Turning the Calendar Again (Article #56) 9/11/2007

On Motzei Shabbat (Sat. night) last week, Goldie co-chaired a “Welcome to our Community” event for our shul. Essentially, the shul runs an annual event where the new olim get to meet the members of the shul and vice versa.

We had a lot of fun meeting many of our neighbors at this same event last year, and when she was asked to help coordinate the evening, Goldie readily agreed. The women put together a “human bingo” game where each square represented a characteristic and the participants had to go around the room trying to find someone to match the characteristic.

While competitive people like me worry about winning (we didn’t), it is a great way to “break the ice” and find out a lot about each other.

On Monday night, Goldie and I went to 7th Grade Parents Night at Chorev for Aliza. We were struck by two major things that night.

The first thing hit us at the end of the night. We had listened to both the Principal and then Aliza’s teacher tell us all about the upcoming year and some of the things we should expect. We had filled out the contact forms and gotten the various handouts from the teacher. We were getting our things ready to leave when a woman in front of us turned to us and said. “OK – did they say anything I needed to know?”

AND WE KNEW THE ANSWER.

Yes, this is getting to be a recurring theme. But I just can’t get over how much better it is to understand 65% of what you are hearing instead of 20%. Plus, since we have lived through “the toughest year”, we also knew enough not to sweat it if we missed anything.

The second thing hit us at the mall. We hadn’t eaten dinner, so we stopped by the Malcha Mall to grab a bite at the food court.

As we rode the escalator Goldie noticed a huge sign put up by the mall, wishing all the shoppers a Happy and Sweet New Year. She turned to me and said, “You know, a year ago I would have been all excited about seeing this sign. Now, I take it as the way things are supposed to be.”

I think she meant it as a little bit of a loss for us, that somehow we don’t have the same wide eyed enthusiasm for Israel that we might have had a year ago.

I, however, took it much differently. I thought, isn’t it great that we can live in a place where we can take such things for granted as the natural course of events.

On Tuesday, I joined the students of the Yeshiva on a tiyul (field trip) to Ir David, the site archeologists believe was the castle of King David. As part of that tiyul, we hiked through Chizkiyahu’s water tunnel.

This was my third time on this specific tiyul in the last 14 months. I don’t think this is a tiyul that one can get tired of.

Aside from being an active archeological site where the tour changes each time a new part of the site is opened for public viewing (3 times at the site – 3 different tours for me), the water tunnels are tremendously cool (no other way to say it) and being there with the Yeshiva guys is just tremendous.

After Ir David, we went for Mincha to the Kotel, and concluded the day with a brief tour of the Old City of Jerusalem. Although I am repeating myself, once again I was struck at how great it is that I can say that I just jumped on the bus in the morning, visited King David’s castle, walked through water tunnels that have been existent almost since the founding of Jerusalem, davened at the Kotel and toured the Old City of Jerusalem and returned HOME for dinner.

On Shabbat we co-sponsored an annual Kiddush thrown by the members of the Shul who had made Aliyah the prior year and were celebrating their one year anniversary. I remembered being at the same Kiddush last year in our first week after moving into the neighborhood. It seems a lot more than one year ago.

This week marks the completion of our first full calendar year here in Israel. As things stand, it looks like the year will end without the rebuilding of the Beit HaMikdash and a rebuilt Jerusalem.

Thinking back to last year, there was obviously no way we could have had a glimmer of thought as to what we should have been davening for and what H-shem had in store for us. Yet somehow he got us through to be in what we hope is a good place for us and our family.

We have grown, as a group and as individuals.

On behalf of Goldie and myself, Chaim, Chaya, Aliza, Batya, Mordechai and Moshe, our family wishes you and your families a Shana Tova Umetuka (Sweet New Year). May we be privileged to celebrate the coming of the next new year together in our Holy Land and rebuilt Holy City of Jerusalem.