Welcome 5769 (Article# 93) 10/02/08

With an early column deadline this week, I can only hope that everyone had a meaningful Rosh Hashana. As we headed into Rosh Hashana, we have been quite overwhelmed with details. Details at home, details at work, details at shul; everywhere we turn it seems as if there is suddenly so much to do.

About a week ago our central air conditioning failed. You may be wondering why this is a big deal in the end of September? Well, with temps having cooled off to the mid 70s this week in Bet Shemesh it is still quite hot here. We have friends in Efrat who don’t have a/c at all; they claim it is quite comfortable there even in the summer. We could never do that here (I guess there is a reason the city’s name means “House of the Sun”).

We called the repairman who tried replacing the coolant. We were very impressed because he hit the problem within 5 minutes and had the unit working for us only hours before Shabbat was supposed to begin. Little did we know that the cold air would stop about an hour into Shabbat and the kids would all be shvitzed out.

After a return visit, he discovered a leak in our compressor and recommended a total replacement of the compressor. Our landlord understandably asked us to get a second price quote and – we couldn’t. Apparently, there was only one compressor unit for out type of A/C unit available in our part of Israel and our repairman had already reserved it. No other companies could get a quote on a not in stock part.

This is also the time of year that the kids start going to their chugim (after school activities). Most children here participate in them and each year’s opening month of school is filled with parents and kids busy comparing which chugim are opening, evaluating them and then trying to figure out carpool arrangements so the travel is manageable. And of course our never ending baseball season has not even begun yet (this year it will run October – June, that’s right EIGHT MONTHS of weekly practices and games).

One thing that made our lives easier was the great job with the simanim done by a local take out store, Rottenberg’s. With shemitta being such an issue with produce, it has been hard to find all the different vegetables we traditionally eat on Rosh Hashana. We also had a terrible time trying to buy a fish head (the local fish merchants all had a “to get the head you need to buy the whole fish” policy in effect).

We saw a posting on the email list for Bet Shemesh that Rottenberg’s had “all the simanim” for sale and decided to see what they had. It was amazing. They had precooked all the fish heads and were selling them ready to eat. They also had precooked dishes for all the simanim (except for pomegranate) and had dished them out into aluminum muffin trays – one type of vegetable to a section. They prepared a little card with the proper Yehi Ratzon to say for each vegetable and in case of some confusion as to which veggie was which – they had a map on the back of that little card identifying which section of the muffin tray had each specific vegetable.

I wouldn’t say that people are not helpful here. But most things we do here are mainly self serve. Here are the necessary tools – go do it. Pack all your own groceries. Slice you own bread at the supermarket. A major exception is gas – which still has a full service option at all stations. It was very relieving to see one local merchant making the effort to be extremely customer friendly.

The first month of the year has also been tremendously busy at work. Goldie has become the in house accountant for Eretz HaTzvi (the Yeshiva I work in), and the turn of the school year piles on tons of work for her. My schedule is also busy with tiyulim and programs for our newest students as well setting up programs for our newest alumni who have just entered University. So we are constantly running from task to task all September long.

As if that wasn’t enough, we have had an overwhelming turnout to the opening of the new Shul. Shelly Levine, the real estate broker for the new community tells everyone that Rabbi Rosner “is a Rock Star!!” I’m not sure that I would go quite that far, but it is clear that the new shul has struck a nerve. We have had at least 80 people each of the three weeks we have had Shabbat davening and have reservations for 70 for the Yamim Noraim. I am sure that the interest will abate somewhat as the newness wears off, but if it doesn’t we are going to be severely challenged for space.

Since we are just starting up, we are literally winging things by the seat of our pants. I sat with our President last Motzei Shabbat as we set and reset the seats, laying out different seating configurations in order to squeeze out the maximum possible places. There are so many different details to keep track of and it seems like every time we turn around we find something else we didn’t think of.

Hopefully things will calm down and we will fall into some sort of routine (preferably including doing my regular rotation with the Kohanim of my Mishmar in the Bet HaMikdash). However, it almost feels like the first year when we were fresh of the plane. We had no idea what was happening and any loud bang made us duck.

As we now look forward to the end of the Yamim Noraim with Yom Kippur this week, I want to wish all of you a Gmar Chatima Tova. I hope that my words have given you some sense of closeness to being here and hope that it might have helped you consider joining us here, for a vacation, for a year and yes, for a lifetime. If I have offended anyone with my thoughts and ideas, I apologize and hope that this is the year we can all come together and be a part of a reunited Jewish People in a rebuilt land.

Shana Tova!