9 inches of snow?!? (Article# 68) 12/20/2007

Sorry to have missed you all last week, I got (can you believe it) tonsillitis and was actually in a lot of pain sick at home for the beginning of the week. So I didn’t have a chance to recap our Channuka break. I had been scheduled to fly to NY after lighting candles on the last night of Channuka, but had to reschedule that as well.

Our family Channuka started off a little weakly. On the first night, instead of being home with the kids to light, I stayed late in the Yeshiva in order to take a group of guys on our monthly “Pizza for Soldiers” trip. I added sufganiyot (jelly donuts) to the menu and headed off with a group of students for what is always a very meaningful evening.

One of the soldiers at a checkpoint invited us to go to his base and meet the soldiers at the base, which turned out to be a great invitation for us. We went to the base and really made the day of the soldiers there and they (reciprocally) gave us the opportunity to examine on of the tanks on base and chat with them at length about their military service.

Each time I go on this type of outing I am somehow brought to a new level of experience in interacting with the soldiers and I am amazed at how meaningful our students find the encounters to be. After all, it is just pizza (well ok – the sufganiyot probably helped).

With the schools having vacation beginning Thursday, my brother hosted us all for a party in his new house in Chashmonaim on Wednesday night. Coming only weeks after the birth of his newest son, this was my first chance to meet my nephew face to face and the annual party is a nice opportunity for us to get the kids all together. As we age, Bar and Bat Mitzvot as well as other family simchot will hopefully give us many more opportunities to get together as well.

On Thursday we went to the children’s museum in Cholon. Goldie had made reservations for us to go on one of their tours and we assumed that we would tour the rest of the museum for the remainder of the day. Foolish Americans.

As opposed to the general admission practice which is prevalent throughout museums in the USA, this museum is only open to guided tours which are organized on an age appropriate level. With our range of kids, we had bought totally inappropriate tickets for the older kids and our day could have really been ruined.

Goldie played the “but we are new here and didn’t understand” card and got us reorganized into 2 different tours that were more age appropriate. I went with the 2 older girls on a tour called “dialogue in darkness” where the tour was conducted by a blind guide and we were totally in the dark for the entire time. We had an opportunity to experience life in darkness and after we got over the initial sense of fear it was fascinating.

As we left our tour, Goldie handed Moshe off to me and took Chaya with her as the younger kids went on their tour (which they loved). Aliza and I took Moshe on a tour of the grounds and spent an hour playing in the park while we waited and then we all went out to dinner (I tried to get us to a Kosher KFC, but the GPS couldn’t seem to get us to the right place).

On Sunday we took the kids to the Ramat Gan Safari. The safari part (driving through the animal’s habitats) was kind of boring, but the attached zoo was really nice and kept us busy for several hours. It was almost like being in America – except maybe on Pesach or Succot, not Channuka.

On Monday I awoke with a terrible sore throat and had to run to the doctor, who diagnosed me with tonsillitis of all things. It took several days to recover and I had to postpone a flight to America until the end of the week. By Thursday I was ready to leave and caught a day flight to NY to connect to Chicago that night.

On my way into the airport, we heard some news on the radio that we had been waiting to hear for over 2 months. The teachers and government had finally come to an agreement and the education strike was finally over. Our daughters’ schools would be back to a complete schedule and more significantly, my nephew would be going back to school for the first time in 2 months. So I had some good news to enjoy before taking off.

The flight was nice; we were delayed for an hour and a half in getting our luggage because the baggage compartment door had frozen shut and they had to de-ice it and I had less than an hour to change terminals and catch my connecting flight. I needn’t have bothered, since all flights to Chicago that night were cancelled and I could only get out on Friday.

But that wasn’t all. I woke up on Shabbat morning and decided that since I was up so early that I would go for a nice walk around the neighborhood. I dressed and grabbed my tallit and opened the door to head out only to see a nice snowfall. The storm dumped 9 inches of snow over Shabbat and the freezing cold set in right after. And people wonder why I moved.

After a 5 city 8 day trip, I will get in home just in time for Shabbat this week and am looking forward to a more relaxed schedule. I am also looking forward to greeting 30+ of our alumni who will be visiting the Yeshiva to learn for a 2 week “recharge” of their “batteries” before the second semester.

Although many Yeshivot host their alumni during vacation periods, we are the only one that pays for the ticket for their first visit back. We encourage our alumni to view the Yeshiva as their home in Israel and it is always exciting to see them and hear about their growth and their studies. As the Director of Alumni, one of the biggest perks is that I get paid to keep in touch with all the students, which mitigates the disappointment I feel when a group I had grown fond of move on to their next stage in life.