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I’m going to the Temple Mount and I’m bringing…

July 2, 2018 by

Twenty years ago, exactly, my husband and I had our חנוכת הבית, the dedication of our new home in Israel. At that time, we realized that we ourselves were not fully responsible for the achievement of this dream nor should we claim it as our own. Generations before us longed to return to Zion. In their modest dwellings a vision of returning to the land gave their lives meaning and hope. We recognized that despite the hardships and dangers, our ancestors literally kept the faith and transmitted Jewish teachings, values, and customs to generation after generation. And so when we dedicated our home, we remembered by name our great grandparents, our grandparents, and our parents who all were part of the fulfillment of our dream.

Tomorrow, twenty years later, we plan to ascend the Temple Mount in Jerusalem. the point from which the holiness of the world emanates. Our ancestors have prayed for generations for the rebuilding of the Temple and we will not see the Temple rebuilt tomorrow, but we will stand on the holy mountain where it stood. And because the keys of the Temple Mount are still in the hands of the Muslim Wakf, we are prohibited from taking any religious articles with us. No prayerbooks, no talit, no tfilin, – even kippot (skullcaps) must be worn under hats that conceal them. But tomorrow, I will be taking something very special with me. I will be taking the names of my great-grandparents, my grandparents, my parents, and my aunts and uncles. They will symbolically ascend the mountain with me.

I will not be taking the names of my children or grandchildren, because not only may they visit the Temple Mount themselves, but I pray that they will be present to rejoice at the dedication of the Third Temple. May it be G-d’s will.

Filed Under: Family life, Israel, Relationships, Spirituality Tagged With: , , , ,

A paradigm shift

November 27, 2012 by

Thomas Kuhn in his book, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, speaks of the need from time to time for a paradigm shift. It is needed when the existing paradigm becomes inadequate to explain things or to be employed when solving a problem.

I have come to believe that we in Israel are at the point of a paradigm shift. Our foes in Gaza, Hamas, terrorists whose goal is to eradicate the Jews from the land of Israel, are widely seen as a cancer. Now cancer is usually thought of as lethal. Certainly cancerous growths must be excised, irradiated, or chemically destroyed. And so it was when we had to stop the rocket fire on our country last week, that people were ready for the Israeli Army to enter Gaza and wipe Hamas out. Reservists expressed frustration, others said that we needed to get the job done. People were critical of the Israeli government for not putting an end to it in a decisive manner.

But look at the facts: a ground invasion would surely have cost lives including those of innocent civilians and our own soldiers. How many lives would have been lost to “teach them a lesson”?

But suppose Hamas is not a cancer. Suppose it is, instead, herpes. Herpes is forever. It erupts, it causes pain, we treat the symptoms, and then we are free of the symptoms for a long period. Oh, maybe it’s not long enough, but every time it erupts, we do what we need to do in order to eliminate the pain.

Perhaps someday our enemies will figure out that we are not going anywhere. Maybe they will understand that they will not provoke us into being savages. Maybe they even will figure out that building a society is a more worthwhile endeavor than creating a culture of hate. But until then, we will treat the virus whenever if rears its ugly head.

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To B- or not to B-

March 13, 2012 by

This week should be a very happy one. Our wonderful grandson, Yehuda, will be celebrating his becoming a Bar Mitzvah this coming shabbat. He has worked very hard, learning to chant two full torah portions (it’s a combined reading) and a special maftir and his haftarah- quite an accomplishment for a boy of 13. We have been looking forward to spending a happy, peaceful shabbat, the whole family together, at kibbutz Ein Tzurim.

So what’s the problem? Well, for about a week, the people who wanted Gaza to themselves, the ones for whom we uprooted thousands of Jews from their homes, have been firing rockets at our cities and communities that are within firing range of Gaza. They are aiming for our civilian population- firing, hiding behind their own children, safe in the knowledge that we will not target the innocent.

On Ein Tzurim, there have been sirens and people have run to shelters.

So what do we do?

Oh, I know. Both sides should show restraint. Thanks, world.

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Sisters 3

February 28, 2012 by

This is my third post about sisters.

There was this one https://drsavta.com/wordpress/2007/07/23/sisters/

and this one https://drsavta.com/wordpress/2009/10/07/sisters-2/

because to me, this relationship is very special.

If  you have been reading my blog, you probably know that in December, my sister finally made aliya.  After over 45 years of living very far away, my sister is a 5 minute car ride away.  I can bump into her at the mall, we can see a movie together, and we can sit and talk about things that no one understands the way we do.

When she was far away, we kept in touch.  She was great about making sure to visit no matter where we were living.  She was present at most of the important times in my life.  I appreciated her and loved her.

But now, I know what a wonderful thing it is to have her here, nearby, and to not have to think about when her flight home leaves.  She is home.

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Aliya: a feline perspective

December 21, 2011 by

This is a guest post by my sister’s animal companion, Roxy who made aliya yesterday (as told to her publicist Ben Michelson).
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It took some doing but I finally convinced my person, Vicki, to make Aliya.

Even though the dog next to me, H.G. Clipper, stank a bit, my flight really wasn’t so bad. I don’t think I’ll fly ELAL any more though. They offered me neither a window nor an aisle seat. The entertainment system did not work the entire flight and there was a dearth of reading material. Fortunately Clipper didn’t snore too loudly, and I spent most of the flight cat-napping.

I was pleased that my fans came to greet me at the airport. Fortunately, I had a box to protect me from the mobs.

When I arrived at my new domicile, all I wanted to do was rest. Unfortunately, Vicki had different plans and invited my fans for a party. I let them have their fun downstairs. I am after all a creature of the night. Vicki did come upstairs during the party, eager to play hide-and-seek. I’m not sure why she still enjoys playing this game. In any case, I let her win the first round, but when I saw that she wanted to continue playing, I did not let her win the second round. I was able to avoid detection sufficiently long to send people hunting me not only in the apartment, but up and down the stairwell, and out on the street as well as calling the local veterinary service and alerting them to my disappearance. Only the tempting aroma of an aliya treat sent over by the man at the pet store lured me out of my hiding place behind the bed.

Some of the locals from outside paid me a call yesterday. I am not a racist, but some of these cats are absolutely feral. I greeted them politely nonetheless, though I’m still working on my voiced uvular fricative.

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Ten reasons why it’s better to make Aliya in 2011 than in 1984

December 19, 2011 by

This is a guest post, written by my son Ben in honor of my sister’s aliya tomorrow!!!!!

Ben arrived in Israel in 1984, a day before his 17th birthday.

 

Telephones

 

  • Cellphone networks did not exists in 1984
  • In 1984, getting a landline phone installed in your house took months, and in some cases took up to 10 years.
  • In 1984, payphones were often out of order. They worked only on telephone tokens.
  • In 1984, if you wanted to make an international call, and didn’t have a phone in your home you had to either call collect or go the telephone room in the central post office. There you paid about $2/minute and the post office took an extra 8% cut. They explained it this way, “Every minute is five seconds less.” This meant that you paid for a minute, but only got 55 seconds.

 

Inflation

 

Aug 1984 – 14%

Sep 1984 – 18%

Oct 1984 – 19%

Nov 1984 – 16%

Dec 1984 – 4%

 

 

2011 – 2.5%

 

Email

 

In 1984, Email was available only to university staff and people who took university courses requiring use of a computer. Businesses used Telex’s. (Faxes were not in widespread use until the 90s.)

 

Public busses

 

In 1984, only express bus lines were air-conditioned.

 

Television

 

In 1984, there was one Israeli channel. In many parts of Jerusalem, you could watch Jordan TV. At high altitudes you could also receive Middle-east TV from Lebanon. Cable and satellite television service was not available. Importing a satellite dish large enough to receive American television was illegal.

 

Israeli Currency

 

Towards the end of 1984, the largest denomination bill was worth only $3.50. My friend’s father bought a Volvo in 1984 with a duffle-bag full of bills.

 

Foreign Currency

 

In 1984, it was illegal to change Shekels outside of banks. It was illegal for Israelis to own foreign currency except for traveling outside the country. (Yitzchak Rabin was ousted from his position as Prime Minister for breaking this law.) Everyone I knew bought shekels only on the black market.

 

Hi-Tech business sector

 

Did not exist in 1984

 

Modiin

 

Did not exist in 1984.

 

Travel Tax

 

In 1984, Israeli citizens had to pay $100 tax in order to leave the country

 

Food

 

In 1984, ketchup was watery with red food coloring

In 1984, the only mustard available was actually mustard flavored mayonnaise

In 1984, the only chocolate available was Elite (whose factory was inRamat Gan)

In 1984, low fat cottage cheese was unavailable

In 1984, fresh baguettes were unavailable

In 1984, supermarkets did not bake bread and pastries

In 1984, bagels were unavailable

 

 

Ben             .

19 Dec 2011

Filed Under: Family life, Israel Tagged With: ,

Mixed up

December 7, 2011 by

Today I had a most pleasant experience. I taught my first class in a program to train marriage counselors. I left Modi’in for Jerusalem early in the morning, missing breakfast, to avoid rush hour traffic. I had not yet met any of the students and was pleased to find a room full of interesting, bright, and versatile women. What a pleasure it was to meet them! I look forward to spending time with them in the weeks and months ahead.

After three hours of teaching, I headed back home to Modi’in and on the way, passed a sign that looked like this:

I must have been hungry, because a quick glance had me thinking that instead of Magen David, it said “Haagen Daz.”

But I’m not the only one who’s mixed up. The International Red Cross has made Magen David Adom drop its six pointed star and instead adopt a red “crystal” as its symbol when appearing outside of the country’s green line so as to not offend the Palestinians. You figure out the logic to that!

Filed Under: Israel, Ramblings Tagged With: ,

Thanksgiving 2011

November 25, 2011 by

I will spare you the usual blah-blah of how wonderful my family is and how amazingly great it is when we adults all get together and tell you instead about the good things that have happened recently and wonderful things to look forward to that make me really thankful.

We recently returned from a trip to the US. In a few weeks time my sister, the last member of my immediate family not yet living in Israel, will be coming to Israel to live. All of us are very very excited. I will finally have my sister nearby after 45 years of living varying long distances from each other (all my fault… she stayed in the same place while I roamed planet Earth.) I wanted to go and be with her to visit some of the places we shared, to reminisce, and for me to say goodbye to Philadelphia, the city where I was born, where I grew up, and where I got my education. It is unlikely I will visit there again.

When we drove up to the house we used to live in, we were surprised to find the woman who had bought it from my mother out on the lawn. She was friendly and chatty and we enjoyed speaking with her. My sister pointed out that the “new” owners had lived in the house about as long as we had.

We enjoyed walking in the downtown area. I loved seeing my cousins and hearing about their lives.

I even enjoyed the antics of a future Israeli immigrant

There’s more to tell about the trip, but that’s a small taste of some things that made me happy with the promise of more to come!

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What can we say?

October 16, 2011 by

From the moment that Gilad Shalit was kidnapped I have felt enormous compassion for him and for his family. Able to put myself in another’s place in my imagination, his parents’ place was one I chose not to visit because the pain would be so overwhelming. He is an innocent young man unlucky enough to have been in the wrong place at the wrong time. His parents have been living a nightmare. Who among us does not want to see him home safe and sound?

But the price…

Those of us who have been living in Israel remember those horrific days of the second intifada when on at least a weekly, sometimes daily basis, innocent people going about their business were murdered on the streets, in buses and restaurants and hotels and catering halls. I was afraid to turn on the radio, fearing another attack. I would come out of my class that I taught on Sunday mornings, and several weeks in a row, the car radio would tell me how many innocents had been murdered that morning. Literally every person in Israel knew at least one terror victim- many of us know several families who lost family members.

And now, Israel has acceded to the Hamas requests to release murderers who were responsible for these http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/148780#.TpqdBZsUqdA. And they are unrepentant. They are not ashamed to say they would do it again. They will be received as heroes. They will inspire and school others.

So we will have convicted terrorists back out where they can act and have emboldened their protege’s who won’t mind spending a few years in an Israeli prison if it means they are able to kill Jews. After all, all that has to happen is that terrorists kidnap one soldier and they’ll be out again eventually.

What would we say to the Shalit family if we chose not to make this deal? A difficult question.

But here’s a more difficult one: what will we say to all of the families who G-d forbid, will lose their loved ones as a result of this decision?

G-d help us!

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Boom!

July 26, 2011 by

Yesterday, I was taking my daughter and her children home to their home in Modiin. She lives on a street that is more like a boulevard that has the traffic in either direction separated by parks, a school, and a shopping center– in between the two directions so that each direction of traffic is on the equivalent of a one way street. Each side has two lanes for traffic and a third lane where there is parking.

I had parked in a parking space. I looked out of my side view mirror and saw there was no traffic, so I got out of the car. I then went to the back door of the car to unlatch and get my 2 year old grandson out of his car seat (his sister was in a car seat on the other side). I once again looked to see there was no traffic and opened the passenger door and leaned in to unhook him.

Suddenly I heard a large bang. I saw debris on the street and then I realized that it was not from my car, but from a car that had hit my car. I noted that there was no other traffic on the street, including the left lane, the entire time from when I initially got out of my car until after the other driver had gotten out of his car after he hit my car.

My first reaction was disbelief.

I gathered up the debris which turned out to be pieces of his car mirror that had flown off after the impact.

The man stopped some distance in front of my car and got out of his car. He seemed dazed. I believe he was carrying a cell phone. I handed him the parts of his mirror that I had gathered up and noticed that his car had scratches in a line from about the front of the front door back.

We exchanged information and he told me that I should not have been in the street. He said he was in a hurry and would call me later.

When he left, I got my grandson out and gave him to my daughter who took him and her daughter to her house.

I tried to close my left-hand passenger door, but it would not close. I saw that in addition to the curved area at the edge of the door, it had another dent toward the front and it was jammed under the driver’s door.

I decided to drive home which was about 6 blocks away. Then we called the insurance office for further instructions.

My husband took the car to the Toyota dealer and after he had returned, the man who hit me called me to ask for insurance information which I gave him. He tried to tell me that I should not have been in the street. I did not argue with him.

About an hour later, we received a call from a “private number” from a man who said he was calling on behalf of the driver. I believe it was a different voice. He was talking very fast and sounded very angry and I was scared so I put my husband on the phone. He asked my husband repeatedly for our address. My husband told him that the vehicle was not here. He still badgered him for the address. My husband did not give it to him. He told my husband he was going to report me to the police. He continued talking and finally my husband hung up. He has not called back, but we both found the call very upsetting.

I have a few responses to the whole incident:

1. I am grateful that I was not killed. I imagine the space between me and death was only a single number of inches.

2. I am even more grateful that my grandson was still safely belted into his seat and that he wasn’t hurt (or even traumatized!)

3. I think that people should look where they are driving. I believe that the person behind the wheel has a responsibility to look in front of his/her car to avoid hitting other cars or people.

4. I resent that I, the victim, have to be defensive. The man at the car dealer told my husband that people are not supposed to get out on the street side of the car. Virtually every car in this country has bucket seats. I don’t recall ever seeing a driver enter or exit an accessible vehicle from the passenger seat.

5. If the car door police do come and get me, I hope they put me into a Norwegian jail.

Filed Under: Family life, Ramblings Tagged With: , ,
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