Monday, December 20, 2010

Let’s blog

Those of you who are polite and respectful are asking when I will be writing again. Thought I’d do it before now, but seems I have been so wrapped in myself, and just d i d n ’ t . . . . . . . w a n t . . . . . . . .t o. . . . . . . s h a r e. . . . . . . . . ANYTHING!

Sooner or later you come to realize that this may well be cathartic, almost like paying a therapist $100.- an hour, and just keeping the money for myself. So I guess I owe myself a couple of hours of therapy, so here goes.

There was the wedding in March, dear Ita married her intended, a really sweet guy, Aaron. It was hard keeping up with them during those first 6 months. He was finishing somethin’ or another, and so was she. There was a rapid run to live in NY for a couple of months, back to Toronto. Now I know clearly where they are: right here in Jerusalem, a local call from where I am.

Summer was quiet, except for the double whammy from the Avi household. ALIYAH. Carrie stunned me in the spring when she did the ‘virage’ (look it up, it’s French), actually more than that, a complete U turn: NO I absolutely wouldn’t think of Aliyah. . . . . . . and then last winter it turned into definitive thinking: YES I want to live in Israel; and then ACTION. WOW! They are in Israel. Surely, this has to qualify for a double whammy.

Going back to the Chagim, I got this email from Emanuel:

“I had an amazing Yom Kippur w Arye and Leora . . . . . yeshivat hesder Otniel . . . . . . . . not far from Hevron . . . . known to have beautiful davening. . . . . . . The place is rockin . . . . dancing wild in the aisles from kol nidrei until the end which by the way is long, since in the morning it starts at 6:15 am . . . . no break and they finish on time but dance for another half hour . Kind of neo hippie-hasidic type of place; lots of fun; very different Yom Kippur experience. . . . .

Highlight . . . . my nephew, Yedidiya . . . . . . a soldier, came in a few times when he had breaks from patrols to catch a bit of davening . . . his base is Otniel. At the end, after a full day of patrols he comes in on a short break to catch shofar in his full military gear and all 500 kids are singing and dancing l’shana haba beyerushalim and I see my nephew there in his gear –it was a very emotional moment.

You can be proud of him –he did not eat just drank and any free moment was trying to be in shul although he was doing God’s work the whole day in any event.
(BTW,he looks mean in his full gear)”

Emanuel - please excuse my editing.

I was emotional reading this extraordinary description of Emanuel’s experience, and even more so as he described MY grandson, Yedidya, and his remarkable devotion to G-d and country.