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I just put Mordechai to bed; he was having trouble settling in. He spent the better part of an hour either near or in tears, and for a nine-year-old boy that is very tough. One of our neighbors, a family that has lived across the street from us for over two years, is moving to America tonight. Their son has been Mordechai’s friend from the day they moved in.
Although he certainly has older and closer friends, this has been a tough day for him. He was too young to understand what goodbye meant when we made aliyah. The permanence of not seeing his friends again was way beyond his comprehension. Yet now, having lived through it once, he clearly knows what it means for his friend to be leaving.
They said goodbye to each other earlier tonight, before I got home from work. Mordechai was upset and asked Goldie if he could wait up for me. From the minute I stepped in the door he latched on to me, and the questions began. Will Mordechai be able to go to his bar mitzvah? When can he visit? Why does he have to go?
I hadn’t thought that it would be so traumatic for him. After all, he has many friends on the block and always seems to be busy with several of them at the same time. He is constantly running from friend to friend, and it isn’t as if he is going to be lonely without this boy.
Now I am thinking something different. I am wondering if perhaps his anxiety and angst are not the result of losing this one friend, but actually are a reflection of the loss he had when we moved here. While he didn’t understand what saying goodbye meant before we left, as the days turned into weeks, months, and years, he learned the meaning. Getting past this separation might be the catalyst for releasing the pent-up frustration and sadness that the little five-year-old who came on aliyah couldn’t express when his friends disappeared.
Every once in a while we go through something like this. Something that reminds us of how deep our emotions are and how far we have come from where we started. We are reminded of the naiveté that we had when we first embarked on our journey of aliyah. We are reminded of how difficult this journey has been, and how much even the happiest one of us had to give up in making this move.
Mordechai is such a great success, in terms of aliyah. The kids all are (thank G-d). He prefers to read in Hebrew over English, and he is incredibly acclimated to being one of 31 boys in his class. He goes to his clubs and youth groups, he plays ball with his buddies (in Hebrew); he is just like every other one of his friends. Yet, he is probably the only one to cry this week because his friend is moving to the U.S.A. He is one of the only ones who remembers what it was like to lose his friends the first time and desperately wants to avoid a repeat.
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With a guest columnist two weeks ago and a week off, this is my first article since Purim. I am a bit of a rain fanatic, so I really can’t complain, but it rained here for a big chunk of Purim day. And the night before and the day after, and the whole week, for that matter. Rain is more important to us as a nation than having dry kids on Purim, so in principle I was very pleased to be blessed with rain. But I have to admit, it was a big bummer for the kids.
It rained the Friday before Purim when they went to school in their costumes. It rained most of the day while they were delivering their mishloach manot. (Another aliyah moment: the first draft of this had “shalach manot” the American way. Chaya read it and said, “Abba, you wrote it wrong; it’s “mishloach manot.”) It rained that night and the next morning, Shushan Purim. It rained and rained and rained. With Purim in Israel being such a kid-focused holiday (as a family, aside from the two mishloach manot baskets we gave as part of two different shuls’ group projects, we gave something like six mishloach manot to friends not on the shul lists; our kids gave something like 150 to their friends), the rain was . . . inconvenient.
Especially when it poured. The amount of rain that fell on Purim morning and afternoon was astounding. The kids were drenched. Rivers were flowing in the streets. I could not believe it. The most frustrating part was that it ended about ten minutes after we delivered the last package and only restarted as we headed out for the seudah, about two hours later.
For the seudah, we decided to treat the kids to an evening in Yerushalayim in order to see the Shushan Purim celebrations throughout the city and at the Kotel. We made reservations at a restaurant and were very excited about the plan. We had no idea we would be in the middle of more and more rain. So the plan was kinda washed out, but we still had a nice family meal together (sans Chaim) and enjoyed ourselves.
On Shushan Purim, I went to work in Yerushalayim and wore my Fred Flintstone costume. It is a terrific costume. I had to meet someone in town, and I got lots of positive feedback as I made my way through town. After the rains, Yerushalayim was quite cold; I should have worn warmer stuff. But there is nothing like being in the middle of Yerushalayim in costume on Shushan Purim. Everyone is enjoying, and you are just another reveler.
Kinneret Update: It has been three weeks since my last water update, and the news is good. The Kinneret stands at -212.80, a gain of 34 cm. (somewhere in the area of a foot) in that time. We went above the Lower Red Line a couple of days after Purim (for the first time since 2008) and despite the tremendous heat wave of the past week (with sand storms and the whole works), the level continues to rise due to the runoff of the melting snow from the mountains and hills in Northern Israel.
Our prayers were answered positively. This year’s rainfall has been above average. In fact, at almost 1.6 meters added to the Kinneret, it is the highest rise in the Kinneret in five years. Hopefully we will continue the water conservation of last summer. That conservation combined with new desalinated water sources having come online this winter should translate into a net gain of water in the Kinneret over a 12-month period from last fall to next fall.
Yet, we are still way short of what we need. Even if we gain another 10-20 cm. in the Kinneret, we are guaranteed to fall below the Lower Red Line sometime early in the summer. That means that the percentage levels of contaminants in the water are really too high. In order to be in a safe area, we really need to be at least 2-3 meters higher than current levels.
Hopefully, the coming years will continue to see at least average or above average rainfalls. The first of the desalination plants will be at full capacity later this year, which will add new water resources to the system. In 2012, more plants are expected to be added, as well. Once all the desalination plants are up and working, we can further reduce our drain of Kinneret waters and allow the lake to recover naturally. Once this is done, we can monitor our use and continue to use desalinated water as needed (it is more expensive than natural water) to ensure that we do not reach crisis levels again in the future. Let it rain, rain, rain—if only for a couple more weeks!
Although he certainly has older and closer friends, this has been a tough day for him. He was too young to understand what goodbye meant when we made aliyah. The permanence of not seeing his friends again was way beyond his comprehension. Yet now, having lived through it once, he clearly knows what it means for his friend to be leaving.
They said goodbye to each other earlier tonight, before I got home from work. Mordechai was upset and asked Goldie if he could wait up for me. From the minute I stepped in the door he latched on to me, and the questions began. Will Mordechai be able to go to his bar mitzvah? When can he visit? Why does he have to go?
I hadn’t thought that it would be so traumatic for him. After all, he has many friends on the block and always seems to be busy with several of them at the same time. He is constantly running from friend to friend, and it isn’t as if he is going to be lonely without this boy.
Now I am thinking something different. I am wondering if perhaps his anxiety and angst are not the result of losing this one friend, but actually are a reflection of the loss he had when we moved here. While he didn’t understand what saying goodbye meant before we left, as the days turned into weeks, months, and years, he learned the meaning. Getting past this separation might be the catalyst for releasing the pent-up frustration and sadness that the little five-year-old who came on aliyah couldn’t express when his friends disappeared.
Every once in a while we go through something like this. Something that reminds us of how deep our emotions are and how far we have come from where we started. We are reminded of the naiveté that we had when we first embarked on our journey of aliyah. We are reminded of how difficult this journey has been, and how much even the happiest one of us had to give up in making this move.
Mordechai is such a great success, in terms of aliyah. The kids all are (thank G-d). He prefers to read in Hebrew over English, and he is incredibly acclimated to being one of 31 boys in his class. He goes to his clubs and youth groups, he plays ball with his buddies (in Hebrew); he is just like every other one of his friends. Yet, he is probably the only one to cry this week because his friend is moving to the U.S.A. He is one of the only ones who remembers what it was like to lose his friends the first time and desperately wants to avoid a repeat.
---------------
With a guest columnist two weeks ago and a week off, this is my first article since Purim. I am a bit of a rain fanatic, so I really can’t complain, but it rained here for a big chunk of Purim day. And the night before and the day after, and the whole week, for that matter. Rain is more important to us as a nation than having dry kids on Purim, so in principle I was very pleased to be blessed with rain. But I have to admit, it was a big bummer for the kids.
It rained the Friday before Purim when they went to school in their costumes. It rained most of the day while they were delivering their mishloach manot. (Another aliyah moment: the first draft of this had “shalach manot” the American way. Chaya read it and said, “Abba, you wrote it wrong; it’s “mishloach manot.”) It rained that night and the next morning, Shushan Purim. It rained and rained and rained. With Purim in Israel being such a kid-focused holiday (as a family, aside from the two mishloach manot baskets we gave as part of two different shuls’ group projects, we gave something like six mishloach manot to friends not on the shul lists; our kids gave something like 150 to their friends), the rain was . . . inconvenient.
Especially when it poured. The amount of rain that fell on Purim morning and afternoon was astounding. The kids were drenched. Rivers were flowing in the streets. I could not believe it. The most frustrating part was that it ended about ten minutes after we delivered the last package and only restarted as we headed out for the seudah, about two hours later.
For the seudah, we decided to treat the kids to an evening in Yerushalayim in order to see the Shushan Purim celebrations throughout the city and at the Kotel. We made reservations at a restaurant and were very excited about the plan. We had no idea we would be in the middle of more and more rain. So the plan was kinda washed out, but we still had a nice family meal together (sans Chaim) and enjoyed ourselves.
On Shushan Purim, I went to work in Yerushalayim and wore my Fred Flintstone costume. It is a terrific costume. I had to meet someone in town, and I got lots of positive feedback as I made my way through town. After the rains, Yerushalayim was quite cold; I should have worn warmer stuff. But there is nothing like being in the middle of Yerushalayim in costume on Shushan Purim. Everyone is enjoying, and you are just another reveler.
Kinneret Update: It has been three weeks since my last water update, and the news is good. The Kinneret stands at -212.80, a gain of 34 cm. (somewhere in the area of a foot) in that time. We went above the Lower Red Line a couple of days after Purim (for the first time since 2008) and despite the tremendous heat wave of the past week (with sand storms and the whole works), the level continues to rise due to the runoff of the melting snow from the mountains and hills in Northern Israel.
Our prayers were answered positively. This year’s rainfall has been above average. In fact, at almost 1.6 meters added to the Kinneret, it is the highest rise in the Kinneret in five years. Hopefully we will continue the water conservation of last summer. That conservation combined with new desalinated water sources having come online this winter should translate into a net gain of water in the Kinneret over a 12-month period from last fall to next fall.
Yet, we are still way short of what we need. Even if we gain another 10-20 cm. in the Kinneret, we are guaranteed to fall below the Lower Red Line sometime early in the summer. That means that the percentage levels of contaminants in the water are really too high. In order to be in a safe area, we really need to be at least 2-3 meters higher than current levels.
Hopefully, the coming years will continue to see at least average or above average rainfalls. The first of the desalination plants will be at full capacity later this year, which will add new water resources to the system. In 2012, more plants are expected to be added, as well. Once all the desalination plants are up and working, we can further reduce our drain of Kinneret waters and allow the lake to recover naturally. Once this is done, we can monitor our use and continue to use desalinated water as needed (it is more expensive than natural water) to ensure that we do not reach crisis levels again in the future. Let it rain, rain, rain—if only for a couple more weeks!
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