war & peace

I'm fine. Mostly. Thanks for asking (all of you who did.)

I haven't been writing here because my Mac at home has decided to be a little obstinate and not work anymore. He got sent to the MacDoctor today. I have to confess that it was a little hard to hand off my baby to a complete stranger who couldn't speak English very well. Sigh. I must remember Who's in control.

I am a little distracted lately. Hmmm. Could it be that the itsy bitsy country that I am living in and love with all my heart is at war? The latest is that foreign airlines are in the process of deciding whether or not to stop flights to/from Tel Aviv. Hizbollah has threatened to give Tel Aviv residents a one-hour warning so that they can evacuate before they start bombarding the city with rockets. I find that very interesting. Since when have terrorists EVER given anyone a warning before terrorizing? Something's fishy there. Of course, if they can get the airlines to stop coming in, it will cripple the already fragile tourist trade here. Or maybe there's something else up their sleeves—who knows? Well, God knows, of course and He is still on the throne and I totally trust Him.

Friday night I went to my friend Racheli's for my first Shabat dinner with a real Jewish family. Her family is religous and so it was quite an experience of new things for me. It was her parents, two brothers, one sister, one Ultra-Orthodox nephew, two (huge) dogs, two cats and about 28 birds of varying species. I love that family so much, even though the communication is still really difficult as most of them speak very limited English and well, I'm slowly working on my Hebrew. Every time I said a word in Hebrew, they all clapped for me. It reminded me of the first time I ever went bowling. After 8 straight gutterballs, I finally managed to get that stupid ball to connect with some of the pins and everybody in the place started clapping for me. I don't bowl anymore.

But I have matured a bit since my bowling debut, and am committed to keep learning the language no matter how much I'm laughed at. It's so hard though. Today when the guy from the Mac repair place came, he called my cell and told me he was at the door (he wasn't). I asked if he was at the car gate and used the Hebrew word for car. I have no idea what he said after that. If you say one word in Hebrew, they assume that you can speak it and then it's all over for me.

So anyway, back to Friday night dinner. There are so many laws that they have to follow! First they started turning out the lights that they wouldn't need on Shabat; evidently it's against the law to flip the switch on Shabat. Then there was the blessing of the wine. They all drank out of the same cup, but gave me my own little, not quite as pretty cup. I felt like I should be screaming "Unclean, Unclean!" Then we had the ceremonial hand-washing and I finally found out what those funny, two-handled mugs were for. Back to the table and the blessing of the bread. That was cool. Then out came the food. And it just kept coming. I haven't seen that much food since Mama used to cook suppper for my brother and his football buddies from college. Her mom pouted a bit because she thought I wasn't eating enough. Good grief! How do they eat soooo much??

It was a fun evening though, and I was glad to get to talk to the nephew some. Ultra-Orthodox guys are not supposed to talk to "goyim," but he finally relented and talked to me just a bit. He's a sweet kid. They wanted me to spend the night, but I suspected that I would be on one end of the sectional sofa and he would be on the other. Not thinking that that would be very prudent, I decided it best to go home. Racheli couldn't take me home because they don't drive on Shabat (Shabat had not yet begun when she picked me up). So I needed to call a taxi; they don't use the phone on Shabat either, so I had to call on my cell. I couldn't pronounce the name of the street they lived on well enough to get the taxi guy to understand, so I finally held my phone up in the air and told them just to say the name really loud. He got it and 45 shekels later, I was home. It was an interesting and fun and relaxing, peaceful evening.

The standard greeting on Friday is "Shabat Shalom" which means "have a peaceful Sabbath". Even in the midst of war, everyone greets one another with peace. There are so many things in this culture that I don't understand. Like I don't understand why it's considered "work" to flip a light switch and not work to clear the table of a million dishes. Ask me which chore I'd rather have—flipping a switch would win out every time. And they can't talk on the phone, but they can talk face to face or towards a phone. I read Exodus and Leviticus all weekend to see if I could catch some insight. Not really. Okay, it says to not light a fire on the Sabbath, but lighting a fire in Moses' day was slightly more work than turning on a burner or flipping a light switch today.

Well, I may never understand. But that's okay—understanding everything is not a prerequisite for loving someone. At least not in my world.