Mitzva Challot (Article #50) 7/19/2007

I wrote several weeks ago about those families who for whatever reason end up going to America after their Aliyah experience didn’t work out for them. These are indeed brave families who were willing to make the hard choice to give up their dream in the hope of providing for the needs of their family, whatever those needs may be. Needs which are of course different for all of us.

When we first talked publicly about the possibility that we would be making Aliyah we heard all about these families. About the uncles, cousins, neighbors or whomever, who had made Aliyah and returned having lost everything and suffered terrible disasters. We heard about all the teenagers who have been “lost” in the difficult transition to Israeli society and how these children’s lives were “ruined” by parents who put them “at risk” in such a thoughtless way.

Yet, we knew that somehow there had to be some people who actually made it work. There had to be people who made Aliyah with teenagers who DIDN’T end up as axe murderers, people who lived a successful life in Israel and might actually have made the right decision.

There is no guarantee in life and we certainly have no clue what lays upon our road ahead. Yet, here we are after a year in Israel and we have happy kids and continue to hope for the best for them here in Israel.

The one who was most set against coming, Chaim, may not be the most thrilled kid in the world, but he is far ahead of where he would have been on his life’s mission than he would have been had we been in NY and (don’t tell him that we know this) he has made a lot of new friends and has grown tremendously in character and maturity this year. We know he is happy with his friends here and that he is adjusting well. And hey – there is no way of knowing what terrible trouble our kids could have gotten into in America as well.

“But the magazines all say” we heard repeatedly, each person telling us of the dangers they had learned of in this weekly or that monthly. Yet life is not lived in the pages of a magazine (although our lives seem to be lived in the pages of this newspaper).

Had life been lived in a magazine we would have given up the first week Goldie was finally diagnosed, when a psychologist from our hospital was quoted in a popular religious weekly as saying that they don’t help lung cancer patients fight their disease, they “prepare them to die.” Goldie was horrified to read those words. Yet, she didn’t give up and we lived our lives and we are here today.

So too, there are so many different influences upon us all. There are so many ways things can go wrong. Yet there are tons of ways things can go right too.

Through the extended kindness of our neighbors and friends in Bet Shemesh, when we first returned from America we went through a period of several weeks where we prepared very few meals for ourselves. Goldie wanted to get right back to doing things for the family, but it was clear that she was not strong enough to put forth the effort to just jump in headfirst.

In a move I will always admire, Daniella Rudoff (who coordinated the meals) refused to stop the meals until I approved it rather than Goldie. In fact, the first time Goldie tried to get them to stop I secretly told Daniella that Goldie wasn’t ready yet.

So it was three or four weeks before Goldie had a chance to prepare any Shabbat meals for our family. I think the first one was the week that Chaim and Aliza were leaving for camp. With all the deliveries of food and baked goods, it was another couple of weeks before we had to actually buy challot on our own.

So we only had a limited opportunity to have what we called the “mitzva challot” of Sderot. For those of you who don’t know, Sderot is the town very close to Gaza that has been constantly shelled by the Arabs for the past couple of years. Since Sderot (at least to the government of Israel) seems to be not important enough to protect from the rockets (not that I would have a clue myself how to protect the town), the rockets rain down on a semi regular basis.

If this were an industrial area or the rockets caused more significant damage we would probably have done something more to clear out the terrorists or build better protection for the people of Sderot. Right now the terrorists have figured out how annoying they can be to us without getting kicked back. (I hope that our tolerance level gets lowered as they need a kick, desperately)

So the people of Sderot have to live in the constant fear that a terrorist will get lucky and have his crude rocket actually hit a person or car with people in it. They have to live with the stress that at any moment yet another threat to their safety and security will come flaming over the horizon to damage their homes, business, schools and community.

As you can guess, many of the residents have fled for “safer” places. Yet, many have remained. They refuse to give in to the terrorists desire to drive us from our homes.

Life for them is difficult. Businesses cannot thrive when significant percentages of their customers flee. Obtaining the basic staples of life can become difficult.

The same group with whom our family went to distribute Pesach treats to the chayalim (Israeli soldiers), Standing Together, stood in to make a difference. They arranged for groups throughout Israel, places like Yerushalayim, Modiin and of course Bet Shemesh to purchase items from the shopkeepers of Sderot.

This effort literally kept these merchants in business, benefiting not only the merchants but also their customers who would have nowhere to shop if these stores had closed. A specific focus was the purchase of hundreds if not thousands of challot (loaves of bread) for Shabbat from a bakery in Sderot.

One of our neighbors, Randi Lipkin served as the local organizer for Bet Shemesh. She collected orders and money and opened her house for pickup of challot on Fridays.

When we finally emptied our freezer we could not wait to order these challot for our Shabbat table. That Friday we described to the kids that we were going to have special mitzva challot for the seuda (Shabbat meal). We told them about the plight of the community of Sderot and of the wonderful mitzva we were finally privileged to be a part of.

The kids’ excitement was so uplifting. They were so happy to be a part of something, even if they didn’t totally understand what was going on. Challa has never tasted as good as that Challa. I have to admit that as far as actual taste goes, it was average. But, we could not wait to eat each slice as we really felt the zechut (merit) of helping the people of Sderot, people who live in circumstances I am not sure that I would be willing to tolerate.

The next week’s seuda was made even more meaningful when Mordechai (age 6) turned to me right after Kiddush and asked, “Abba – DO WE HAVE MITZVA CHALLOT AGAIN THIS WEEK?!?” His joy was even greater than that of his parents as we showed him the specially wrapped challot and our pride in him and in the lesson he learned was overwhelming.

In an effort to try to “spread the wealth” so to speak, the challa project has ended and other forms of support are being organized. Goldie hopes this week to go on a special outing to Sderot, to meet the people, distribute support packages (that were purchased with Tzedaka/charity funds spent in Sderot stores) to those in need and do some shopping in the local supermarket.
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We spent a day last week at the Bituach Leumi (social security) office. When the notice came in the mail it said, “BE PREPARED TO WAIT.”

That was scary. We are always prepared to wait here. If they were actually telling us to wait, they must really have meant business. They did.

We were there for about six hours and saw four different doctors. They were very nice and extremely kind about offering their advice and referral to “the best doctor” who could help Goldie. Then they told us they would get an answer to us in (maybe) two and a half months.

My Yeshiva went on an overnight tiyul to Ashkelon. Since we have Southern Hemisphere students who attend Yeshiva from February through December, we have an extended summer program for them (as well as those Northern Hemisphere students who elect to stay for a few weeks more). This year we had 22 students for the summer program.

These students are going on a trip to Poland with Bnei Akiva in a few days, to learn about European Jewry and the Holocaust, and will rejoin us a couple of days before the new students from the Northern Hemisphere come in. As part of the closing week of the summer program, we took them on an overnight tiyul (trip).

One of my functions is directing Alumni activities for our former students. In order to get to know the students better and establish a bond with them, I try to go with them on as many tiyulim as possible, this one included.

We had a terrific midnight BBQ (guess who the chef was) and a great time hanging out together till 2 AM when we climbed into our sleeping bags (in the middle of the national park/historical site) to go to sleep. As an American, I of course assumed it would get cold at night, so I brought a flannel sleeping bag. Big mistake.

It was hot. It was humid. The entire place was soaking wet by the morning and I barely slept. We woke to the booms of shelling that was going on in Gaza (check out a map and realize how close we were) and then the sounds of machine gun fire. It might have been live fire exercises at a local army base, but it seemed to us that we were hearing sounds of some fighting at the Gaza crossings.

I did however (as the incredibly overpacked American) bring some shampoo, so I grabbed my bathing suit and went down to the beach. By the shower where you wash off the salt water I took a nice sunrise shower.

We hiked around ancient Ashkelon, seeing the ramparts of the Roman walls and some of the excavations. After totally wearing ourselves out, we went to the separate beach and enjoyed the sea for a few hours before returning to the Yeshiva. It was a great trip.

These are the things that keep us grounded and hoping for a better future as we continue to recover and move forward in our klitta (absorption). Yes, there are historic sites all over the world. Yes, there are many opportunities for chessed (kindness) worldwide. But this is our home and every time we forget it, we drive by the Kotel or learn about a miracle that happened in the place we were just standing and we are reminded anew how lucky we are to be in the place we can all call home.

PS. This week is color war for Batya and Mordechai in their day camp. Let’s hear it for TEAM LAVAN (white)!!