Divine Reward April 8

Divine Reward
April 8, 2005

You didn't really think I forgot about you, did you? Well here we are with Pesach approaching fast. In the states the supermarkets probably converted to their Pesach-product mode months ago. With a little over two weeks to go there's not a sign in any of the supermarkets here that the holiday of freedom and matzo is around the corner. Is there something we're missing? Are there secret underground Pesach stores that the good folks at Nefesh B'Nefesh neglected to tell us about?

We are looking forward to Pesach. Raanan is off for a month starting this Friday and Elisheva will be flying in next week for her extended vacation. It'll be great having all the kids home and at each other's throats. This will be Elisheva's 5th trip home! She actually earned enough frequent flyer miles to make this flight free. We can't wait until that 6th trip home this summer, after which she won't be leaving us so fast. We are planning to share our ONE sedar with our friends the Sladowskys who made Alyiah the same day as us. Our kids have become very close so it should be a great sedar. (Did I mention we only have one?)

Purim here was really nice. We had Seuda (the Purim festive meal) with our old friends the Loewensterns and Sultans. Before the Loewensterns made Aliyah 11 years ago our three families had Seudah together several times. It was a poignant reunion. Interestingly, back in Edison many of the folks we shared Purim Seudah with eventually made Aliyah; Loewensterns, Zimmermans, Sultans, Weisblatts. We were beginning to wonder if people dreaded having Seudah with us so much that they felt they had to leave the country to get away. Well, if the Sultans or Loewensterns move to Australia next year we'll know, won't we? Actually, what we really hope is that the legacy of that old Seudah is a Segulah, for those who carry it on, to make Aliyah soon. (You know who you are...)

I managed to surprise the family by bringing Elisheva home for Purim. This was no small feat, as Randi occasionally inspects my e-mail. Not just my inbox mind you, but also my "sent" and "deleted" boxes. We're thinking of getting her a job with the Mossad. At one point she overheard me say something about "reservations" on the phone, but silly her, she thought I was surprising her with dinner or hotel reservations. Of course now, by default, I'm obligated to make good on that as well! But, even under the nose of agent Randi I pulled it off and we had a great week with Elisheva home.

Purim here was unusual this year in that it was actually spread out over 3 days, at least for those living in Jerusalem. Go figure. All the holidays go from two days to one, but this one goes from one to three. I guess that's the nature of Purim. The older kids all went to Jerusalem Saturday night to take part in some of the ongoing festivities there. On Sunday, we took Meira to a Purim fair at a nearby Kibbutz where we met up with my brother and his family.

Randi and I finished our first Ulpan session. If you remember, Randi started on a lower level than me. Her teacher was so conscientious and Randi was so diligent (and my study habits so bad) that on the final exam she got a higher grade than me. (Her teacher pushed them to take the exam a level higher than normal.) We decided to continue our uplan studies for at least another session. We are now in the same class, embarrassing each other on a regular basis.

We had naively believed that we'd be in our new house by now or if not, at least it would be ready for us to move in for Pesach. The truth is that we're close. The house is basically done and rumor has it that our builder got "Tofes Arba" yesterday. Now I don't know exactly what Tofes Arba is but since all of our new neighbors are very excited that the builder got it I'm assuming it's either a serious skin disease or a certification from the city saying we can move in. Assuming it's the latter we'll just need to have a final inspection, pay our balance, and get the keys. Oh, one minor detail, we don't have a kitchen yet.

When we finalized the kitchen back in December the guy at the kitchen place, which is cutely named Gepetto, said that our kitchen should be ready in a month. (No the guy's name is not Pinochio.) Randi called Gepetto in February, about 8 weeks before Pesach, to ask if we were close to getting it. Gadi, the guy who's not Pinochio, said it would be ready in about 2 weeks. Just to be sure, Randi asked Gadi if we can count on it being installed by Pesach, 8 weeks hence. Right away Gadi said, "Oh no, it won't be ready by then". Apparently the Hebrew for two weeks is something like 1-12 months and it just gets lost in the translation. Well, this was really just another case of Zeh Lo Choshuv, because, honestly, why would anyone want to move into a brand new kitchen just before Pesach and miss out on all that kitchen appliance cleaning fun?

Last month we went to a dedication for the new dormitory at Raanan's Yeshivah. After seeing this magnificent structure we wondered if he'll ever want to come home again. (Uh, that would be a yes.) The ceremony was very nice, in spite of the fact that it consisted mainly of speeches. The chief Ashkenazi Rabbi of Israel spoke along with many other distinguished Rabbis. Fortunately for us the family who dedicated the dorm is American so most of the speeches were in English. (I guess money speaks your language. :) In general Raanan is doing very well in Yeshivah. We still bring him home on Tuesday nights and he comes home every Shabbos. His Hebrew is amazing, accent and all. As a side benefit he's also developed a very convincing British accent and now he's working on Russian. You just never know when that can come in handy. Seriously, I'm most impressed with his learning skills. Occasionally, he helps me with the daf (daily Talmud study) on Shabbos and he's really at the point where he can get through a new page of Talmud almost on his own.

Etana has a lighter work load in college this semester, which she's really appreciating. Etana is our dynamo. Aside from providing us with an endless flow of Shabbos guests she runs a very popular Shabbos group for 7th and 8th grade girls and started an aerobics group for some of her friends.

Meira has been saying that she wants to marry her future next door neighbor, Yoav. (Sorry Moshe.) Yoav is very cute, but for some reason he's not responding to her proposals. Meira's hebrew skills are advancing rapidly. We can trigger her to respond in Hebrew by asking her something in Hebrew, though she rarely initiates. We've already noticed that some of her English sentence structure is changing. She had a bit of an injury a few weeks ago. She banged her head on the stairs in our apartment. That caused her to have a serious-looking black eye. Of course, I had my fill of DYFS wise cracks to last me a while. (Just to show how Anglo this place is, they don't even have DYFS here!) We finally taught her a cute response when people would ask what happened to her eye. She would say, "You should see the other guy!". Thank G-d it has totally cleared up now.

Randi and I went on our first real Tiyul (hike) a few weeks ago. These hikes are somewhat of a national obsession here. We started small. We went to a mountain not to far from here in Emek Ha'eleh (The place where Daivid and Goliath had their big show down). There are pretty purple flowers called thermusim which are said to grow no where else in the country except on this mountain. Randi was really taken with the beautiful scenery. I was fascinated by the great view of the nearby Bezeq Satellite station. (Mars-Venus)

Speaking of great manmade structures. If you haven't been here in a while you should come just to check out the new terminal and Ben Gurion airport. It is beautiful and it's a pleasure to pick people up from there. In fact my brother and I fought over who was going to get to pick up our sister on her last trip. Of course that was because we each wanted to spend more time with her, not because we wanted to go to the new terminal. (I won, only because he had just picked up his in-laws a few days before.) For those who might be nostalgic for the quaint old terminal, get over it. That's like being nostalgic for a quaint old out-house!

We continue to enjoy a steady flow of visitors from the old country. January was particularly busy with many folks coming on tours or visiting their children in Yeshivah. We especially appreciate the effort that many of our friends have made to visit out here in Beit Shemesh. As I mentioned before, Etana also keeps a steady stream of seminary and Yeshivah students coming for Shabbos. We love being able to provide a little Edison/Highland Park oasis for these kids.

I believe I have received my first clear Divine reward for moving here. They opened a Burgers Bar just a few minutes from our house! You remember, I mentioned Burgers Bar a few months ago. It's the anti-vegetarian place. ("Would you like some beef with your chicken?") As we were watching it during construction our only concern was that the kosher supervision should be acceptable to our Rabbi. It turned out that the supervising Rabbi's name is Machfud and with a name like Machfud it had to be good! (Doesn't that mean "make food" in Yiddish?) We're trying to control ourselves and have only eaten from there 3 or 4 times. OK, OK, it's only been open for 2 1/2 weeks. Speaking of rewards. We actually got a refund for the extra port fees we had to pay way back when our lift was delayed. Wow, that seems like a lifetime ago.