pisgat Ze'ev, the most northeastern suburb of Yerushalyim, and the first part of the city we drive into from our yishuv. Our kupat (HMO) has a large office there and it's the easiest place to make appointments.

Many physicians are located in the various kupat's clinics. One waits in a chair outside the specific doctor's office one is waiting to see and when a patient comes out, three or four people will try to rush in at once, knocking everyone else out of the way, in order to be next. Okay, that was a slight exaggeration. Actually, posted outside each office door is a schedule of appointments for that day, so people always politely ask each other what time their appointment is and wait very calmly until it's their turn. Hah! Gotcha on that one, too! Actually, the truth is somewhere in the middle of those two scenarios on any given day at any given office.

So today I was waiting to be seen for that once-a-year-unless-you're-pregnant really fun exam (NOT). You know, with the doctor who only sees female patients? when an Arab family came over and sat down next to me. I've never exactly been that close to a Semetic person who wasn't a Jew before.

The family consisted of a young couple with a toddler. They were both wearing jeans and stylish tennis shoes, although the wife, who sat down in the chair right next to me (we were elbow to elbow), had her head covered. The father sat across from us while he played with the baby. I literally didn't know what to think or do. My first impulse was to get up and move to another seat. But I didn't. I watched the Abba hold his son's hand and walk slowly with him across the room and back. Then he held him on his lap and bounced him while the child laughed. They looked like any normal, happy family. Then the baby, a beautiful child, turned towards me, smiled, and waved with his fingers opening and closing as babies do. I couldn't help but smile back at him. And I wondered, do his parents hate Jews? Will they teach this child to hate or to love? Will he grow up confused to be a citizen in a land that has a different G-d from the one he'll be taught is the true one? How old will he be when he learns about evil and terror and fear? Will he be part of it, or will he try to foster peace between his people and the other people they live among? Or will he be part of the majority who do nothing, who will live his life hoping he won't have to get involved?

I never met his parents' eyes. The door opened, and I went in to my appointment.

2007-10-30T07:41:00.000-05:00

I can hardly believe it's the end of October - we have been Israelis for sixteen months already! Time has gone by so fast.

So far we've had one rainfall since May. It was actually a week or so ago. The rain didn't last very long, but it was a whopper of a storm. For several hours we had spectacular thunder and lightning; thank G-d Emma doesn't get scared, although she did seem a little nervous. My friend, Ellen, called from Ramat Beit Shemesh and said they were getting the same kind of weather. When the rain finally came, it only lasted about fifteen minutes and it came down really hard. We, of course, need the rain but the downside is that our entire yard - on all four sides of our house - is just dirt. Needless to say, we had to rinse Emma off in the sink after she went out. By the next morning, the mud had already dried to dirt, so we obviously didn't get enough water to make a difference. Hopefully it rained more up north where we need it the most.

So, we thought going to the dentist was being very responsible, but it's ending up costing us mucho kesef (am I allowed to mix Spanish with Hebrew?). David had to get three preventive fillings while I needed one, plus a crown that was put in just before we moved here has to be replaced. I am not happy with our dentist in St. Louis! And of course, we both needed a cleaning. Our new dentist, Dr. Mike, is from England but he's lived in Israel for a long time.

It was interesting taking the bus to his office in Rehavia. I never knew where it was before and it's so easy to get to on the #32. And I finally saw where the windmill is that you can see from the Jaffa Gate! We really love our new bus passes. I seem to be in Yerushalayim pretty often and it's so much fun to get on and off different busses. Sometimes I'll get on a different bus than I'm used to to get to a destination, and almost always it's a long, circuitous route. It's not so bad riding the city busses if I don't have to be somewhere at a certain time because I get to know different parts of the city. I just don't like the inter-city busses so much which is weird because they're supposedly more comfortable.

Lately I've been pondering the meaning of life. How often do we seem to do that? For me, it happens every time something changes in my life, or something happens to people in my life. After events leading up to what I wrote in my last blog, I've been spending a whole lot of time speaking with Hashem, probably more than I ever have in my life. Even though I know better, I've been trying to orchestrate mine and other's lives when I should have known better. WE ARE NOT IN CONTROL. I've said those words, I've even said it to others, but I don't think I really believed them until now. When people (we'll keep that term general) confide in me or tell me things that are wrong in their lives, all I do is try to fix it. Who do I think I am? Why do I think I know anything? All they're asking for is for someone to listen, to empathize, to say, "I hear you." 12-step programs have a pithy saying, "Let go and let G-d." Intellectually I know that, but I've never been able to do it. Now it's something I want to try to remember and make a conscious effort to do. I've seen Hashem's hand; I know that ultimately, He's the fixer - and He sure knows more about what's going on than I do!

So I daven. A lot. I'm lighting candles for forty days for my loved one while reciting a prayer and some tehillim. We donated money to a yeshiva so someone will daven for him at the kotel for forty days. It's all in Hashem's hands now. And I know that whatever happens, it's for the best because that's what He wants for us. And I trust Him.

2007-10-23T07:05:00.000-05:00

I'm going to write in black today; it's that kind of day.

Since this isn't really a diary, and people read this blog (surprisingly) from points all around the world, there are times when I can't write what I really want to say. But there are things I NEED to say so I'm going to try without being specific.

Let me just say first that I, personally, am doing fine. Still grateful for all the many blessings I have in my life: a husband who loves me, a more than adequate place to live, an income, food to eat, clothes to wear, relatively good health, two sons, a sweet puppy, friends who care about me, extended family members who mean a lot to me, the miracle of being able to live in Eretz Yisrael - I could go on and on. Hashem has literally showered me with blessings.

But my heart is bleeding. For the past three days my body has felt weighted down with fear and sadness, and the tears keep flowing. I understand that there has to be suffering in this world; that Hashem gives us challenges to help us grow and make us stronger. But I feel so helpless! I'm 6000 miles away from someone I love who is so desperately, devastatingly in pain - and there's absolutely nothing I can do to help. This person doesn't understand that there's a Heavenly Father who cares about him, who wants him to make better choices, who's there to help if he just says, "Please help me." He's drowning, he's lost, and he doesn't know how to reach out. It's not my hand that can help him, as much as I want to. We are all so seemingly alone on this earth. Even with friends and family, ultimately the only relationship that has any meaning is the one we have with our Creator. And there are so many people out there who don't even know they have that lifeline, even some who scorn it. Please, Hashem, make a miracle! Show him how to ask for help. Help him make the right choice. Help him live.

2007-10-14T07:26:00.000-05:00

Okay, I give up. Hashem is messing with my mind and doing a darn good job!

This afternoon I decided to take the bus into Pisgat Ze'ev and get some prescriptions refilled. I checked the bus schedule and saw that the #179, which only comes 2 or 3 times a day, was scheduled to come at 2:05. The #179 actually turns down the street where the pharmacy is (not that I would have had to walk very far if I'd taken the regular #143). I headed out and had already walked to the end of my street when I remembered that the pharmacy is closed in the afternoon and doesn't open again until 4. Since I didn't want to spend an hour and a half with nothing to do but shop (Danger, Will Robinson, Danger!) I came back home. "Okay," I thought. "Time to tackle the bathroom."

I took all the shampoos and soaps out of the bath tub and lathered it up with cleanser. Then I grabbed the shower hose, turned on the water, aimed and - nothing. Just a little trickle of water that petered out after a couple of seconds. I tried all the other faucets - nada. Then I called Miryam across the street and Nava two doors down; they have have water. Only I don't have water.

Okay, Hashem. Please stop chuckling and --

Wow! He listened to me! As I was writing I heard a voice from above calling, "Try it now." It was Shaya's voice and he was standing in the street by our water meter. Someone had apparently turned the water off on the meter. I had already been up there, with David on my cell telling me which lever to move, and I hadn't been able to budge it. It was nice of Shaya to come over and check on it for me. Guess that means I should go rinse out the tub sometime soon.

If I hurry now, I can catch the 15:35 bus (yes, that's absolutely right; we not only get to figure out kilograms instead of pounds, and meters instead of miles, but we have to figure out this whole 24 hour time thing - does Hashem have any idea what He's doing to me? Does anyone who knows me believe that I am in any way, shape or form math-oriented? As if trying to learn how to read, speak, write and understand an entirely new language isn't hard enough. And as long as we're on the subject - does anyone out there in cyberspace have any idea whatsoever how complicated SHMITTA is?! You can't even begin to comprehend all the plastic bags I have in my kitchen for peeled kadosh veggies. You can't just throw away even a tiny part of any vegetable - and eventually fruits and flowers and wine and oil and G-d knows what else - that's grown during shmitta; there are so many laws governing it, it's not even funny. And, anyway, let's just say it isn't even shmitta year {which, of course, it is} and it's just a regular day and you're in the grocery store and you want to buy something, and there's, like, a MILLION different hechsharim you have to decipher and know who holds by whom, and of course, that can change daily, so -- Did I get off the subject?) Hmmm. It looks like it's too late to catch the 3:35 bus...

Please don't think I'm being negative! You just have to know that when you get here (and you will), as awesome as it is, there are many challenges. Not problems, mind you - just challenges. We're definitely up to the challenge, else we would have been long gone. Okay, yes, we kvetch; it's in our nature (that's a very big collective "we"). The thing is, over here you see up front the difference between, let's say, buying something with the wrong hechsher and having to throw it away, and having your family go to the local pizza parlor and being blown up. BIG difference.

Guess what David and I did last week? We were spontaneous! Yep, we sure were. Are you as surprised as we were?

At 4:30 PM (okay, fine - at 16:30) my husband called me last Thursday and asked, "What are you doing? Hop on a bus and come meet me in town." My first inclination was to say no. I hadn't been feeling well, and it just seemed like a big deal to figure out when the next bus would arrive, check my clothes and snood to make sure I looked presentable, and then have to walk down to the bus stop. Plus David had committed to helping a friend take down his sukkah that night. When we hung up I realized that he sounded disappointed. And I thought, "Really, why not?"

So I called our friend, who immediately said when he heard my voice, "Oh, please tell David I don't need his help; I took the sukkah down already." Then I freshened up and got down to the bus stop in time for the 5:00 bus. When I called David he was very excited. We ended up meeting at the takanah merkazit (after he parked somewhere in Geula and took a bus) where we both purchased, for the first time, our chofshi chodishi, the monthly bus pass that will enable us to ride any Egged bus almost anywhere in the country. After four months of waiting for our ID cards, they finally came last week, so we were able to purchase the special bus pass. For only 147NIS a month, that's an unbelievable bargain.

With our new bus pass in hand, we headed down to Ben Yehuda where we ate dinner at - you guessed it - Cafe Rimon. But it was my husband's night, so we ate on the meat side. It turned out that because it was Rosh Chodesh (new Hebrew month), the restaurant did all kinds of special things. There was a four piece jazz band made up of some very young yeshiva bochurim (students) who were excellent. They also gave out roses to all the ladies, and there was free dessert (did they have to put coconut in the chocolate? Yuck!). We also spent the entire meal speaking with the guy who was sitting alone at the table next to ours. I wasn't even sure he was Jewish, but he apparently was, and was in town for his daughter's upcoming nuptials. He was from Montreal but had recently moved to Cancun, has 5 kids, 2 are frum and living in Yerushalayim, one of his ex-wives lives in the Old City and is Rumanian, and we learned about all his business ventures. He was actually very interesting and we enjoyed sharing our meal with him. There was just something about sitting outside under the stars with a nice breeze, fabulous food (delectable livers and mushrooms in wine sauce) and enjoyable company in the holy city of Yerushalayim that made the evening special.

After dinner we headed down to Geulah. I was surprised that David wanted to walk around, since his knee had been hurting since Simchat Torah. I shouldn't have been surprised when we ended up a furniture store where there just happened to be a shtender that my husband had been looking at for the last several months. It was the kind of adjustable shtender that you can use sitting or standing, and when sitting there's a place to rest your feet. Again, my first inclination was to say no because we're supposed to be cutting out all the gashmius (materialism) in our lives and because our income isn't sufficient for all the money we spend each month. But. I mean - BUT. This evening was for him and I needed to give a little, so I told the saleswoman we wanted it. It made David happy and I don't do that as often as I should. The hard part was carrying it to the car! We were blocks away and the shtender was too large to take on a bus, so we walked. Personally, I enjoyed the walk and loved seeing some of the side streets of Geulah I'd never seen before. It was probably too far for David to have walked with his knee as painful as it was, but I think it was worth it for him to have gotten that shtender.

Tomorrow we both have dentist appointments; first time since we moved here. Then I guess I'm staying in Yerushalayim (I'll take my Tehillim and head to the kotel) because I have another doctor appointment in Givat Shaul at 3:15. At least I'll be walking and I need the exercise, although with my new bus pass I can get on any bus I want for as long or as short a ride as I want, and can switch buses without having to pay anything. I can't wait!

2007-10-04T13:44:00.000-05:00

What a week! What a month! What a year!

Sukkot has been AWESOME. David took off the whole week, so we had lots of time to do things. Let's see; where to start?

First night. There were twelve of us in our sukkah. The chili turned out to be just a little too spicy for some of our guests, but I thought David did a great job. (Which is a good thing because there was so much we ate it for many days after...) Our sukkah was in front of our house and right underneath the metal stairs of our upstairs neighbors. They had family staying with them for the chag (holiday) and all we heard were the clump, clump, clump and bang, bang, bang of people going up and down the stairs, plus all the kids screaming and crying. It was a little disconcerting but not enough to ruin the evening. Actually, when we stood outside and saw all the sukkahs up and down the street, some up on balconies, some in the yards and even some in the driveways, it was a pretty satisfying sight. There's just no way to describe how wonderful it is to live among ALL JEWS and hear everyone celebrating every Yom Tov and Shabbat together. What a blessing! When one of the families we invited started singing, we were transfixed; the entire family has beautiful voices. I hope our neighbors enjoyed the serenade as much as we did!

The next day we went down to Penina and Pinchas', along with Rachel and her family, and Miriam and Shaya. Their minhag is to have a Thanksgiving meal in the sukkah instead of celebrating it in November, so we had turkey with all the fixings. The day turned out to be really hot, plus their dude (hot water heater) was leaking all over the sukkah, so it was -- interesting. But it's always more fun when it's interesting! There's no such thing as boring in Eretz Yisrael! After lunch we decided that it would be a little more comfortable to play mah jongg inside (although truth be told - anywhere you set up a mah jongg game is comfortable!).

The following day was no longer a Yom Tov for us, as opposed to all of you out there in chutz l'aretz, and we could relax and not have to eat two more huge meals. Of course it was erev Shabbat, so I still spent most of the day in the kitchen cleaning and cooking. We had Nava and Yaakov and their twins for dinner, along with Miriam and Shaya. Those boys are a handful! I admire Nava for her courage; she met her husband after making aliyah at age 50 and it was a first marriage for both and they wanted kids. So here they are at 55 and 58 with
two very active and cute four-year-olds. And yet, all evening I kept thinking, Baruch Hashem it's her and not me! It was nice getting to know them better; I'm hoping we see more of each other.

For Shabbos lunch we ate at Dov and Lisa's, our friends formerly from St. Louis. Their sukkah was HUGE. They had another young couple over as well; he's an attorney formerly from the states and she's originally from France but moved to Israel with her family when she was twelve. It's so interesting to meet new people and hear their stories. We ended up staying until very late in the afternoon so instead of heading over to Penina's to play mahj, I just went home to see what Emma was up to.

On Sunday we decided to head into Ramat Beit Shemesh, at least to start. There is a very slight possibility that Intel could send David to England for some training (very slight) and he has yet to get his Israeli passport. We know where the misrad hapanim is in Beit Shemesh and thought we could go there first and then visit some friends. Silly us! If you live(d) in Israel you'd know the fallacy of that thinking. Government offices aren't open during Chol Hamoed! They're not even always open during posted hours if they don't feel like it! So after getting stuck in lots of traffic to get there and finding the office closed, we went to visit our friends, Ellen and Kalmon. I've seen Ellen a few times since we've moved, but David hasn't seen Kalmon. They were both home and we sat and visited for about an hour. It was so nice to see old friends! I miss living there!

After we left we decided to call Yocheved and Chanoch who we also haven't seen since moving to Kochav Yaakov. Yitzy, the baby, got so big! The whole family sat out in the sukkah with us, and even Yocheved's father, Stan, came over for awhile. It's always nice to be with friends who "knew you when." If you haven't read my previous posts, they made aliyah from St. Louis three summers ago, so we know a lot of the same people.

After leaving there, David was ready to call it a day. Except -- we drove up hwy 38 after leaving RBS and then turned onto a very narrow road (it was actually labelled a highway on the map) which turned out to be a beautiful, scenic route back home. Some parts of the road were so narrow that when a car came from the opposite direction we all had to slow down as we passed. The road twisted and turned around gorgeous, green hills, and the surrounding hills and valleys were just spectacular. We even passed a stables where a lot of frum people were waiting to go horsebackriding! I love going off the beaten track to go exploring. Someday I'd like to take that road again, but check out some of the historical sites along the way.

The next day I wrongly assumed David would want to stay home and putter around his office. Instead we drove down to Gush Etzion to deliver a wedding present to Eliezer and Sarah Rose whose wedding we had attended in June. We had to drive through Yerushalayim which was a traffic nightmare - everyone and their uncle was driving through town. The exciting part was that we (okay, David) knew which alternate roads to take as the city is becoming more familiar to us (yes, me too!). Of course, since pretty much all the roads were full of cars, it was still slow going. When we finally got south of the city, we were again awed by the beauty of the hills and forests and communities on top of the hills. We were enchanted by the young couple's caravan (Israeli term for trailer) in their yeshivashe yishuv and by their obvious happiness. They gave us some ideas of places to visit (a winery, a cave, the Path of the Patriarchs), but since it was mid-afternoon by this time we decided to try out the dairy restaurant nearby.

Picture this: you are in the middle of nowhere. There's a dirt road with a sign pointing the way to the restaurant. You drive down the dirt road, twisting around curves, passing a few people here and there having picnics. All of a sudden you come around a curve and see the building - with about 100 cars parked out front! There's a huge sukkah which looked pretty crowded. The restaurant overlooks a gorgeous mountain view; you can see the entire city of Beitar a few hills over. But then you walk up the stairs and the maitre d' asks if you have a reservation. A reservation? But we're in the middle of nowhere! There's a couple in front of us who also don't have a reservation and they take it upon themselves to tell the maitre d' that we'll share a table if need be. It seems that Hadar and Moshe made aliyah from Chicago 36 years previously. We end up sitting together and it's quite an experience - Hadar is a very tell-it-like-it-is in-your-face kind of person and Moshe is a saint. We thoroughly enjoyed the experience!

That ended our tiyul (outing) for the day. Poor Emma didn't like staying at home all by her lonesome, but David and I definitely enjoyed spending time together and sightseeing some beautiful areas of our new country.

The next night we had guests again in our sukkah. Although it's nice not to have two days of Yom Tov like we did in chutz l'aretz, it's kind of sad to spend so much time putting our sukkah together and then not having so many guests to share it with. Unlike just about everyone else on the yishuv, we don't sleep in ours. We did, of course, eat our meals in there and even kept a cushy chair for our princess to lounge in while we ate. Other than that, Emma wasn't allowed in the sukkah. She seems to think that the rocky area in our front yard is her own private litter box and we decided it was time to disavow her of that notion.

So that brings us up to our last day of Yom Tov, which was last night and today, our combination Shemini Atzeret and Simchat Torah. After David went to Chabad last night, I walked down to Lisa's, and she and I and Chanita "shul-hopped." For those of you who don't know, Simchat Torah, along with Purim, are the two "fun" holidays of the year. Both at night and again the next day there are seven hakafot (basically, pleas to Hashem to listen to us and grant us blessings). The men dance with the Torahs around the shul before the Torah reading; depending on whatever criteria the rabbi has for the length of each hakafot, it can go on for hours. Fathers carry their children on their shoulders, and many of the children carry stuffed or arts-and-craftsy Torahs that they made in school. It's a big party atmosphere.

The first place we went was the Ashkenasi shul which I've been wanting to go to since we got here. It's where we would normally be davening if the place was bigger. Unfortunately, the shul is in a bomb shelter and it's wall-to-wall people. I was pleasantly surprised at all the women (maybe four or five) that I knew there and it was nice to be able to talk to people. By the time we got there they were already on the sixth hakafot and I thought we should make a beeline for Chabad where our husbands were. But Lisa wanted to stop somewhere else first. I'm not sure what kind of shul this second one was, but it was actually a shul that a Rav built onto his house. There were well over hundred people gathered in the cul-de-sac outside the shul. Men were singing and dancing on one side of the mechitza (divider) while girls were dancing on the other. Lisa introduced me to the Rebbetzin and some of the other women but we didn't stay too long before heading over to Chabad.

We needn't have hurried. It seemed they had stopped in the middle of davening to have a kiddush - which included a few bottles of vodka. When they finally started the hakafot all the other shuls had finished long before. Penina was hosting 17 seminary girls (her daughter's seminary) at their house for 3 days and we joined the girls in dancing outside. I left before the davening was over so I could heat up our dinner. By the time David got home, his knee was really hurting. Every time he had tried to sit down during the dancing someone would grab him and make him continue. They didn't understand that his knee is still recuperating. The walk home was really hard for him, but the little bit of vodka he'd drunk probably helped alleviate the pain somewhat.

I hadn't really cooked us much for lunch today so I made a pot of bean soup before heading to shul this morning. David thought yizkor would be around 11 so I was hurrying to daven up to Torah reading and finish my cooking. On my way to Chabad at a few minutes before 11 I passed neighbors who were already coming home from the Ashkenasi shul. When I got to Chabad they were just sitting down to a kiddush lunch: gefilte fish, salads and cholent. They didn't even go back in to start the hakafot until 12:30! After the hakafot was the Torah reading and on Simchat Torah every male in shul over bar mitzvah age gets an aliyah. After all that is yizkor. I made two new friends with English speaking women and stayed until almost two when I finally went home. Before Yom Tov I had told Rachel to come by this afternoon and we'd get Miriam to come play mahj with us, so I wanted to get home before she got there. Thank G-d I did because she knocked on the door five minutes after I got home. She laughed when she saw that not only hadn't we eaten lunch yet but that David probably wouldn't even be home for at least another hour. Instead of playing we just sat and talked. Finally I had to finish davening so she left. David didn't get home until 4:30 this afternoon! He was exhausted and in quite a bit of pain. They had davened mincha before going home and he had told the rabbi not to expect him back for maariv. We enjoyed our soup and chicken shnitzel in the little time before Yom Tov ended.

So that's been our past week. Tomorrow, of course, I'll be cooking for Shabbat. We're home by ourselves tomorrow night and then we have company for lunch. When we first moved to Kochav Yaakov in June a few people invited us for Shabbat, but now the only time we're with other people is when we invite them. I don't mind at all but we've decided that the time has come to really start cutting back on our expenses. We've been like kids in a candy shop the past year and that has to come to an end; the money just isn't there any more.

It's getting late and I'm having trouble focusing, but there are so many spiritual things that have been happening lately that I want to share. Right now it's too hard to put it into words; I'm going to have to give it some thought so I can say it in a way that will make it understandable. Probably won't get back to this until after Shabbat. Until then!

2007-09-23T14:52:00.000-05:00

I love this time of year! In my past life (you know, before last July...) it was the changing colors of autumn that really got me, but here - oh my G-d - the sounds of hammers and drills late into the night, people dragging palm fronds across streets, etrog stands on every corner - it's so awesome!!

Rosh Hashanah was enjoyable, Yom Kippur was breathless, and now Sukkot is only two days away. David drove to work today, so when he got home I jumped in the car to run a few errands. First I stopped at our makolet (small grocery here on the yishuv) for some fresh vegetables. Shmitta started on Rosh Hashanah and I'm all fahmished trying to figure it all out. Our friend, Dov, said he wasn't sure if we could buy veggies at the grocery store I usually go to but that the veggies at the makolet were otzar beit din. So here's what I understand although it's probably not totally accurate: Otzar beit din is when the farmers make their farms ownerless, then the rabbaim hire the owners to work on the farms. They get a set salary, and since the farms are ownerless, anyone can help themselves to the produce. Heter makeira is when the farmers actually sell their land to the Arabs (or anyone other than Jews). Vegetables with the bodatz hechsher, one of the "highest" levels to look for, are vegetables bought from either Arabs or chutz l'aretz. So that means that Jewish farmers are totally out of luck during shmitta.

So, after the makolet I raced to Sha'ar Binyomin, the little shopping area at the bottom of the hill (maybe a couple of miles from the yishuv). I was afraid the stores there would already be closing, but silly me! Two nights before a major chag (holiday) they apparently stay open pretty late. First I went to the health food store to get a certain flour for my challah. This store has mostly spices. I've been looking everywhere for dry mustard and also for chili powder. The owner said he'd never been asked for chili powder before but I was the fourth person to ask within the last week so he's going to order some. In case some of you were wondering - the Lecy minhag lives on. Yes, we WILL be serving chili dogs for the first night of Sukkot! Long and not very interesting story how that minhag (tradition) came to be, and stranger still that we've continued it, but a minhag is a minhag, after all.

Next door to the health food store is a hardware store, which in Israel means they sell just about anything and everything. I got two sleeves of large plastic cups (the only place I've ever found in this country to sell anything bigger than 6 oz.) and 3 meters of thick clear plastic to put over my Sukkot tablecloth (which our good friends, Albert and Shifra, bought us on their Disney cruise some years back).

And then I walked down to the lower parking lot to the grocery store. What a balagan! The grocery carts outside had all been moved to make room for the lulav and etrog sales. People were milling around, shmoozing, checking things out, shopping. As I drove home in the dark, I enjoyed the almost-full moon in a cloudless, starry sky and the lights of several communities atop all the various hills on every side of me. I love it here! I love this time of year! I actually live in Eretz Yisrael! I am so blessed; sometimes it just seems unimaginable.

And then I got home and there was David (with his faithful helper, Emma) working on our sukkah. After analyzing every corner of our yard, my husband realized the perfect spot. It's in our front "yard" (if, indeed, one would actually use that term to describe that spot). He's using two existing stone walls that make up part of the fence that circles our yard, and since you have to walk down six or seven steps to get to our yard, the walls are pretty high. Later this evening we heard that someone was selling palm fronds up on the main street of the yishuv so we hopped in our car and went down to get some. The boys who were working there put them in through the trunk which opens up into the back seat. We moved the front passenger seat up as far as it would go, but the branches were very long and hung down on the street behind the car. David drove home slowly. He, being the stubborn - oops, I mean independent - person he is refused help from neighbors (actually, wives were volunteering their husbands, but I'm sure they would have helped) and all by his lonesome threw the palm fronds on top of the sukkah onto the beams he'd placed there earlier. It was awesome! For the first time, we have a real, authentic sukkah! And even better, it's put together two whole days before Sukkot! Pictures will be posted sometime in the future.

So now that the sukkah is up, I can breathe a sigh of relief, although not for the same reason as David. What it means, of course, is that he will now be free on Wednesday to make the chili. You see, David is secretly a really good cook. I say secretly because he's always telling me all the things he's made in the past (read: before we married over nine years ago...) and all the things he's GOING to make (for which he buys ingredients in preparation...). But there are two things I know he can make really well because he has actually really made them during the past nine years, and one of them is chili. (The other is stir-fry but I won't get my hopes up on that one because they don't sell half the ingredients here that he uses for it). So now I only have to worry about boiling the hot dogs in beer (real all-beef hot dogs which are almost impossible to find here and real Michelob Genuine Draft - is life perfect or what?) and putting all the sukkah decorations up and cleaning the house and making challah and cooking the rest of the meal - I love it! I love all the preparation! I love the anticipation!

David took off all of Chol Hamoed (the middle days of the 8 day holiday), and after tomorrow he'll have eleven days off work. Hopefully we'll figure out some fun things to do that won't be expensive because we never get to do fun things and we don't have any money. Well, I get to do fun things but David hasn't had much time off so it will be nice that we can do some things together. Now that we have a car, I'd love to take some day trips to places we've not seen yet - and that's just about everywhere outside of Yerushalayim.

I had to call the vet to come out yesterday for poor Emma. The pads on her back paws, which should have been black, were pink and she couldn't stop licking them. Dr. Doni thought it sounded like some kind of contact dermatitis. He's only come to see her once but she apparently remembered him because when he came through the gate with his two suitcases (medications and supplies for home visits), she freaked out. I thought she was going to scratch me to pieces and I could barely hold her. He hadn't even touched her yet! We thought it best to muzzle her because she snapped at him the last time he was here. After he gave her a shot of cortisone and I put her down, Emma just circled around the dining room table while we talked. Then she went to the door to be let out and oh, what a mistake that was. As soon as I let her out, she just stood outside the screen and barked and barked and barked until Dr. Doni left. Even then I couldn't quiet her. When I finally got her back in the house, she stood staring at the front door, growling every few seconds. Somehow I don't think she'll ever let him come back again which is too bad because she's due for shots in a couple of months. I'm not looking forward to that!

2007-09-10T05:42:00.000-05:00

I didn't realize it had been so long since I last wrote. Lately I've been getting ready for Rosh Hashanah; actually, mostly worrying that I'm not doing enough to get ready for the new year.

I quit working at my transcription job. It wasn't the right job for me. It seems I need a job with more structure rather than just waiting day by day for a job to show up in my inbox and then never being able to plan activities in case something was due right away. After the chagim (holidays), I'll make a concerted effort to start looking for something better. Unfortunately, we can't afford for me NOT to work even though I have no problem staying busy 24/7 without a job. Kids are back in school and everybody's back to a routine, and I've come to the conclusion lately that I actually would enjoy getting back to going to work every day.

On Shabbos it hit me that even though we love living where we do, it's basically a community of families. There are no couples our age to socialize and share Shabbos meals with, and I've really been missing the community we left in Ramat Beit Shemesh. We have a three-day Yom Tov (holiday) coming up, and none of my friends will be here to share it with. Families with kids don't like going out for the night meals because they start so late. We invited our upstairs neighbors (they're young, French, and have three little kids) for Shabbos lunch, and I just invited another family for another lunch. This second family has two older kids in the states and three still at home, plus the husband is in computers, so hopefully we'll have a nice time. I know Rachel through Penina, and we taught her how to play mah jongg. Miryam and Shaya are going to sleep at Penina's the whole Yom Tov, and we'll probably go there for a couple of the night meals. I walked there Shabbos afternoon to play mahj before going to the late afternoon shiur (talk by one of the rabbi's wives), and walking back up the hill was HARD. There were hills in RBS, but nothing like this hill we live on. SInce I've been sitting at my computer the last few months transcribing, and also since we've had a car, and also since we now have a yard and Emma doesn't need to be walked four times a day - I have totally stopped walking and am now terribly out of shape. Someone at the shiur told me that she and a friend used to walk down to the main street and then walk all the way up to the top of hill every morning for exercise. Now that it's cooled off tremendously, I think I need to make a concerted effort to do that every day. Isn't this the time of year for new year's resolutions? And, hmmm, doesn't everyone make the resolution that they're going to get in shape?

As much as I'd like to commit to doing that, I know there are so many other ways I need to think about "getting in shape" for the new year. Like, how am I improving my middos (character traits)? How much chesed am I doing? How much time am I wasting every day? What efforts am I putting into being a better wife, a better friend, a better person? There are so many improvements I need to make and lately I've been so sluggish about doing everything. I'm leaving in about half an hour to go to the kotel (the Western or Wailing Wall). It's been months since I've been there, and I have so much to talk to Hashem about. Living here on the yishuv, all I really need to do is go to the end of my street and look all around me, and Hashem is right here. But there's something about going to that holy site in the Old City of Yerushalayim, surrounded by other yidden (Jews) that makes it really special to daven (pray) there. If I time it just right, and get on all the right buses, I can get to David's office right when he's ready to go home and we can drive home together (he took the car this morning).

שנת בראות טובה ושנת שלום A healthy year and a peaceful year!

2007-08-26T09:54:00.000-05:00

Shabbos was so nice this week (and last week, and the week before...). Miryam called me Friday morning to say she'd just found out that our street was having a "block party" for Seudat Shlishli (the third meal of Shabbat), and that I needed to contribute some salads and a dessert. Oh, wait - let me start with Friday night.

David and I went to the Ashkenasi shul's rabbi's house. We'd been there a few weeks ago. The rabbi used to be the chavruso of someone we knew from St. Louis, and he and his wife and father-in-law (and married son, daughter-in-law and grandson who live in Beitar) were staying here in Kochav Yaakov with them for Shabbat, so they invited us as well. It was a great time; Mordechai and Jonathan go way back and had a lot of private jokes. We really like the rabbi's wife, Chanie, and it was great to see Jonathan's wife, Chanie, and her father, Perry, as well. David walked over the next morning to take Perry to Chabad; they used to daven together in St. Louis.

Our friends, Howard and Lisa, came with their kids for lunch, so Emma had a great time. She loves to lick Hudi and Chanita all over and run around with them in the yard. Miryam and Shaya came also. Unfortunately, it was in the mid-nineties and HOT. We had all the fans going at full speed and I froze a lot of ice before Shabbat. I made a fruit soup which I don't normally do, but it was kind of refreshing on a hot day. I also did something I'd seen Ellen do in Ramat Beit Shemesh; instead of cholent, I bought a huge rolled roast (I have no idea what it was other than a #17) and cooked it in the crock pot with just onions, garlic and onion soup mix. The smell Friday night and Shabbat morning was heavenly!

Around 5:15 PM David took two of our folding tables up to the street and I followed with potato salad, crunchy cole slaw, homemade chocolate chip cookies, and a few other odds and ends from lunch. Just about everyone on the street came. David went and got Shaya and Miryam's new puppy, Coco (not the same one from RBS) to play in the yard with Emma. A lot of the kids congregated in front of our fence to watch the dogs play. Everyone put their food on a couple of tables and then everyone just helped themselves. I met a new friend who lives a few doors down and across the street. Her name is Ilanit and she's a speech therapist. Her English is only slightly better than my Ivrit. She says she wants to have us for Shabbat, but the rule is that conversation will be in Ivrit and that they'll help us. I was hoping to meet someone like Ilanit! Professor Bashari and his wife kind of organized the whole block party, and he spoke at the beginning - in Ivrit, of course. Then he introduced us as the new kids on the block, and David told a little about us which the professor translated for everyone (unfortunately he didn't translate anything anyone else said for us!). Several people gave dvrei Torah (we just sat and smiled). Professor Bashari apparently has an extensive wine collection and was going from table to table pouring drinks for everyone. When the men all gathered under a street light to daven maariv, Miryam and I went over to sit with Leah, Nava and Julia - the other three English speakers on our street. After davening, someone did havdalah for all of us, and then we all gathered up our stuff and headed home. It was so nice; the feeling on the yishuv is that all of us - the French, Israeli, South Americans, North Americans, English - are one. The yishuv really promotes that feeling of אחדות (unity). I have to admit that I miss how easy it was in Ramat Beit Shemesh, like being able to know what was going on at all the shuls and in the neighborhoods because it was in English. It's so hard not to be able to read our mail or know what's going on. Miryam, Shaya and we were talking about hiring a private ulpan teacher for the four of us and anyone else on the yishuv who needs it. Otherwise, the ulpan is in Yerushalayim, and none of us have any time to go there on a regular basis.

Last Wednesday I got to go somewhere sooooo fun! A friend took me to Rimonim, which is a another yishuv close by. We took the road towards Beit El, but turned to the right almost immediately (from the entrance to the hill leading up to Kochav Yaakov). Then we just drove through the most beautiful countryside you could ever imagine. Everything was stark; we drove around desert hills on a nice highway - I can't even describe the beauty to you. Next time I'll bring my camera. It was a little disconcerting to see white and green license plates on the road with us, especially when there weren't so many vehicles on the road. My friend pointed out that there are many Arab villages and beduoin tent cities in this part of the "Shtakim" (territories), and there was at least one sign commemorating the site where a settler was murdered by Arabs.

Okay, but now the good part. We got to Rimonim in about 15 minutes. They had the most beautiful, refreshing swimming pool! It's the first time this summer I've had a chance to go swimming. There are different hours for men, women, and mixed swimming. We were practically the only women there for the first hour or so. The pool was HUGE and clean and sparkling, and the view from the hill was spectacular. There was a covered children's pool, and all kinds of other recreational activities. It's probably best not to mention that I could barely swim one lap before I thought I would drown, but I did built up my endurance somewhat while I was there. While my friend swam lap after lap (show off!) I did all the water aerobics I could remember from about 20 years ago when I took a class. And I only sat out in the sun for a total of 15 minutes but of course it was enough that I got a slight burn. The Israeli sun is like no other place in the world, and being on the top of a gorgeous hill - the feeling of closeness to Hashem is just overwhelming. Lately I've been stressing over the problems of family members back in chutz l'aretz, but lying out there in the sun and feeling Hashem's warmth enveloping me, all I could do was say, "Thank you, thank you, thank you" over and over. I am so blessed. I just can't believe that He's showered me with so much abundance. So maybe air conditioning would be nice, but I sure wouldn't trade it for living here. Not that I would ever, ever give up living here (b'li neder), unless it could, in some way, help my sons and nieces and nephews be happy, healthy and productive. But that's all in Hashem's hands as well.

David will be home from work any minute. I'd better go get supper going.

2007-08-21T20:51:00.000-05:00

These are my kiddies! That's Charles (2) and Zoe (6) in the top pictures, and the bottom one is me with my sons, Nathan (l) and Jared (r). Charles and Zoe belong to Jared. If you want to know the truth, Zoe really belongs to me. When I went to see them on my trip to the states, Zoe wouldn't stop hugging me before I left. She told me, "I miss you, Nana." She knows how to tug on the heartstrings! It was so hard to leave her again. At least I got to see them twice; Nathan and I drove down to see them once each of the two weeks I was there. Jared lives about three hours outside of St. Louis. On the last visit we went to Petco to see all the animals (you name it -- kitties, rodents, snakes, lizards, spiders, birds and fish) and then to Wal-Mart where we got all of Zoe's school supplies and even a dress to wear on her first day of first grade. Then the kids went swimming in their nice-sized wading pool. It was a hundred degrees; I pulled up my skirt a little and got in with them.

The whole time I was in St. Louis the temps hovered around 100 degrees. Nathan's car had no air conditioning, but the friends I was staying by let me use their car -- which used to be my car; they bought it from me a few years back. Sweet! They didn't want Nathan driving it, though, and his car wasn't in the best shape for long distance driving (especially in the heat), so we rented a car the second time we went to see Jared's family. Unfortunately, the rental company called late in the afternoon to see how the car was working out for us. I say unfortunately because they used the number I had given when I registered online for their rental club, which was our St. Louis number that rings at our home in Israel. Which is eight hours ahead of St. Louis time. Which woke David up from a sound sleep when he had to run to the salon in the dark to answer it. Which didn't make him happy.

It wouldn't have been so bad if that had been the only time it happened. On one of the nights I was in St. Louis, I went with my friend, Lori, to the Muny Opera to see Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat. Someone had given her great tickets. I normally don't like musicals (strange, huh?) but it was a great performance, even in the heat. I kept thinking I couldn't forget to call David. I was calling him twice a day while I was in the states so he could share in what I was doing; noon (8 PM his time) and 10 PM (6 AM the next day his time). I called him before the show started, at 8, thinking that was the regular time, and when he answered I immediately started raving about how we got to park right in front of the Muny in the guarantor's lot and how we had box seats and how much fun it was. He finally interrupted me sleepily and asked, "Do you realize it's 4:00 in the morning?" Stunned, I realized what I'd done. "Oh," I said sheepishly. "Never mind."

The flight to St. Louis was pretty uneventful. I had an aisle seat at the end of a section which I had thought would be good because the שירותים (bathrooms) were right behind my seat and I could stand comfortably behind my seat when my tush got tired of sitting, but it seemed the seats in that particular row didn't tilt back except for an inch or two. I knew I had to sleep on the flight because I would be getting into St. Louis (with a quick stop in Atlanta) at 8:05 in the morning. So when they offered wine with the first meal, I drank it along with a couple of Benedryls. Normally I don't sleep at all on planes, but I think I that might have done the trick. I slept about five hours off and on on the 12 1/2 hour flight, which felt great.

The fun thing about the flight was that the plane had state-of-the-art video equipment. On the back of every seat is a personal video screen for the seat behind. It was a touch screen, and the options were tv shows, movies, HBO ($2 a show), music or games. Each one of those options had many, many choices. There were at least 20 different movies on the movie channel, and you could start each one whenever you wanted. You could even pause it. The music station had at least three or four choices in each genre. I fell asleep with slow jazz playing in my headphones.

The big event while I was there was Malky's bat mitzvah. This was a bat mitzvah celebration unparalleled in modern history. It began on Thursday night and ended on Monday morning for all the out of town guests. Malky's parents are Albert, my officer manager at Aish who I worked with for ten years, and Shifra, one of my "best" friends and mahj partner for ten years. Malky is a special girl who makes friends wherever she goes. She told her parents that she wanted ALL her friends at her celebration, and they were happy to comply. You see, as Albert said (what Shifra wrote) on the video they played on Sunday morning, they were told when they adopted their daughter over eleven years ago that Malky had "special needs." What no one knew at the time was how much Malky would flourish with such "special" parents; that the nurturing and love and attention she received from them would truly make her special. Malky knows what a stranger is; she's just never met one. Everyone who's come into her life, from her teachers and aides and classmates to the firemen at the fire stations her Doda Lynda takes her to, to the people who work at the Jewish Community Center, to the many clerks at the mall she visits regularly - is a friend for life. Approximately 200 people came to Malky's kiddush and twice that number came to her carnival celebration the following morning at a downtown hotel. It's equally a tribute to Albert and Shifra as it was to Malky that so many people wanted to be a part of the celebration. I was grateful that I could be there.

(The secondary benefit was that I could see so many people that I wanted to see all at once!)

The third best thing about going "back" to the states (first being seeing my sons/grandchildren and second participating in the bat mitzvah) is that I got to PLAY MAH JONGG WITH MY GROUP. It was so nice for the four of us - Shifra, Lynda, Barb and myself - to play together again. Barb could only play one night the first week because she had to get her father home to South Dakota, but the other three of us played again the second week and the last Shabbos afternoon I was there. It felt so comfortable - and comforting.

The really wierd thing about going back was that it sometimes seemed the previous twelve months hadn't occurred; that I was simply in a time warp where I went to bed one night and when I woke up the next morning all the kids in the community got a whole lot older and bigger! Plus new houses and buildings that were being constructed when I left were suddenly finished. So it was kind of like being in the Twilight Zone, you know? Also, I fit in - but I didn't quite fit in. I just really, really want all my family and friends to move to Israel! That would be really, really cool! Really!

David passed his driving test this morning and he'll get his license within a week. Yea! The process for getting it is so long and drawn out. Hopefully they'll call me soon so I can have my test. It took all of ten minutes, if that long, David said. Oh, I have a great picture I want to post. After I end this post, I'll just add a lot of pictures. I figured out how to upload all the pictures in my camera to the computer (okay, fine - David told me how to do it).

Oh, but don't go away yet; I have to tell you one more story! This is really crazy. Late Sunday night, early Monday morning (2 AM), Emma started licking me and wagging her tail. I just thought, why does she want to go outside now? She never wants to go out in the middle of the night. I just rolled over and went back to sleep. I sort of felt her jump off the bed as I drifted back off. All of a sudden, there was screeching, the likes of which no one should ever have to hear. I thought something weighing 2 tons had fallen on her or else someone had an axe and was chasing her around the house. David and I both jumped out of bed and went running to the salon. David switched on a light, and we saw a cat hunched up against the patio door and Emma hysterically screeching (it's the only word I can think of to describe it) at her. David tried to grab the dog and the cat ran past us - and out the open front door!! Now I always check to make sure the front door's locked before I go to bed; I must have forgotten Sunday night. But for sure it wasn't ajar. That cat must have jumped on the door hand and opened the front door! David thinks it's the cat who used to live here. She had gotten in our trash can and there were chicken bones on the floor. It was pretty wierd. I'm surprised the upstairs neighbors didn't ask us about it the next morning; I thought the whole yishuv must have heard Emma. Baruch Hashem, she may be small but she's a great watch dog!

Okay, I think I can safely end this now. There's more I can say (isn't there always?) but it can wait until the next installation of A Mahjer Makes Aliyah and Has Wierd Experiences in the Holy Land. 'Nuff said.

2007-08-21T14:42:00.000-05:00

I couldn't resist adding a few more pictures. The one just above I titled "It's a hard life." That's Emma taking a snooze with her daddy on a bed in the guest room. All that fresh air blowing in the window, I guess...

The picture in the middle is the view from the back end of our street (remember, we're the highest street in Kochav Yaakov) looking down the hill. You can see another settlement on the hilltop in the background (it's an Arab one, I believe). There are all kinds of settlements on top of all the surrounding hills.

And the top picture is looking down our street at the houses. Ours is on the left side, behind the 2nd car (not ours). You can barely see it, but there's a staircase from the second floor to the street. And at the far end of the street, if you look closely, there are apartment buildings in the distance. That's Telzion, which is also on our yishuv.

Maybe I'll post some more pictures tomorrow.

2007-07-28T15:37:00.000-05:00

I have so much to do in the next couple of days; I leave for St. Louis on Monday. Between making sure the house is cleaned, the laundry's done, David has all the provisions he needs, my clothes get ironed, arrangements made for the dog, and a myriad of little details - plus making sure I don't forget anything, I'm a little stressed. I really hate the flight, but I'm looking forward to going and seeing everyone. My grandson won't even know me; he was only 11 months old when I left last year. I got him and his sister, Zoe, huge, colorful towels with their names monogrammed on them. I probably should have gotten my sons presents as well, but money's pretty tight.

The past few days have been excruciatingly HOT. Even though we have ceiling fans and floor fans, it's just been horribly uncomfortable. We decided today that we're going to have to get air conditioning. Even though people are saying this is an unusually hot summer, I just don't think I can live with this heat. Even Emma has been panting and sleeping under one of the beds in the guest room. I gave her some ice cubes throughout the day and she licked them up in no time. David and I had lunch together and then I walked down the hill to Penina's to play mahj with her and her mother and daughter. They have a window air conditioner in their salon and it felt so good! I think that one of the medications I take says that I shouldn't be in heat while on it, so I think that justifies the cost of the ac. Not that we need to justify it, but our cash supply is dwindling fast.

David has decided to start taking the bus to work instead of driving. Gas has been costing us around 300 NIS a week which really adds up. It's over $6 a gallon here. David is still on crutches but he sees the doctor tomorrow and hopefully he won't need them anymore. His knee has been feeling much better the last few days so we're hoping it's healing finally. It's been almost two months, so it's about time. He's felt pretty handicapped and is itching to start using his rather extensive tool collection to build things for the house. The gate he built is really beautiful; he bought some green paint to make it the same color as the fence. Our landlord should be pretty happy with all the improvements we're making to the place, although I have to admit that we hope they decide not to come back and eventually sell the house to us.

I can't forget to take all my notes from ulpan to hone up on the plane. My friends in St. Louis are going to think I'm proficient in Ivrit when in fact, I haven't had any pressure to be speaking it and have forgotten most of what I've learned except for the basics.

I probably won't get a chance to write again until I get back the middle of August so this may be it for awhile. !להתראות

2007-07-16T12:34:00.000-05:00

As of last Friday, we have been Israeli citizens for a WHOLE YEAR! Is that totally amazing or what? I am so very grateful to Hakodesh Baruch Hu for making it possible for me to be here. And also for our friends (all over the world) and our family and our home and our puppy and our car and our parnassah and our health -- we may not have much money left but we are so wealthy, it amazes me! I don't particularly enjoy hearing gunfire and firecrackers nearly every night from neighboring Arab villages, but I love this yishuv and our life here.

Let's recap the last week's events.

Last Monday, my neighbor across the street, Miryam, and I took David to work and then went to a women's writing seminar in Har Nof. It was a really nice day; the speakers were wonderful and gave over a lot of useful information.

On Thursday afternoon I took a bus from Kochav Yaakov into town. I left the house at 4, intending to take the 4:10 PM bus, but no bus showed up until 5:30. Apparently a bus broke down, but I'll never know because everyone else waiting at the bus stop found out what happened and were telling each other -- in Ivrit, of course. A lot of people "tremped" (hitched) rides, which is very common here, but I stuck it out. David and I were meeting Tzi and Toby from Ramat Beit Shemesh at The Red Heifer for dinner at 7. We've been wanting to eat real steaks since we got here, and boy, did they have good ones! Tzvi also offered me a job while we were there. He's director of one of the Aish learning programs for women and while I would love the job, I don't really want to work full time. He wants me to work 9-5 Sunday through Thursday. I wouldn't have time to do anything else! When I get back from St. Louis I'll go in and speak with him and we'll see what we can work out. It sounds like something I would enjoy and be good at and he even said I could bring Emma as there's a yard in back! But I think she would be a pain and want a lot of my attention; she'd be better off at home. I'm not going to think about the job yet.

While we were in Yerushalayim, we got two Shabbos invitations by phone! David and I had planned to have two quiet meals at home on Shabbos and then go to a neighbor's down the street for Seudat Shlishi, but apparently people here decide on Thursday nights to invite guests. So on Friday night we went to the home of the Ashkenasi rabbi. The rabbi's wife is very personable. After we benched, David and I sat speaking with her for a long time. Four of their kids were there; the oldest three are married. The two older girls at the table (post high school age) couldn't stop giggling and laughing; they were so cute! The rabbi learns a perek of Mishlei with his family every Friday night and we enjoyed listening to them learn together.

For Shabbos lunch, we walked to the totally opposite corner of the yishuv to the most beautiful house. Deena, the wife, also works for the transcription company I work for, and her husband, Jordan, is the brother of someone we knew in RBS who went to our shul. They added rooms to their house when they bought it and it was so lovely. Their kitchen was double size; one side was fleishig, half the other side was dairy and the other half parve. Three separate sinks, 2 refrigerators, two stoves and two dishwashers, plus six bedrooms upstairs. I tried really hard to stuff that green envy stuff way down in my innards... They were such nice people and their children were so cute. How is it that each family we meet is nicer than the one before?

After lunch we came home and rested for awhile, and then Lisa, Miryam, Penina and Penina's daughter, Rochel, came over for a couple hours of mahj. We would have played longer, but David and I had been invited to an early Seudat Shlishli. Julia and Eliyahu had a funky house (they decorated their kitchen with really cool cabinets from Ikea) and some little, active kids. We stayed there a long time talking.

The English speakers in the yishuv are really close with one another, maybe because there are so few of us. Last night I actually hosted a women's Rosh Chodesh program. It was called for 8:30 PM but no one started showing up until about 8:40, and then they just trickled in. By 9:15, thirteen women had showed up, which was good because I made a lot of refreshments. The speaker was great; she spoke about women and the Mikdash, and it was sort of interactive with everybody throwing in their two shekels worth. Afterwards they stayed for awhile and ate and talked. I'm getting familiar with the faces now that I'm meeting more people. Baruch Hashem! Poor David was stuck in his office with Emma for a couple of hours; I think he fell asleep in his chair.

Emma seemed to need a change of scenery this evening, so I took her out on the leash for maybe the second time since we moved here. We walked to the end of our street (we're the fourth house from the end) where there's an open fence leading to higher up on the hill. I can't believe I hadn't gone up there before now. The view was spectacular! You could see hillside after hillside with small settlements on them (mostly Arab). I can't wait to take my camera there tomorrow. In fact, we haven't taken any pictures here yet. I'm waiting for David to have some time to hang up three curtain rods for me so I can hang the curtains I bought, and that's really the last thing I have to do on the inside of the house. The women last night couldn't believe we were totally moved in already. Some of them said they still have stuff in boxes after living here for a long time. I like to feel moved in as soon as possible. It definitely feels like home now!

It's just so wonderful to be living in Eretz Yisrael. I was supposed to take a bus into town this morning with Penina and we were going to spend the whole day there shopping, but I had a bit of a stomach bug. Hopefully we'll go later in the week.

Th -- th -- th -- that's all, folks!

2007-07-07T14:56:00.000-05:00

What a great Shabbos this week! We were invited to a family two streets down for dinner last night -- quite an experience. She's from the States, he's from England and their five kids (ages 10 and under) are all sabras. We realized when we got there that we should have worn earplugs! The kids were all extremely cute and really, really loud. When you don't live with little kids it's hard to get used to the noise level that a lot of little ones make. But they were all very sweet and we enjoyed ourselves.

Today we had three families for lunch; there were fourteen of us. Lest you think I misled you about the size of our dining room, let me assure you that we could never fit fourteen people in that room. On Friday David put up a tarp from outside our front door, connected to the wall on one side and to the top of the fence on the other side. Then we set up a six foot and an eight foot table and put fourteen chairs around it. We couldn't put a tablecloth on because of the wind. Before lunch today David had to wrap twine around the table to keep the tablecloth on. We set the food up inside buffet style. We had such a good time! Miryam and Shaya across the street, our friends Lisa and Dov and their two sweetie pie children, and Pnina and Pinchas and their four teenagers all came. Pnina made extremely delicious challahs and also brought some lavender sorbet that she had made (from lavender that grows wild in the yishuv). David had asked me to make Mediterranean dishes from a cookbook he'd given me, and I have to admit that I had a pretty good spread: 3 kinds of shnitzel (honey-mustard, plain with spices, and cornflake coated), stuffed whole peppers (with couscous), sweet 'n sour baby onions, avocado/orange/tomato salad (without the avocados because they were still hard as a rock after sitting in a paper bag all week), really good eggplant salad, crunchy cabbage salad (okay, not everything came from the same cookbook), and some other things. It was unfortunately hotter than the forecast predicted, but I think I was the only one "glowing" because I was running in and out of the house so much.

After lunch the menfolk left, and Miryam, Pnina, Pnina's daughter and I taught Lisa how to play mah jongg. At 5:30 we went to a women's shiur very close by. That's really the only learning in English for the women on the yishuv and I've been wanting to go but it's been so hot since we moved here. Okay, fine. The אמת (truth) is that David and I have been playing mah jongg with Miryam and Shaya on Shabbos afternoons, but hopefully we'll play earlier in the day so we (the girls) can get to the shiur. There were about 15 women there and I knew 3 or 4 of them from visiting the yishuv before we moved here. Hopefully we'll get some more Shabbos invitations now. All of the women were close to my age and very friendly. I think meeting more of the English-speaking families who live here will help us feel more at home here.

Miryam and Shaya joined us for Shalosh Seudas, as they've done every week since we moved here. It's so nice to have friends right across the street.

Did I mention that Rusty came over to play with Emma today (the dog who weighs 150 pounds) and after he left, Choko (Pnina & PIncha' dog) came over. Choko is more Emma's size and they had a great time running around the yard and house. Something tells me Emma is going to sleep really well tonight!

As I'm sitting here, I'm listening to fireworks in Ramallah. This is the third night in a row. On Thursday night it went on for at least four hours, and you could hear music and shouting, and some of the noise could have been gunshots. They were talking about it at the shiur today. Apparently there are a lot of weddings there, and they shoot off guns and firecrackers. As long as they're not lynching Jews, I guess I can live with it.

Have a great week!

2007-07-04T13:54:00.000-05:00

I've been told that my font size has been too tiny so I've moved it up a notch. Is this better?

Happy 4th of July! And Happy 27th birthday to my older son! I spent practically two whole days trying to find him a present online. All he wanted was $$$ but I'm fresh out of that these days. Besides, I wanted to get him something just for him; not for his family. In the end he got a cookbook. He enjoys cooking and is good at it, so I hope he likes it. I haven't gotten in touch with him yet. With the 8 hour time difference and him working nights, I have to wait until it's late at night for me to call and be able to reach him when he's not working or sleeping.

And we actually had a 4th of July celebration here today. The transcription company I work for invited all the employees to a baseball game and BBQ. This is the first year Israel has had a national baseball league. The baseball park we went to (one of three in Israel) looked literally like the one in the movie Field of Dreams with Kevin Costner. It was way off the beaten path, near a kibbutz called Gezer, in the middle of nowhere surrounded by wheat fields. We watched the Modi'in Miracles beat the Netanya Tigers 6-1 in a crushing defeat. Our office manager did a great job of setting everything up. We and our families (David couldn't take off work so he didn't get to be there) got one set of bleachers to ourselves. Thank G-d there was a tarp over it because it was pretty warm today. We all got vouchers for one free ice (like a popsicle) and one free bag of chips. Our company also brought bottles of soda and water for us. After the game, when all the other spectators had left, we had lunch sponsored by Burgers Bar, a well-known chain of restaurants here in Israel, consisting of burgers, hot dogs, grilled chicken fillets, fries and onion rings. Then whoever wanted to get on the baseball field got out there with some of the players who had stayed and played a little ball. They had a clown there all afternoon for the kids who painted their faces, made balloon animals, read them stories, did some arts & crafts with them, and played with them on those huge blow-up things that the kids go inside of and jump around on. So, all in all, it was a very nice day!

Earlier this week we had another first, although one I could do without. Someone we knew from St. Louis was נפתר (died) at the end of last week, and her husband and family flew with the body to Israel to bury her. The plane landed at Lod Airport near Tel Aviv at around 7 PM on Monday night and the לוויה (funeral) took place at 9:30 PM in Yerushalayim. It was nice to see so many St. Louisans there; people who just happened to be in Israel visiting as well as people who live here now, who were able to be there with the family. The family then got on a plane the next morning to go back to St. Louis to sit shiva. I can't even imagine how exhausted they must have been, flying for pretty much 36 hours with little more than half a day here inbetween.

What amazes me so much here is the "connectedness" we all feel. Even meeting all my fellow employees today (we all work from home so it's the first time most of us have ever met), we all spoke with someone who knew someone we knew. For instance, there was an older couple there who have lived in Israel for several years whose son and daughter-in-law had lived in St. Louis for a short time, and I knew the young couple when they were in St. Louis. Another person who had been at the training session several months ago was originally from St. Louis and is even related to a good friend of mine. I could give you example after example, and it happens every time we go anywhere. A couple weeks ago David and I were sitting at the license bureau and met the sister of a rabbi who had worked with me at Aish in St. Louis. It's like being part of one family that reaches across the globe.

It looks like I'll be making a two week trip to St. Louis at the end of the month. It's not that I want to leave my home and it's not that I feel an urge to see the good 'ole US of A again. But I miss my boys and my granddaughter, and my grandson turns two this month and I haven't seen him since he was 11 months old. And the daughter of my close friends is having one heck of a bat mitzvah celebration. And I do feel the need to see all my friends and play mah jongg with my group and even to get a Slurpee. I think leaving Ramat Beit Shemesh even after only being there a year was kind of traumatic for me, after just leaving St. Louis a year ago. I think I'm the kind of person who likes roots; I need to feel settled. Packing and unpacking, and then packing and unpacking again eleven months later... As much as I've grumbled, I see that Kochav Yaakov is a good place for us to live and a good fit for us. And yet, the move was overwhelming for me. Now that the unpacking is finished, it's time to find new doctors, new pharmacy, new hardware store, new places to buy all the things we need. I had just figured out where to do all those things in Beit Shemesh, but living here, one has to go into Yerushalayim for most things, so it's time to figure it all out all over again. I don't want to do this time after time! In Beit Shemesh we had that "softer landing" -- many things were in English, like the phone book and advertisements. Here it's all in עברית (Hebrew). We can't read a single thing in our mailbox. Obviously we'll be forced to learn the language quicker, but it's very isolating not to understand a lot of what's going on. At least we're meeting people in the same boat we are, so I don't feel quite as alone as I did a month ago. I just have to give it time. Baruch Hashem there are English speakers here, and people our age, and we have a car. Baruch Hashem for so many things! Our health, our ability to pay our bills, our cute little Emma, our computers, our yard, etc., etc., etc. So many, many things to be grateful for! I know I'm going off on tangents, but I think I'm giving myself some חיזוק (reinforcement?) here. Okay, let me think this over for a few minutes and try to rephrase what I think I've been saying.

(brain working overtime ... okay, just working)

So here it is: I'm going back to something familiar for a couple weeks to give myself some נוח (strength) to get through this point in my life. There it is, David. I didn't understand it myself until I wrote it all out. I know you'll need to do this, too, when the time is right for you.

Did I mention that next week I'm going to another writing seminar? Miryam (who lives across the street from me) is going with me. There will only be about 35 women there this time, and it will be more writing than listening to speakers. I'm looking forward to it.

We're having guests for the first time this Shabbos. Last week we went out for dinner and lunch, and this week we're invited out for dinner, but we're having twelve people for lunch. Unfortunately, our salon won't hold more than eight, and that's pushing it, so we're going to set up tables outside. David is going to put up a tarp so we'll have some shade. We invited the family who lives here that we know from St. Louis (four of them), Shaya and Miryam from across the street (that's two), and their daughter and son-in-law and four teenagers (six altogether), so it should be an fun afternoon. David wanted everything I made to come from a Mediterranean cookbook he had given me, so we're going to have some rather interesting dishes. Miryam's daughter, Pnina, plays mah jongg (as do all four of her kids). Actually, Miryam, Pnina and Rochel are coming over tomorrow for a game or two. At least it only took a month to get a group together here as opposed to about three months in RBS. Yea!

Well, David's been asleep for awhile now and Emma is asleep on the bed behind me (my desk is in the guest room), so I think it's about time to get there myself. A handyman's coming in the morning to put up our ceiling fans which should help with the heat. See you next time!

2007-06-24T13:05:00.000-05:00

So many things to catch up on!

We're mostly unpacked. Let me rephrase that: I'm unpacked. One of us has an awful lot of boxes of computer and electronic parts with nowhere to put them. The house we're renting is MUCH smaller than the apartment we left (I may have already mentioned that) and we've been really creative in finding all kinds of nooks and crannies to put things. But David's office/Beis Medrash (the third bedroom) has bookshelves on 2 1/2 walls crammed with seforim (religious books), a window on the other half wall, and an aron (wardrobe/closet) on the fourth wall that has his clothes and also a couple shelves of some of his computer stuff. But there really isn't any more room to put the rest of it. The shed we bought outside is packed. David's solution is to buy another shed, but we're spending what little savings we have left at an alarming rate and another shed is not a priority.

We wanted to put in a patio outside the sliding doors of the salon, until we heard how much it would cost. Right now the whole yard is just dirt. We paid 700NIS (about $175) to have all the weeds pulled; there was never any grass. And then we paid 1000NIS (about $250) to have the yard (on the side of the house facing the street) be leveled, then covered with plastic, then covered with little white pebbles so we could put the shed on top of it. We've spent another several hundred dollars buying cabinets, shelves and closests, and having pictures and shelves hung. It's a lot of money to put into a place we're only renting, especially since the landlord told us that when his wife finishes nursing school in 4 years they'll be moving back (I need to daven that she gets a really juicy job offer in Haifa or Tel Aviv or Netanya -- somewhere so far away they'll have to sell the house!). So we probably won't put in a patio, even though the landlord (he's very sweet) said he'd pay half by taking it off the last month's rent, and we probably won't grow grass which is problematic right now anyway since the shmitta year starts in September (there's a 7 year cycle that the Torah commands in which we don't work the land every 7th year in Israel. Hashem promises us that there will be plenty of agricultural goods in the 6th year to tide us over through the 7th and even into the 8th when we begin planting again. It mostly pertains to fruits and vegetables, but there are laws pertaining to lawns and gardens as well).

Another big ticket item is an air conditioner. It almost hit 100 degrees today and we have no air conditioning. Apparently there are all kinds of tricks people employ, like keeping the treesom closed (kind of like heavy duty outside blinds that all windows have) and running fans in all the rooms. Even Emma slept all afternoon. It should be a little cooler tomorrow; it's only supposed to be 90! I really don't want to spend the money, although it would be something we could take with us if we have to move.

Sorry, Mike -- we haven't taken any pictures yet. First we have to get more settled and get everything in place. I may be a little reluctant because it's not as pretty here as it was where we lived before. It's hard to explain: Kochav Yaakov is attractive in other ways that Ramat Beit Shemesh isn't; private homes for example, instead of apartments. I'm just feeling a little isolated in a place where most people speak only Hebrew, and all the notes and newsletters we get in our mailbox are unreadable. Lots of kids come over to play with Emma, but they ask lots of questions and I haven't the foggiest idea what they're saying. There was a certain comfort level in Ramat Beit Shemesh. Even though everyone came from all over the world (all over the US, Canada, England, South Africa, Australia), we at least spoke the same language for the most part. And it was the only city in Israel where the phone book was printed in both Ivrit and English. There's an email list for the English speakers here -- we just met very few people yet. David's still on crutches plus the heat's been horrific, so we haven't been to shul yet; they're down the hill and we're up on top.

The good thing is that we met a couple across the street from us, from Baltimore, and we've been spending at least 2 out of 3 meals together for Shabbos since we've moved here. Shaya and Miryam are just a little older than us, and of the English speakers on the yishuv, were the only older couple here. Their daughter and her family made aliyah about 6 months ago and live down at the bottom of the hill, so they have family here. This past Shabbos we ate lunch by them, then we all took naps at our respective homes (it's nice to age gracefully, isn't it?), then they came over and the four of us actually played mah jongg until Shabbos was over! Shaya remembers his mother letting him play when she had her group over (up until the time he was ten), and Miryam also played a long time ago. So this week was just reacquainting them with the game. I seriously doubt that David will want to play mahj every Shabbos, but I'll take it as long as I can get it! Miryam's daughter is in the states right now, but she wants to play when she returns, so we just have to find a fourth for a weekly game.

Okay, let's move on to the less mundane topics! I've wanted to write about this for a week and I'm just now getting around to it (did I ever tell you that my former husband's father once gave him a "round tuit" to carry around, so he would never have an excuse for not doing something? Didn't work...).

Anyway, David and I went to a wedding a week ago tonight that was so unbelievably breathtaking it's going to be hard to explain it. The choson (groom) is the brother of one of my son's closest friends. In fact, they have a whole group of friends from St. Louis and NCSY, and later from all their various yeshivot, and the boys (young men) have stayed close and in touch. So I knew many of the guys that were at the wedding, not to mention the choson's mother who came from St. Louis. My son, unfortunately, couldn't make it, which was the only thing that marred the event.

The kallah is a baali teshuva (she "returned" to her roots) within the last couple years or so. Both of them had been going to a yeshiva in Bat Ayin, a settlement in Gush Etzion just south of Yerushalayim. I don't know if my description of Bat Ayin can do it justice, or even if it's very accurate -- it's just my perception of what this little place is. I would have to say that it's comprised of some very special, young, laid-back individuals who would have been very comfortable living in the hippie world of the 60's. It sounds as if the rebbeim have made many shidduchim (matches) between the young ladies and young men attending their (separate for each) yeshiva. This particular choson will be getting smicha (becoming a rabbi) in about three years, and is part of the kollel there. The married couples are given caravans (trailers) to live in, and they're all so caring about each other. It was so beautiful to see this exquisite kallah giving all of her friends beautiful and heartfelt brachot for their own futures, and to hear these young people praise Hashem over and over, and to hear the enthusiasm as they poured out their love for each other and for Yiddishkeit. What special rabbis they must have there! The chupah was held outside under the stars, on a hillside overlooking the lights of Bat Ayin, and Beitar in the distance. I felt so close to my Creator there! And when the dancing started, and the singing, David and I looked at each other with tears in our eyes and felt that here was the future of our people. It was an evening so heimish, so full of emotion, so full of love. Earlier when the choson came to the bride for the bedeken, no one could breathe as the kallah was so overcome watching her choson walk toward her with a smile on his lips. The Rav finally had to take the choson by the arm and lead him to the chupah, or we would all still be standing there!

Last night we were invited to the last sheva bracha in Ramot. It was at the house of another one of my son's friends and his very sweet wife. We didn't even start until 11:30 PM since it was the longest Shabbos of the year. Again we ate outside and the apartment had an unobstructed view of the entire city of Yerushalayim. How beautiful is this country we've chosen as our home! We didn't get home until almost 2. This morning I drove David to work and then, for the first time, I drove alone into Yerushalayim. I went to pick up Caren, the choson's mother. The plan was to take her to see Ramat Beit Shemesh because she goes back to St. Louis tomorrow, but it seemed that Hashem needed another one of those "I need a good laugh" days. By the time I navigated the right streets to pick Caren up at her hotel and then tried to figure out how to get out to highway 1, and getting stuck in some really nasty traffic, it was too late to go that far. So we just went into Givat Shaul and walked around Kanfei Nesharim and Defus, two streets with lots of stores. It was basically just someplace to walk and talk before we had to say goodbye.

It was so nice to have a friend from St. Louis come. Of course, she was very busy with her sons and the wedding and meeting her son's new family and going on all kinds of tiyulim (field trips), but we still got to see quite a bit of each other.

My company isn't giving me much work; I think summers are kind of slow. I've been giving some thought to maybe going back to the organization I sort of worked for a couple of times over the past year, that raises money to feed hungry Israelis. I'm much closer to the office now, and I could drive in with David and then just take a short bus ride down Shmuel Hanavi. We definitely could use the extra money.

Although -- I'm going to another one-day writer's workshop on July 9 in Har Nof. Leah, the woman organizing it, feels that if I get the right training I could make money by writing a couple of articles each month. I would love to do that! I play around mostly with autobiographical stuff; I don't know how I'd do with non-fiction. Wait -- does that mean my life is fiction? What I meant to say is that I don't want to have to research stuff to write about it. Or maybe I do; who knows? We'll see how the workshop goes.

I'm up pretty late for having had about 3 1/2 hours of sleep last night. Emma seems to like our new arrangement here in our new home. My computer is now in the guest room; it's the only place for it. So she has her pick of either twin bed to sleep on while I'm typing. Sleep on the floor? Not for our princess! She seems to have attached herself to my hip. Emma won't go to bed when her daddy goes to bed; she has to wait for me. If I leave for five minutes or five hours, she acts as if I've been gone for a year. Oh! If I had forgotten to write this, I'd be in really big doggie doo-doo - bigger than Emma's, anyway. On Friday, David spent his ENTIRE day off building a really nice gate to keep Emma in the yard. Our little hussy's been sneaking out to visit Rusty across the street. Let me explain something: Emma is about 10 pounds - wet. Rusty is somewhere in the neighborhood of 150. He's very gentle, but one overexuberant swipe of his paw would put Emma in traction (or worse) for a year!

So now I can let her out in the mornings and not worry that the wind blew down the board we had up. We still have to paint the gate, but it's a really cool shape; pointed at the top with vertical slats, and one long diagonal one. My eyes won't stay open and I can't stop yawning. Could that mean something?

2007-06-12T14:54:00.000-05:00

Well, it's official - we are now settlers in Yesha! It was with sadness that I left Ramat Beit Shemesh to the hillside of Kochav Yaakov, but I think that we'll be happy here. We've found kindred spirits here and it seems as if our hashgafa - outlook - pretty much matches the other people who live here. We've been spending waaaaay too much money on making this tiny house work for us, like buying lots of cabinets and closets and a HUGE keter shed, just so we can get everything to fit. A word of advice when you make aliyah -- get rid of as much stuff as you can BEFORE you get here; it will make your life so much easier.

Tomorrow I'm taking the day off to spend with my friend, Caren, who's here in Israel for her son's wedding. It's her first trip here, even though both of her sons have spent a lot of time living and learning here. I'll show her around Yerushalayim tomorrow and then maybe pick up the car from David and bring her here to Kochav Yaakov to see our house (and Emma, of course), then we'll go pick David up and go out to dinner. It's nice to live close enough now to be able to do that. Plus, it's UNBELIEVABLY WONDERFUL to have a car!! Yesterday I drove David to work and then drove back to RBS to clean the old apartment a little and do a bunch of errands. What a difference to be a car owner rather than a bus rider. I won't mind riding the bus at all tomorrow, just knowing that we own a car - I'm not ready to actually drive in Yerushalayim yet.

So we've been here a week. It's not as hot here as RBS, Baruch Hashem, and the nights actually get down in the 50's. We're on the eastern face of the hill so when the sun starts going down, and even before, it cools off really fast. We'll see how I do in August without air conditioning... Right now we've got fans in all the rooms, and there's a great cross breeze. It's so nice to be in a house again, with a yard and a driveway and everything. There's a French family who live upstairs who are pretty quiet. We've rigged a gate of sorts to keep Emma in the yard, but we need a better system. Right now it's just a board that we have to keep moving out of the way when we go in and out.

Today when David came home from work, he said that the Palestinians were fighting amongst themselves again. I thought he meant down in Gaza, but then he asked, "Hear that?" It never occurred to me that he meant they were fighting nearby, as in Ramallah. I could definitely hear lots of gunfire. I probably shouldn't be telling this because now you're thinking we're nuts for being here. So first of all let me say that the army has a great presence in these hills, and there's good security around the yishuv. And yet, our safety is really in Hashem's hands - mine AND yours. It doesn't matter if you're living 3 miles from Ramallah or in New York City or in Timbuctoo. Our thinking is that we want our move to Israel to mean something. There are over 1200 families on this yishuv, counting Kochav Yaakov and Telzion, and none of us would be here if we didn't believe that Hashem gave us this land and that it's our responsibility to live here and take care of it. And not only are we proud to be doing so, but so very grateful that we have the opportunity!

2007-05-24T13:59:00.000-05:00

Bummer, dude and dudettes! Big time bummer! For the first time in the 10 months, 2 weeks and 4 days since we've made the Holy Land our home, I have met disappointment. It only lasted about 10 seconds before I acknowledged the fact that in the scheme of things, it was so low on the totem pole of meaning as to be, well, meaningless.

It seems that the word "Slurpee" in the land of Israel, like so, so many other things, is relative. Whereas in chutz l'aretz (outside of the land), it's that wonderful thirst-quenching brew with exactly (if one happens to be lucky) the right concoction of coke and ice blended together. Here, I found out today by making my way by bus to the Takana Merkazit (after trudging through Emek Refaim in the heat to buy freshly-ground coffee for my hubby), the term "Slurpee" means the same fruit flavored slushy that every other store and kiosk sells.

Heaven forbid, I don't want to discourage anyone from making aliyah, but I think it's important that one should be aware of this sad truth ahead of time. As I said, it's totally meaningless in the scheme of things. It was just that hopeful expectation that got squashed in the space of a second... May this be now and forever the worst disappointment I'll experience here!

2007-05-23T12:57:00.000-05:00

We just finished our first Shavuot in Israel -- I counted the Omer every single day since the second night of Pesach for the first time! I wish I could say that my middos improved and that I learned Pirke Avot (Ethics of Our Fathers) during that time, but I'm working on baby steps. Itty bitty baby steps.

I actually finished reading today one of the most awesome books I've ever read: Holy Woman by Sarah Yocheved Rigler. She's an incredible writer who wrote about an incredible woman, Chaya Sarah Kramer. Chaya Sarah and her husband, R. Yaakov Moshe, lived their lives with the only thought of what they could do for others. They gave and gave and gave, while they themselves had nothing materially -- and everything spiritually. It was such an inspiring book! It made me ashamed of all my pettiness and selfishness and made me realize how very much I need to improve my speech and actions. I espouse ideals I don't bother living by; I hurt people without meaning to and don't learn from my mistakes; I sometimes don't take responsibility for the things I do wrong or haphazardly -- the book really puts a mirror in the reader's face and makes you think.

So last week we had our interview at Kochav Yaakov. You have to be accepted into the yishuv. While we didn't really feel that there would be a problem, we were still on pins and needles until we called on Sunday and were told we'd been accepted. Yay! In case it wasn't clear in my last posting, we're renting the bottom half of a house which includes the yard. Tomorrow I'm taking the bus into Yerushalayim, and David and I are meeting with Yeron, the landlord, to sign the lease. Then the work begins. I called two different moving companies and hopefully they'll get back to me tomorrow. Then I have to find boxes and start packing. Funny, seems like we just unpacked! I am so not looking forward to the packing. Even though our lease where we live now doesn't end until the middle of July, our lease in KY begins June first. I'm hoping if we can get moved by the middle of June, somebody else can take over our lease in Ramat Beit Shemesh and maybe we can get a month's rent back (we had to give our landlord a year's worth of post-dated checks last year).

There are so many people trying to find housing in Ramat Beit Shemesh -- they say about 40% of the 10 planeloads of new olim Nefesh B'Nefesh is bringing this summer are moving here. There's a lot of new housing going up, but it won't be ready for at least a year or two. There are desperate pleas on the RBS email lists for people who need a place to rent or buy. Our landlord won't have any trouble leasing our apartment, even if he raises the rent.

David's been having a lot of pain in his left knee the past few weeks, and hasn't had a chance to see a doctor. He used crutches last night and today to take some of the pressure off -- good thing we brought some with us. Tomorrow night we're supposed to go to a vort in Har Nof (Jerusalem) for our friends' daughter, but David won't be able to go. I'd like to go, but it means staying in Jerusalem all day and evening, and we're moving in 2 weeks! Plus I'd have to take a bus to another bus to get back home tomorrow night. My mind right now is asking, "What would Chaya Sarah do?" and the answer, of course, is - she would go to be b'simcha for her friends. Sigh.

2007-05-14T14:29:00.000-05:00

Busy, busy, busy. I'm working a WHOLE lot more hours for TAB Services now; I've already typed 10 or 12 transcripts this month. And they're getting longer. I have two due on Wednesday - one is 33 pages and the other is 47. They're already typed and at the editor. She'll make needed changes and send them back to me, then I'll make the changes and send them in. It takes a lot of discipline to sit and type for hours at a time -- discipline I don't have! If the quality of the audio is good, I can get a good rhythm going, but some of the audios I've had lately are really bad. It's up to the court reporter to make sure the microphones are positioned correctly. However, sometimes you just can't hear either the attorney or the witness. Sometimes someone is shuffling papers, a lot of times they speak while the other one is still speaking, and many times also they just plain mumble. Plus, depending on the deposition, you have to be familiar with either medical terms (if it's a worker's compensation case or an insured person who had a car accident) or legal terms (if it's a criminal case). It seems like an awful lot of time to put in for only 80 cents a page. Of course, the advantages are working from home. And the disadvantage is -- you're working from home. You know, the place that's way too close to the refrigerator when you're just sitting for a lot of hours each day. Need I say more?

Let's see. Oh, the really big news. We're moving! As much as I want to stay here in beautiful Ramat Beit Shemesh, we seem destined to be part of the "settler movement." Lest that sounds scary and ill-advised to you, I'll just say this: it's probably not so wise if you're thinking totally rationally, but if you believe that this land was given to us (the Jews) by Hashem, and if you believe that all's fair in love and war (meaning even if you don't believe we have the G-d given right to the land, we at least won it fair and square -- every other country in the world has the right to keep lands they win in wars), then the land belongs to us and is legitimately a part of Israel.

Kochav Yaakov is a nice-sized yishuv just 6 miles north of Jerusalem. After a lot of deliberation and ALMOST jumping into buying something we really couldn't afford (but really, really wanted because of our deeply-felt American convictions that we totally deserved and were entitled to have a big house that we could fill with all kinds of things we don't really need because we still haven't learned to control our need for gashmius - material possessions), we found the only piece of rental property currently available in the entire yishuv. And it's perfect for us! A young couple own the house. It's a 3-bedroom on a nice-sized lot with a huge fenced yard on all sides. They built a 2nd story on top to rent out; many people do that to help with the mortgage payments. The family who live on top don't get to use the yard at all; they go up a flight of stairs to their front door from the street. I'm not sure they even have a back door. The couple who own it are living in Kibbutz Chofetz Chaim for the next four and a half years while she goes to nursing school. They may not even move back to Kochav Yaakov, so we can probably stay there a long time.

The street is very close to the mikolet, small grocery store. And David called me tonight from the class he's taking at the Nefesh B'Nefesh office to say that a woman who lives right across the street from our new home is in the class with him. She and her husband are a little older than we are; their daughter and son-in-law made aliyah this past December from Baltimore - and we had met their daughter in Baltimore on our Farewell Tour just before we made aliyah! Small world. In fact, we taught her daughter how to play mah jongg -- and both mother and daughter play! Two thirds of a mahj group already! If that don't beat all.

Before I sat down to write I had so much to say. But now I can't think of anything else. Perhaps because it's 11:15 PM, my allergies are driving me crazy, and I've been working like mad all day. I think it's time to say goodnight.

2007-05-05T03:03:00.000-05:00

It's just past midnight, motzi Shabbat, and there are at least ten fires visible from our mirpeset. No, it's not terrorists - it's Lag B'Omer and the whole country is partying!

People, mostly kids, have been dragging whatever wood they could find to open sites all over Ramat Beit Shemesh (and all over Israel) since Pesach ended. Wooden teepees were everywhere. After Shabbat, people started arriving by cars, by bicycles, by skateboards and by foot, and lighting up. We had to finally close the windows and turn on the air; I haven't stopped coughing for the past hour. We just happen to live on the edge of the city, so there's lots of room across the street from us to build the fires. But Emma and I walked one street over earlier to the empty lot where 2 shuls will be building their new buildings soon, and that fire was HUGE! There was a cotton candy stand and a popcorn stand on the street, men were dancing, the music was blaring. Here, near our building, lots of people brought guitars, and further down the street a whole lot of yeshiva boys were dancing around their fire. People are set up for picnics; they brought tables and are roasting hot dogs and marshmallows. Quite a scene. If only I could stop coughing!

It was on Lag B'Omer that Rabbi Shimon Bar Yochai revealed the Zohar, so we celebrate this "light" of Torah 17 days before Shavuous. Also, in the time of Rabbi Akiva, his students (12,000 pairs of study partners) died because they didn't accord proper respect to their friends. It was on Lag B'Omer that they stopped dying. Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai is quoted as saying that it is better to burn in a furnace than to embarrass a friend in public, so the light of the fires reminds us to treat others with respect.

David has to be up at 5 to go to work tomorrow; it's still pretty noisy outside...

So, let's get you caught up on the news here in our neck of the woods. David and I had decided to buy a house in Kochav Yaakov until we actually sat down and looked at our finances. It didn't take much for us to realize that we just don't have enough money to buy anything. We could do it but it would take every penny we have, and I don't want to be without some sort of cushion. Plus we'd buy the duplex and wouldn't even have any money to fix it the way we'd want it.

So we're waiting to hear about a house for rent in Kochav Yaakov instead. It's the only thing for rent there, so if that falls through, we're going to have to look into renting something expensive in Har Nof or Ramot (in Jerusalem) where we wouldn't need a car.

(It's 12:30 in the morning and someone is outside in a van with a microphone and speakers and being extremely loud and obnoxious. It's stopped on the street and cars are honking at it to move. Don't they care that some people have to be up early to go to work tomorrow? Oh, wait - this is Israel. Silly me.)

Earlier this week I did something really, really fun. I went to a Jewish Women's Writing Seminar at a hotel in Jerusalem. It was a whole day affair, and the speakers were writers and editors for Mishpacha and Binah magazines, and other well known authors, like Sarah Shapiro and Yaffa Ganz. Just before lunch (very fancy) they drew names for raffle prizes and I won the book "Holy Woman" by Sara Yocheved Rigler. I love her writing! The book was even inscribed, although obviously not to me personally since she didn't know who would win it. It's an incredible book; I read a lot of it over Shabbos. I highly recommend it!

If only I had time to write more, especially now that I've got all these pointers from the seminar. But I've been pretty busy with my new job of typing legal transcripts. At first they were only giving me small jobs and only one at a time. But I have 5 due this week! And the audio quality on two of them is terrible. I keep listening to the same sentence over and over, but the voice "wobbles" or is drowned out by papers moving or other people talking or the speaker not speaking clearly. I can tell this is not going to be as easy as I thought. I think my boss is going to complain about this particular court reporter in Florida who doesn't do such a good job of recording the proceedings.

So, I believe I told you about Lucky, the abandoned dog who's been hanging around for about a month now. Oh, I forgot to tell you - I named him Lucky. I've been feeding him twice a day and taking water to him every time I take Emma out for a walk. The poor thing has burrs stuck all over him and he's so filthy. I posted an email on the RBS list to see if someone would adopt him, and even though two families came to check him out, no one's willing to take him. David said we could take him to the vet and check him out, and if he's okay, we can bring him in and clean him up and then maybe someone would be more willing to consider taking him. But of course, my neighbor, Shaina, was going to drive us to the vet Friday morning and Lucky was nowhere to be found. He showed up at 3:30 in the afternoon and the vet closed at 2. I told David I was going to bring him in anyway, dirty and all, but we couldn't coax him into our apartment building. I had bought him a collar and he was really excited when I put it on, but he was too scared to come inside with us. I've tried several times since yesterday and he gets so close - but then just lies down right outside and won't budge. I don't know how we'll ever get him in a car. Poor thing. I'm almost ready to give up on him, but I don't want to do that. I guess we'll just keep trying to win his trust. I hope he found a good place to sleep tonight; usually he's in the empty lot across the street from us, but there's an awful lot of smoke and people there right now.

It's 1 a.m. I'd better get to bed. I still have to count the Omer - it's the first time I've made it this far! I'm so proud of myself!

2007-04-17T10:35:00.000-05:00

I bet you think I've forgotten all about this blog, don't you? Well, okay - you may be right. Or partially. I've been THINKING about writing in here, quite a bit actually, but I never seem to think about it when it's easy to sit down and do it. So here I am, finally.

Let's see. What's happened this past month? Life kind of caught up with me here in the Holy Land. Getting ready for Pesach and then Pesach - our first as Israeli citizens! Kind of wierd only having one seder; with all the preparation beforehand, it was almost anti-climatic. But the three of us (Emma included) went to stay with our friends in Kochav Yaakov for Yom Tov and we had a wonderful time. Their 7 year old, Hudi, stayed up for the whole seder (we ended about 2:30 in the morning) and contributed quite a bit to the discussions. I was very impressed. The last time we stayed there for Pesach (three years ago), we made the decision to make aliyah. And now we're looking seriously at moving to Kochav Yaakov.

Tomorrow I'm going with a friend of mine (well, I'm actually going with her; she has a car) to look at some houses there. There's nothing to rent so we might have to buy something. I'm so sad to be leaving Ramat Beit Shemesh but it's just too hard for David. We had found a great 5 bedroom apartment with a huge yard here in RBS close to the shopping area with reasonable rent, but David just doesn't want the commute. Kochav Yaakov is about 20 minutes away from where he works by bus as opposed to over an hour from here. The majority of people who live on the the yishuv are French, but there are about 45-50 Anglo families there now. We shall see how tomorrow goes.

If you looked out your window in the middle of the afternoon and everything looked kind of grey and fuzzy, you'd probably just shrug and think, "Hmm. It's a little foggy out." Right? But what if the fog got thicker and thicker until you couldn't see across the street? And it was really warm out and the wind was blowing? Maybe you would you think, "Hmm. A storm must be coming." But what if your eyes started to burn and your nose would start running and the furniture you just dusted suddenly was covered with dust again and when you walked across the floor you could hear grit squishing under your shoes? Well, if you lived where I live, you'd think, "Hmm. Sand storm! Close the windows and the shutters and turn on the ac!" 'Cause that's what I did today in the worst sand storm we've had since we moved here. I REALLY hate running the air conditioning in April, but, combined with my terrible allergies which haven't been bad in years until this spring, this sand storm is a doozy. It's just after 9 PM and David just came in from walking Emma. He said it's still 26 degrees out (that's Celcius - about 80 degrees Farhenheit) and the wind is really blowing. I'd better brush the sand off Emma.

I'm so worried about a dog we've befriended. He's the most beautiful, gentle, blonde furry dog with golden eyes like Anton (our dog in the states we had to put to sleep). Someone told me that they saw someone drive by and shove him out the door on our corner some weeks back. Wht is wrong with people?! He followed Emma and I on our walk about a week ago, and I saw he had no collar and his hair was all matted, so we stayed away from him. But yesterday he saw us and came into the park in front of our apartment building and I cautiously let Emma off her leash (because if I hadn't she would have pulled my arm off...). She ran in maniacal circles around him for about 15 minutes, and he just laid down and watched her. When she finally got up the courage to go sniff him, he just rolled over so she could check him out. He's about 5 times her size, but he was so gentle with her! When I finally brought Emma in, I went back outside with a bowl of water and he drank it all without stopping. My heart really went out to him, but we just can't take another dog; especially now that we're moving.

This morning I took Emma out early because I had to catch an early bus into Yerushalayim for a doctor's appointment, and the dog showed up again. This time he just wanted me to pet him. After I brought Emma in I went back out with water and dog food, but he was gone. I hope he found some shelter today from all this sand in the air. David saw him this morning and agreed he looked like Anton. If we end up getting a house with a yard, we may have to think about taking him with us ... but I'm afraid in two months' time he'll be hardened by living outside. And I don't know how he'd do with someone (me) giving him a bath. I just have to stop worrying about him.

My baby turned 25 yesterday. Am I really old enough to have sons in their twenties - now mid to late twenties?! How did all this time pass? And the real question is - where was I when it was happening?

So I'm working now, from home. At last count I've typed up seven transcripts - for a grand total of about $150. Whew - the money's really rolling in now! All they've sent me so far are short court proceedings, like anywhere from 7 minutes to 27 minutes. One was actually close to two hours. I'm kind of glad, though. If I have to start packing everything up again, I'm going to need some time. But just finding us a place to live is going to take time also. And if we have to buy, it means navigating the Israeli system when we don't know the language so it's going to cost to get a good attorney. Which means I should be working more. But then I don't have time to do the legwork. Kind of makes me feel like I'm on a teeter-totter.

My mahj group is really upset we're leaving. What kind of a rotten scum am I to break up two perfectly good mah jongg groups? All I can say is - there's better be 3 eager mah jongg players wherever we move to...

After my doctor visit this morning, I took the #2 bus to the kotel. For some reason, I've only been there 3 or 4 times since we moved here. When I saw it, it was almost startling. I pulled a chair as close as I could (considering there were a whole lot of other ladies davening there) and before I started reading my tehillim and saying all my personal prayers for my family and friends, I just sat there and looked up at this Wall. Every once in awhile I have these moments of, "Hey, I live here! I can hop on a bus and walk through the security and sit down right in front of this Wall where so many of my ancestors over the last however many thousand years (I should know how many, right?) stood and communed with Hakodesh Boruch Hu." After 9 months of living here, I, sadly, don't have so many moments of that sudden Awe any more. But today it just hit me square in the face.

The next war with Lebanon is going to be happening soon. It kind of scares me to be moving in the middle of the summer when everything will most likely be happening. But life has to go on, without worrying about the "what if's." I just told that to a friend recently, so I guess I have to practice what I preach.

I could go on and on and on (as you may know), but I think I'll stop here. By the way -- oh wait. I'm really going to stop now. That's it.

2007-03-19T06:17:00.000-05:00

Hi, All! I should be cleaning for Pesach, but I'm giving myself some time off for good/awful/awful good behavior. You decide.

Our friends, Ellen and Kalman, made a wedding for their daughter, Ali, this past week. The wedding was last Thursday in Yerushalayim, on the worst day (weather-wise) we've had since we moved here. All day the thunder was crashing, the wind the gusting, rain poured periodically - and to top it off - we had hail! It was hitting the windows so hard I couldn't believe it! Emma was a little puzzled when, during a lull in the weather, I took her outside and we were walking on little balls of ice. In Yerushalyim it was actually snowing.

But we made it to the wedding hall; another couple we'd met in ulpan, Karen and Al, gave me a ride and David went straight from work. Poor Ellen! Murphy's law was definitely at work that night. They'd left a bag at home here in Ramat Beit Shemesh with Ellen's sheitel (wig), shoes, jewelry, and Igor's (the choson/groom) new kippah. Thank G-d she had a friend there who normally doesn't cover her hair who gave her a beautiful black hat that exactly matched her dress, and one of the kallah's (bride's) friends had an extra pair of shoes that fit perfectly. The wedding hall Ali and Igor had booked (before Ellen had a chance to see it) had two rooms; the big, beautiful nice one - and Ali and Igor's. It was a tiny, dilapidated room with no heat, torn-up floors, white cloths shabbily hung on the walls to cover up holes, and a very meager staff. But Ali was radiant, and everyone's enthusiasm made up for the surroundings.

Last night we made sheva brachot for them (one of the seven meals they have each day for a week after the wedding with at least 10 men who make 7 blessings for the choson and kallah). I had decided to make meatballs and rice, because it would be easy and not so expensive for so many people. HAH!!!

I actually don't think I've ever made meatballs before. There was an extremely easy recipe in my old Betty Crocker cookbook for sweet 'n sour meatballs using cranberry sauce, ketchup, brown sugar and lemon juice. How easy is that?

So, before Shabbos I made the sauce. It wasn't exactly the flavor I was hoping for, but, oh well. After Shabbos I took out all the ground turkey I had defrosted, added the last of my bread crumbs (see, I'm doing a little for Pesach already!), some eggs, onions, whatever. Then I formed about 90 nice-sized meatballs. But then I worried, as always, that maybe it wouldn't be enough for 20 people. Am I a Yiddishe mama or what? So I had to take out a package of ground beef and defrost it in the microwave. I had already used all my bread crumbs so I added some matza meal.

Okay, so now I have about 105 meatballs, more or less. The recipe says to throw it in the sauce which has been simmering on the stove. All the meatballs were in one large bowl, getting all squished together unbeknownst to myself as I was making the extra batch, and just as I was dumping it into the sauce, David came into the kitchen and said, "You should really fry those in a pan first to keep them from falling apart."

He couldn't have said that about 10 seconds earlier?

Now comes the fun part of the evening.

All of the meatballs were, of course, falling apart in the sauce and I started digging them out with my large slotted spoon until all 105 of them were in about 6 plates, all soaked and dripping with sauce. I got out a frying pan, put in some oil, put on some latex gloves and started re-forming the balls one by one, at the same time trying to wipe off as much sauce as possible before putting them in the frying pan. I wasn't sure if I should be laughing at the total ridiculousness of the situation or crying at the frustration of it. Here I was doing a mitzvah, and the simplest thing was taking hours of my time! The thought crossed my mind that there must be a Candid Camera somewhere in the kitchen getting all this on tape, but then I decided that the only audience I had was Hashem. I have to shake my head sometimes at His sense of humor. And then I realize that He's telling me I'm taking myself too seriously again and He's having a little fun with me. Okay.

So I take my time re-rolling those balls, wiping off the extra sauce, frying them a little until I'm sure they'll keep their shape before they go back into the pot of sweet 'n sour sauce, which is now a sauce dotted with tiny pieces of meat throughout. I scrub the frying pan between each batch, taking my time, laughing at myself.

Later (much later...), as the pot sat simmering on the stove and I was washing my way through an unbelievable pile of bowls, plates, cooking utensils, pots and pans, I realized I smelled something burning. Oh, yeah - it was. But I got to it in time, and David came in and poured everything into our super large soup pot. Then we just looked at each other, and I have to hand it to him; he did a super-human job of not bursting into laughter or making even the tiniest of comments which I'm sure were already formulating in his mind.

In the end, everything turned out fine. We only had about 15 people. One guy forgot about coming and worked late, but David started knocking on doors in our apartment building (only in Israel!), and a teen-age son of our Vaad Habayit (apartment manager) came down to join us. A couple of rabbis were here and they gave great divrei Torah, and after the benching all the men started dancing, which is no easy feat in our tiny apartment where the couches were already upended to make room for all the tables.

And, of course, after everyone left and we had cleaned up somewhat and David had gone to bed, all I could think was - When will it be my turn? Jared seems to be pretty settled in his (non-Jewish) home life, and Nathan isn't in any hurry to meet someone until he's able to earn enough money and have some kind of parnassah (living), and he's not at that point yet. I started to miss my friends back home and called Barb, one of my first friends I had made in St. Louis when I moved back there from Milwaukee in 1992 and who had been one of my mah jongg partners for 9 years. It was so nice to hear her voice! Then I tried calling Lynda, one of my other mahj partners, but she wasn't home and I left a message. I already talk periodically with Shifra, the fourth in our mahj group. Barb and Lynda don't have computers, so we're really out of touch. Hard to believe there are people without computers in this day and age.

Some people would consider my sitting here writing a waste of time on a beautiful, sunny Monday afternoon exactly two weeks before Pesach. (Actually, it's the first sunny day in over a week.) I have accomplished a few things today, however; I ordered meat for Pesach from the butcher in Yerushalayim, I ordered kosher-for Pesach dog food from our vet, I ordered matza that will be delivered a week from Thursday, and I called Avi at Nefesh about possible communities that we could move to that would be closer to where David works. Avi emailed me contact names of people in 4 different communities; Maale Adumim, Ramot, Nachalot and Efrat. We also spoke about Kochav Yaakov, and even moving to Beit Shemesh. So now we have to think about visiting each of those communities, maybe spending a Shabbos in Efrat and Maale Adumim. Nachalot is the only neighborhood actually in Yerushalayim, behind the shuk. I really didn't want "city" living, but that would certainly be in the center of things.

Okay, time to clean out some kitchen cabinets - I have an hour before my Israel mahj group shows up for our Monday afternoon game...

2007-03-10T12:17:00.000-06:00

Do me a favor. I have an overwhelming desire to impart something breathtakingly beautiful to you. Please read this and then close your eyes. Sit back in your seat. Then try to picture it all in your mind. Let me see if I can do it justice.

Look at the picture above which we took from our mirpeset when we first moved here last summer of our front walk, the park, the hills in the background. This is the view we had earlier this evening:

It's 15 minutes before the end of Shabbos. David and I are sitting on our glider, Emma in my lap, on our smaller mirpeset, facing exactly what you see in the picture. It's dusk; the sun has set but it's not yet fully dark. There are no clouds in the sky, save for some wispy cotton here and there. Only one bright light glitters so far which I found out later this evening was Saturn, the brightest planet this time of year. It's about 70 degrees and a faint breeze is blowing. Even though we live at a major intersection (for these here parts), no car passes by. We hear crickets and possibly frogs. Above us, one floor up and diagonally across, a father and his son also sit on their mirpeset. It's obvious to us, even without knowledge of the language, that Abba is helping his young son with tomorrow's homework; asking him questions, discussing points with him. (We pick up a few words here and there - and are quite proud of ourselves.) Across the street, the hills are finally green; blossoms are everywhere (my eyes and nose have been quite cognizant of this the past few days - and scores of families were out there walking this beautiful Shabbos afternoon).

Abba leaves to go to shul for maariv and we are left in the darkness, a sky lit up now by multitudes of stars, the quiet, the crickets, the warm breeze, the hills, the glider slowly rocking, the immense gratitude - could Shamayim possibly be more kodesh (holy) than this?