Happy Happy Holidays!!

אַחַת שָׁאַלְתִּי מֵאֵת ה' אוֹתָהּ אֲבַקֵּשׁ שִׁבְתִּי בְּבֵית ה' כָּל יְמֵי חַיַּי לַחֲזוֹת בְּנֹעַם ה' וּלְבַקֵּר בְּהֵיכָלוֹ:

“One thing I asked of Gd, that shall I seek: That I dwell in the house of Gd all the days of my life; to behold the sweetness of Gd and to contemplate in His sanctuary.”  (Psalms. 27:4)

I once wanted to become an atheist, but I gave up. They have no holidays

Henny Youngman

It is the holiday season in Israel. Every year, for a month, the usual hectic pace of life slows down. The motto here in the HolyLand at this time of year is “Acharei HaChagim” – after the holidays. Nothing happens until after the holidays.

The school year has started, but, until acharei hachagim, serious studying does not truly begin.

Extra-curricular activities, evening classes, and University studies only begin acharei hachagim.

Home projects, redecorations, and many major purchases are postponed until acharei hachagim.

At work, when I asked for a new black pen, I was told that office supplies would come in only acharei hachagim. I used a yellow marker to write a memo and received a lovely reply in Crayola Periwinkle.

In recent years, this trend of postponing events until after the holidays has gained momentum.

I even heard that the IDF has requested that Syria refrain from attacking till the beginning of October. I cannot confirm this, but it seems reasonable.

So what is everyone doing if everything is pushed off until acharei hachagim?

Shopping.

Stores are full of holiday shoppers buying essentials for the holidays: pomegranates, sheep heads, and Christmas decorations.

Pomegranates

613 mitzvot



Pomegranates are one of the seven fruits of Land of Israel that are mentioned in the Torah. [The other six, just for edification are: wheat, barley, grapes (for wine), figs, olives (for oil) and dates (for honey. And yes, I know, the first two aren’t really fruits, don’t be pedantic.] Pomegranates ripen in the early autumn, and it is customary to eat them on Rosh HaShana. It is said that the pomegranate has 613 seeds, the same number as there are mitzvot, and we eat of the fruit as a symbol of our desire to have the ability to perform the mitzvot.

There are a million different recipes for pomegranates; salads, chicken, juice, even liqueur. This is what I do with pomegranates: I wash them off my clothes. Hence, I also have the need for stain remover as pomegranates stain something terrible. As a matter of fact, pomegranate juice can be used instead of a Crayola when you can’t find a real pen though pomegranate is not actually a Crayola name.

It ought to be.

Sheep heads
The Rosh in Rosh HaShana means head, therefore it is logical that there is a custom to eat a head of an animal on Rosh HaShana. We ask to be the like the head and not the tail (שנהיה לראש ולא לזנב) i.e., thinking not wagging…The majority of families who keep this quaint custom usually suffice with a fish head. That, in my opinion, is gross enough. As an avid and religious non-eater of fish, I refuse to have the stuff in my house. Instead, my family eats gummy sharks (see last year’s blog). This year, however, my son decided he really needed help in not being a tail (believe me, he doesn’t wag nearly enough to be mistaken for a tail) and he went out and bought and prepared a big fat salmon head, and then surprised me with it. I surprised him by vomiting all over the kitchen floor. Well, not really, but it was close.




A ram complete with Shofar

Fish head

There are some families for whom partaking of a fish head is for sissys. These heroic households will partake of nothing less than a sheep or – more accurately – a ram’s head.  This is to symbolize the shofar, which is made from a ram’s horn. But full-grown rams are apparently hard to find, so a male lamb’s head is used instead.





I mean really, a lamb’s head?  Images of Bo-Peep arise

And where does one procure a lamb head? Perhaps more importantly, who is the grisly executioner who beheads the little lambs?

Sheep are not widely raised in Israel, and it is for milk products rather than meat, so I don’t have a clue where the heads come from. I do know that, right before the holiday, I was unhappily jolted to find boxed heads of lamb in the supermarket – next to cow’s tongue, appropriately enough. The boxes were surprisingly small – certainly the shofar doesn’t fit in there – and seemingly smaller than a salmon head (which is a quite large fish. How does it fit into one of those little cans?).

I’m sticking with gummy sharks.

Christmas Decorations
Rosh HaShana and Yom Kippur are by far the most famous of the Jewish holidays, followed at a bit of a distance by Pesach/Passover. I contend that this is because of the part food plays in the celebrations, or lack of food in the case of Yom Kippur. Nevertheless, the festival of Sukkot, which comes five days after Yom Kippur, is every bit as important as Pesach (despite being told in my youth by a car-pooling mother who resented having to pick us up early from school on Erev Sukkot that it’s not a real holiday. People don’t go to shul. “Well”, I replied then, “you can”). The emphasis of Sukkot is the Sukkah, a small temporary structure built outside the home made of, well, whatever you want; wood, cloth, bricks, cement, fiberglass. Once, we were out on a tiyul with another family and built a sukkah by lining up the two cars and throwing some branches on top of them because it’s the roof that’s the important part. Called schach, the roof must be made from anything that grew from the ground, but is now detached. Branches and large leaves can be woven together to make a roof or you can simply buy a bamboo covering. Live branches still attached to a tree are not allowed. See here for more info from Chabad on how to build a Sukkah.

However you made your sukkah, one is required to dwell in it for the seven days (eight days outside of Israel HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA) of the holiday. Dwell means eat and sleep, but, being Jewish, really it means eating. Unlike every single other Jewish holiday, there are no customary foods to eat on Sukkot, though we try and eat some of in-season fruits of Israel. We also are able to ingest dust that falls from the schach (and in the years that it rains during Sukkot – not often thankfully, here in the Land – we get to eat actual mud), ditto bits of branches and leaves, the odd insect or two (more serious, as insects aren’t kosher), and tinsel.   

An integral part of the Sukkah is the decorations. And this is where tinsel comes in. In the last few decades, Israeli culture has become more and more global. Where once the family Sukkah was decorated by the children of the family with handmade crooked chains made by cutting out bits of paper and pictures draw in nursery school and lovingly kept from year to year, now it seems to be mandatory to decorate your sukkah with commercial (imported) decorations. Booths selling sukkah decorations spring up all over town in the week before the holiday. Tinsel if by far and away the most popular, with a close second being blinking multi-colored lights. I’ve also seen candy canes, green and red miniature trees and angels, but these are not particular popular, only amongst the population who really don’t have a clue.

On sale

It is a might disconcerting to enter a sukkah and see tinsel and blinking lights hanging from the roof and walls of the sukkah. But it does make it sparkle! I find that most Israelis associate tinsel with Sukkot rather than a different religion’s holidays so there is nothing not kosher about it. It just takes time to get used to the idea. Our family, instead, decorates our sukkah with flowers, pictures of different places in Israel and dishtowels with funny pictures—a recipe for rabbit stew, marmite, and different recipe for haggis, which, I suppose, is made up of the leftovers after you’ve had the sheep’s head.

There are other things that one needs to shop for during the festival season; white clothes for prayer services on Yom Kippur, the Four Species needed for Sukkot, and, of course, ever more food.

There’s enough to keep us occupied till acharei hachagim, when things get back to what passes for normal around here.

Then we’ll worry about gas masks.

Wishing all of Am Yisrael a joyous, meaningful, healthy, holiday season!

Food for thought

When a Jew eats a chicken, one of them is sick

Tevye der milkhiker (Sholom Aleichem)

Rosh HaShana literally means the head of the year, or the beginning of the year. In the Torah, the holiday is not called Rosh HaShana, but Zichron Teruah [a memorial by way of blasting (trumpets/shofars)]. It is also known as Yom HaZikaron (Day of Remembrance). It is the day on which, according to Jewish belief, Adam and Eve were created. More significantly, it is the day that the world is judged by G-d according to its actions of the previous year. After a month of introspection, Jews turn to G-d in repentance and seek mercy – for him/herself, for all of the People of Israel, and for the world. Teshuva, tefilla, and tzdaka (translated inaccurately as repentance, prayer, and charity) will, we believe, avert ‘evil’ decrees.

Chicken soup doesn’t hurt either.

We say that Rosh HaShana is a spiritual holiday, that the sounding of the shofar brings us to higher levels of the divine, that true prayers, true repentance, and true charity will bring goodness to the Land and to the People of Israel. All this is true. I deeply believe it.

But let’s face it. Rosh HaShana, like all Jewish holidays (with the notable exception of Yom Kippur) is about the food. Ask any Jewish mother.

When I was growing up in the Old Country, my mother would host about 15-25 people for the two nights of Rosh HaShana. She would start the meal with gefilte fish/chopped liver, continue on with chicken soup, and then the main course of four different kinds of meat (including an enormous turkey, veal, sometimes tongue, and boring old chicken – which was neither boring nor old); either potato knishes or potato blintzes (depending on time limitations); and always, always!!! there was a Jello mold.

A Jello Mold







The meal ended with 13 different kinds of cakes, pies, and cookies. And fruit compote.

My mother would work for a month preparing all these fancy dishes. And of course, it was all served on her really-good-china-dishes-she-bought-when-she-got-married-which-were-on-sale-and-were-such-a-bargain-she-couldn’t-pass-it-up. They had to be hand washed. And stacked with pieces of foam between each dish. And guests were not allowed to touch them.

Not me, I would tell myself. In my home, I’m not going to go so crazy. No turkey, no veal, no knishes. That’s way too much like work!!! Who needs all this food??

Living in Israel helps me keep to my word. Whole turkeys are hard to find. Veal is ridiculously expensive. I don’t know how to make knishes.

So all I made for this holiday was:

*        One humongous pot of chicken soup

*        Six chickens

*        Two kilos of meatballs

*        Two and a half kilos of chicken breasts (schnitzel)

*        Two kilos of ‘buffalo’ wings

*        Six kugels

*        Five kilos of potatoes in various forms

*        Various vegetable side dishes including, but not limited to, tzimmes, cabbage, ratatouille, roasted vegetables, fried eggplant, and green beans almondine.

*        Three liters of ice cream

*        Three pies and two cakes

You see!!! I did it!! NO JELLO MOLD!! And no fruit compote.

I almost made a lemon meringue pie, but thought to myself “you promised you wouldn’t go crazy”, so I didn’t.

And my good dishes (the four dinner plates that are left of them after 20 years) DON’T have to be stacked with foam in between.

And it only took me three weeks – not four like my mother.

(Also, of course, my mother’s meals tasted about 700 times better than mine, but hey, nobody’s perfect.)

Of course, the fact that less than a quarter actually got eaten; that the freezers are groaning in protest; that I have enough food for the next six Jewish holidays; that if Syria should attack (chas v’chalila) there would be no food shortage in OUR house for about 3 months is not my fault.

Nobody ate enough. I don’t quite understand why people stopped eating well before their stomachs actually burst open… I don’t even think they had to open their pants button. One person loosened their belt, but only one notch.

I mean, is this Jewish??

I have vivid memories of guests at my mother’s house, sprawled across the couch, eyes glassy, tongues hanging out, belts and pants wide open. That’s how it should be! Not this namby-pamby “Oh, I’ve had enough thank you! Everything was delicious, but really, I don’t want any pie that you went especially to the shuk for to pick out the best apples.”

Ok ok, so people are smarter and healthier today than in my mother’s hey-day of cooking and eating extravaganzas.

Does that make them better Jews?

Certainly, my freezer doesn’t think so.

Next year, I’m sticking to salads and parsley. That’ll show ‘em.

Next year's Rosh HaShana's meals

And maybe a jello mold or two.

Wishing all of Am Yisrael a Shana Tova U’Metuka filled with only goodness and sweetness in all forms!!

  





Cookies, Elul, and G-d

“Teshuvah – repentance – does not come to embitter life but to sweeten it.”

HaRav Avraham Yitzchak HaKohen Kook

A few days ago, trying to get a jump start on Rosh Hashanah (the Jewish New Year) cooking, I found myself scraping cookies off  the baking pan, as, for some inexplicable reason, they had flattened out to such an extent that they had the width of nano-cookies.  The recipe had been one of my mother’s, and I had loved them as a kid. My mother, obviously, made them perfectly.

My mother does most things perfectly, except, apparently, teach me how to make pineapple chocolate chip cookies. We've had our differences, obviously, over the years. She still hasn't figured out why I live in Israel, and is calmly waiting for the phase I’m going through to pass.

But my mother is the quintessential homemaker – unlike me, who just pretends.

Which brings me back to Rosh Hashanah cooking.

I hate cooking. I didn't always. I used to enjoy looking through cookbooks, trying out new recipes, and waiting for reactions (i.e., compliments). It took me several years to understand that a) the kids didn't eat anything; b) the husband eats anything; and c) I’m not a very good cook.

So now, I cook what I like. Which is pineapple-chocolate-chip cookies. See c) above.

Taking me a long time to learn my mistakes got me to thinking about the subject of Teshuva. 

  

We are just past the halfway mark of the Jewish month of Elul, which is the month that leads up to Rosh HaShana.

The letters of the Hebrew month Elul are aleph (א), Lamed (ל), Vav (ו) and Lamed again. There is a tradition that these letters stand for Ani L'Dodi V'Dodi Li" אני לדודי ודודי לי [I am my beloved’s and my beloved is mine – a reference to the relationship between G-d and the Jews (Song of Songs 6:3)].

It is believed that during the month of Elul, G-d is more accessible, more reachable, than the other months of the year. "Seek the Lord while He may be found, call upon him while he is near".[Isaiah 55:6]

According to this Chabad Websiteit is “the month of divine mercy and forgiveness…, the most opportune time for teshuva (“return” to G‑d), prayer, charity, and increased ahavat Yisrael (love for a fellow Jew), in the quest for self-improvement and coming closer to G‑d.”

According to Jewish tradition, it is incumbent upon Jews to do teshuva during the month of Elul.

While teshuva is usually translated as ‘repentance’, Chabad translates the word teshuva as a return to G-d, which is far more correct.

Dictionary.com defines repentance thus: 

re·pent·ance

rɪˈpɛntns, -ˈpɛntəns/ [ri-pen-tns, -pen-tuhns]

noun

1. deep sorrow, compunction, or contrition for a past sin, wrongdoing, or the like.

2. regret for any past action.

The word ‘repentance’ has strong Christian connotations.

Which brings me to this story:

The Baptist Church decided to restore its biggest building and Joe was hired for the painting job. He bought the paint, but because the church was so large, he had underestimated how much paint he would need so he thinned the paint with turpentine to make it go further. It took Joe three days to paint the inside of the Church. On the third day, the job nearly completed, there was suddenly a clap of thunder. The sky opened, and the rain poured down. Lightening flashed, and split the roof of the church. The lightening hit Joe and he fell from the scaffold, landing outside among the gravestones. Joe opened his eyes and looked up at the heavens and cried, "Oh, God, forgive me; what should I do?" And from above, a mighty voice roared: “Repaint! Repaint! And thin no more!"

But I digress.

I like the Chabad’s translation far better.

The idea of teshuvah is not just to admit your sins. It’s not enough to say, “yep, I robbed, plundered, coveted my neighbor’s car, and ate ham. I’ll try not to do it again.” That’s repentance.

The act of teshuva is to examine your past behavior and to understand your weaknesses, your faults, and your foibles, and to move to improve them.

(Isn’t foibles a great word? Last week, my husband used it –“One of my foibles is to….”, and I answered, “Foibles!!! What a great word! I have no idea what it means, so obviously I don’t have any!” One of MY foibles is to deny I have any foibles, the recognition of which is part of the process of teshuva.)

Indeed, I would think that Judaism is the only religion where it is mandatory annually to self-examine oneself and seek to improve oneself, in your actions, your thoughts, your love of others; to define and isolate your weaknesses, and recognize and further intensify your strengths.

The idea is to do more of what’s good; give more charity (even 1 NIS more), do more kind deeds (smile more, say please and thank you and excuse me, give hugs), listen to others (stop talking on the phone when someone is talking to you, show interest and remember what others tell you); and do less of what’s bad (try not to yell at your kid, don’t interrupt, stop procrastinating [there’s one of my pet foibles! – I’ll do it tomorrow]).

But the first step is to recognize within you your negatives and positives. For me, that’s the hardest part. Negatives are comparatively easy (lose my temper, too sensitive to others’ silly remarks, at times lazy, TERRIBLE housekeeper, procrastinate [notice I left that for last?]). So I try and work on that; I’ll only yell at a kid for three sentences and not whole paragraphs or chapters. I try not to take silly remarks to heart; I’m getting off the couch really; I’ll do the ironing maybe tomorrow. OK, so the last two still need lots of work.

And I must call my mother more often.

I have far more trouble finding my strengths and recognizing them and increasing them. It’s seems to be easier admitting my failures than my achievements. Except when I make a pretty darn good lemon meringue pie; that I brag about. But I’m not sure that’s what counts…. And anyway the bragging part ruins it all….

In essence, teshuva is hard work. But at the end of the day, it’s an invaluable tool to help us improve our lives and the lives of our loved ones and bring us closer to godliness. Teshuva is one of G-d’s gifts to humankind.

Like cookies, teshuva sweetens the soul. 

Teshuva returns us to G-d.

"The Holy One, blessed be His name, said to Elijah, 'Behold, the precious gift which I have bestowed on my world: though a man sins again and again, but returns in penitence, I will receive him." (Jerusalem Talmud Sanhedrin 28b).

Great is teshuva: it brings healing into the world"; "it reaches to the throne of the Lord";[Hosea 14:2,5]

"it (teshuva) brings redemption";[Isaiah 59:20]

"it (teshuva) prolongs man's life";[Ezekiel 18:21 and Talmud Yoma 86a).

Sincere (teshuva) is equivalent to the rebuilding of the Temple, the restoration of the altar, and the offering of all the sacrifices. ^{(Talmud  Sanhedrin 43b)}

In Judasim, there are two types of mitzvahs: those between man and G-d and those between man and man. During the month of Elul, we concentrate on those mitzvahs between man and man that need strengthening, slander, gossip, and bearing false witness (lying) are examples of commonplace and persistant sins of which almost all of us are guilty.

As Elul progresses, we change our introspection from internal to external, so that by Rosh HaShana, cleasned of our personal sins, on the path of personal good behaviour, we ask forgiveness for the transgressions we have committed as a nation. We ask forgiveness for the sins of others, because we are responsible for each other.

What other nation has this notion of national responsibility? What a blessing to be among such a people!

In the words of HaRav Avraham Yitzchak HaKohen Kook from his book The Teshuvah of Rosh HaShanah:

The mouth of the shofar is narrow, and then it grows broader. This alludes to the path of teshuvah. As the Rambam explains, first, there is individual teshuvah, and then a general teshuvah. The first is an introduction to the latter.  That is to say, the teshuvah of the month of Elul is an introduction to the teshuvah of Rosh Hashanah. 

In Elul, we are engaged in personal teshuvah.  But on Rosh Hashanah we rise to the level of the desire of teshuvah not only for the entire nation—”recite the malchiyot before Me in order to coronate me over you” (Rosh Hashanah 16a)—but for the entire world: “Rule over the entire world in Your glory.”

 Wishing everyone a productive month of Elul, and a sweet and joyous New Year – full of pineapple-chocolate-chip cookies!

Rabbi Akiva's Laughter

Should I weep in the fifth month [Av], separating myself, as I have done these so many years?

Zechariah 7:3

Now that the heat of the summer has set in, it’s time to take stock of this past winter.

It’s been a hard winter.

It started with a war. More than 1500 missiles were launched against Israel, 176 on Beer Sheva. My two sons were called up to fight. My youngest son’s dormitory room was bombed. I was afraid to go outside.

A month after the war ended, my daughter-in-law went into early labor, and gave birth to a boy. He weighed less than 2 kg (about 4 lbs). She gave birth in Jerusalem, right at the beginning of the worst snowstorm the city has seen in years, if not decades. We couldn't go visit. We couldn't help. I worried myself sick.

A month after that, my daughter became Bat Mitzvah. It was so much work. I fed the freezer for a month, not to mention cleaning and putting in order our basement so people could sleep there.

A month after that was Pesach. Again the hordes came to visit and be fed. By the time Pesach was over, I was so tired, I didn’t even have the energy to cry.

During all this, my soldier son was stationed in RamAllah, then Gaza, back to RamAllah, then up to the Syrian border where he is now watching from above the fireworks and the slaughter taking place below.  

My youngest child was getting picked on in school.

My youngest son was having a hard time adjusting to life after high school.

I think I got about 5 hours of sleep in 6 months.

But now that I’m thinking about it , there were some good – even amazing –  moments during this past winter.

It started with a war. 176 missiles were shot into Beer Sheva with no fatalities. We were blessed with friends and family who called, wrote, and messaged their support and love. Most importantly, we were privileged to be witnesses to an endless stream of G-d’s miracles; missiles that landed in empty fields, on empty houses (and empty dormitories), outside of town, or were shot down by the Iron Dome. And we were privileged and blessed to have sons protecting us.

A month after the war ended, my daughter-in-law went into early labor, and gave birth to a boy. He weighed less than 2 kg (about 4 lbs). She gave birth in Jerusalem, right at the beginning of the worst snowstorm the city has seen in years, if not decades. We were not only blessed with winter rains to fill up our lakes and underground aquifers, our rivers and streams, and water our gardens and trees, we were also blessed with a beautiful, healthy (albeit small) baby with blue eyes and a terrific smile. He took my breath away from the very first second we saw him. His brit milah and pidyon haben were on the same day, and the family gathered together for the two simchas at the same time. What a glorious day that was! Blue skies and my laundry finally dried.  

Two weeks after the brit/pidyon haben, my daughter became Bat Mitzvah. I had fed the freezer for a month, so there wasn't much cooking to do at the end. The family came together to celebrate, including grandparents and an aunt from abroad. My daughter was beautiful; my other kids got together to make her a video she’ll never forget, and even the food came out OK. (The freezer groaned in relief afterwards.)

By the time Pesach came, a month later, the freezer was restocked, the house was clean and again we able to host family members and visitors from abroad. My kids were privileged, again, to celebrate the holiday with their grandparents.

In the midst of all this, I was aware of being blessed by having:
A son who is serving his country with pride, courage, and love;

A daughter who graduated elementary school and is very excited about commuting to a different town for junior high;

A son who spent a year learning Torah and making new friends;

Another daughter who has completed a diploma – with honors – in architecture and is planning on studying for a Masters in urban planning;

Another son and daughter-in-law who have just moved back to town with the most gorgeous baby in Beer Sheva. 

What exactly was I complaining about?

When the architect daughter was about three or four years old, I remember taking her and her baby brother for a walk. As we passed a patch of weed-choked ground, I remember thinking “someone should do something about all these thistles and weeds. It’s unsightly”. My amazing daughter, however, said to me, “Mom!!! Look at all the flowers!!”

Rosh Chodesh MenachemAv, which begins tonight, is the only Rosh Chodesh on which one is allowed to fast. It is the only time in the year that one can say Hallel and fast. This is because, while the other eleven Rosh Chodesh are considered  festive days, Rosh Chodesh Av ushers in the ‘Nine Days’ culminating in Tisha B’Av when we commemorate and mourn the destruction of our Holy Temples, the first by the Babylonians and the second by the Romans.

Rosh Chodesh Av, like our lives, is a dichotomy. Do we celebrate, or do we mourn? Can’t we do both?

How hard is it to do both?? Without feeling guilty about one or the other?

Plenty hard.

After my daughter pointed out the flowers, it was hard to see the weeds for what they were; weeds that were killing the grass. And the weeds had to be taken care of – even as we enjoyed the flowers.

I’m never going to pretend that during this past winter I never worried, or never cried, or never felt unappreciated. I’m not going to claim to have slept well. There was a war. My boys were in danger. My daughter cried at school. The dishes never ended!!

But the blessings and the miracles were there too. It’s up to us to recognize them, and to celebrate them.

Again it happened that Rabban Gamliel, Rabbi Elazar ben Azaria, Rabbi Joshuaand Rabbi Akiva went up to Jerusalem. When they reached Mt. Scopus, they tore their garments. When they reached the Temple Mount, they saw a fox emerging from the place of the Holy of Holies. The others started weeping; Rabbi Akiva laughed.

Said they to him: "Why are you laughing?"

Said he to them: "Why are you weeping?"

Said they to him: "A place [so holy] that it is said of it, 'the stranger that approaches it shall die, and now foxes traverse it, and we shouldn't weep?"

Said he to them: "That is why I laugh. For it is written, 'I shall have bear witness for Me faithful witnesses--Uriah the Priest and Zechariah the son of Jeberechiah.' Now what is the connection between Uriah and Zechariah? Uriah was [in the time of] the First Temple, and Zechariah was [in the time of] the Second Temple! But the Torah makes Zachariah's prophecy dependent upon Uriah's prophecy. With Uriah, it is written: 'Therefore, because of you, Zion shall be plowed as a field; [Jerusalem shall become heaps, and the Temple Mount like the high places of a forest.] With Zachariah it is written, 'Old men and women shall yet sit in the streets of Jerusalem.'

"As long as Uriah's prophecy had not been fulfilled, I feared that Zechariah's prophecy may not be fulfilled either. But now that Uriah's prophecy has been fulfilled, it is certain that Zechariah's prophecy will be fulfilled."

With these words they replied to him: "Akiva, you have consoled us! Akiva, you have consoled us!"

Talmud, Makkot 24b

May we all merit Rabbi Akiva’s laughter and witness, quickly and in our time, the rebuilding of our Holy Temple and the redemption of our people.  

Earn this. Earn it.

When the Lord brought back those that returned to Zion, we were like unto them that dream.

בשוב ה' את שיבת ציון היינו כחולמים

Psalms 126:1

A few nights ago, my mobile phone rang. In itself a relatively rare event, it was even more disturbing as it occurred at 1:30 in the morning. I answered it, even though the screen told me that the number was ‘unknown’. It was, in fact, a prank (not even obscene) phone call, and I closed the phone before the prankster was able to complete his prank. I honestly don’t even know what he had to say. Unfortunately, I was unable to get back to sleep. Only one thought was in my head: Perpetrators of prank phone calls on mothers of Israeli soldiers serving on the Syrian border should be severely punished, possibly boiling them in oil. Slowly.

Soldiers in Israel receive a lot of benefits; free public transport, discounts in restaurants and movies, grants and scholarships, and tons of sympathy and support from the general public. And this is as it should be. As I’ve said before, soldiers, no matter their age, are everyone’s children.

I think mothers of soldiers should receive benefits too, such as discounts on laundry powder and softener, and free counseling services. I think we should get a fun day at the water park, and educational tours of Jerusalem also. It might make up for the extra laundry on Fridays, the money spent on awful snack food, the cakes baked ‘just in case he does come home this weekend’.

Oh, and the need to carry your mobile phone with you 24/6, the lack of concentration, the inability to focus on just about anything, and the sleepless nights.

But it probably wouldn’t.

My kids all roll their eyes at me when, at unpredictable times, I say something like “wow, I miss him” or “I wonder what he’s doing now” or if I – heaven forbid – say to another person “Fred (name changed to protect me – whose son would kill if his name were actually mentioned here) is protecting our country and is serving on the border.”

[For clarity, and so no one gets jealous thinking I’m writing about one and not the other (not that the boys ever read anything here), two of my sons are in the army; one has finished his active service and is in the reserves, and the second is almost finished his active service and then will be in the reserves. My third son is scheduled to begin his active service in a year.]

I really do feel the stress and strain of being a mother of a soldier down to the very marrow of my bones. I’m on edge, I have a shorter attention span (if that can be imagined from my usual microscopic attention span), I rant, I cry at inopportune moments and for no reason at all.

But more than all that, I am absolutely brimming, even overflowing, with pride. It takes all my will-power to restrain myself from prattling on about my soldiers. It’s only because I want to keep my friends and not completely alienate my kids that I don’t. But I wouldn’t turn down a badge to put on my shirt: “My son is a soldier in the IDF! Be nice to me”.

Even more than pride though, every day of my life, I am so filled with humility, gratitude, and awe, it takes my breath away.

Israel’s Day of Remembrance for the Fallen Soldiers of Israel and Victims of Terrorism (יום הזיכרון לחללי מערכות ישראל ולנפגעי פעולות האיבה, Yom Hazikaron), the official national Remembrance Day, was a few weeks ago. On that day, memorial services take place all over the country, special programs and services are given in schools, and television and radio are dedicated to programs on the subject.
There is one channel that, throughout the day, broadcasts the name of each person who fell defending the Land. A name and the date the person fell would be shown for about five seconds and then the picture would switch to the next one. 23,085 people have died defending the Land since 1860 and it takes 24 hours to broadcast the names one by one by one. 

I sat mezmorized watching the names. Sometimes, I would notice that 15 or so people died on the same day. That was a terrorist attack. More than 30 on one day meant a battle had taken place. I sat and watched 23,085 worlds being memorialized. I thought of their parents, their spouses, their sons and daughters.

Jewish days begin at sunset so that directly after Yom HaZikaron, comes Yom HaAtzmaut, Israel’s Independence Day. Because there is no transition between the days, the music and festivities with which that joyous day begins is an extraordinarily jarring experience.

I clicked off the TV – where I had been watching the final and now familiar names being flashed on the screen – at precisely 7:56 PM, fried up some falafel (the national food), and went with my family to see the fireworks (the good kind, not the kind that come out of Gaza) at City Hall.

Tens of thousands of people streamed around the plaza. Glow toys, cotton candy, and beer were being sold. Music blared. I couldn’t help but stand in the midst of this noise boisterousness and bedlam, and experience, yet again, that embarrassing plight of crying at an inopportune moment and for no reason at all, accompanied by those familiar feelings of humility, gratitude, and awe.

Israel is a miracle in progress and I have had the honor and privilege and blessing of being a witness to the progress and the miracles, and I understand the price we have paid, and the sacrifices that have been made to be here.  

As I stood outside the Beer Sheva City Hall – a city that was not included in the original 1947 UN Partition Plan, and whose 2013 population is 40 times bigger today than in 1948, and 1/3 of the entire population of 1948 Israel – trying not to cry, the last words Captain John Miller said to Private Jack Ryan from the movie Saving Private Ryan came into my head.

“Earn this. Earn it”.

I’m trying.