Tag Archives: kids

Our first 1.5 weeks

I was very pleased with myself that I already knew my way around the Rova (Jewish Quarter = “Rova Yehudi” = “Rova” for short) pretty well when we got here. Having had virtually no sleep in a full day prior to our late night arrival, it didn’t take too long to get over jet lag, either. We spent the time before the beginning of the zman (school term) buying housewares, setting up services like cell phones and home broadband, and otherwise getting settled.

If you know how to set the time on these, please contact me ASAP!

Learning to use our appliances has been a humbling experience. E.g., we discovered that we do have a dishwasher, which we plan to use sparingly, but I’m embarrassed to say how long it took us to figure out where to put the detergent. Not to mention how long it took to figure out which product at the makolet (sort of a mini-mart; somewhere between a convenience store & a real grocery store) was dishwasher detergent. We still don’t know how to use the ovens. Other surprises:

  • The lighted switch near the front hall turns on & off our doorbell.
  • The older Shabbos water urn leaks… big time!
  • Our stoves have a weird safety mechanism that made it impossible to light them until our neighbor showed us how.
  • Our shower head needed to be soaked in vinegar to clear out the calcium deposits from the very hard water here.
  • There’s a Shabbos timer for most of the common area lights built into the circuit breaker.

Shhhhh! Don’t tell the Iranians, but Israel has secret, advanced Muppet Chicken Rocket technology.

Going around town shopping for housewares is… how shall I put this? … not the kids’ favorite thing in the world to do. Dragging them from mall to shuk to storefront was not the most fun thing we’ve ever done as a family. We tried bribery, like the cheesy rides at the mall and treats of all kinds. On our trip to the shuk (market) at Machane Yehuda, Debbie had the excellent idea to put on a scavenger hunt. She made a list of things to find there, of which the boys could take digital pics. The plan backfired when it devolved into crying fits over the composition of teams, and who was taking some sort of unfair competitive advantage.

Another thing you don’t see at home: a synagogue inside the mall. With a 400-year-old Italian Ark, to boot.

We eventually accumulated pretty much everything we need. A few observations along the way:

  • The stuff here is typically not as nice as in the U.S. On the other hand, it is generally cheaper.
  • There’s a massive difference in quality when it comes to paper, plastic, and textile items. The disposable plastic plates here you can see through. Paper napkins are actually hard to find in U.S.-style quantities, and they are markedly thinner and more expensive. Plastic cups are small and flimsy – the ubiquitous red Solo cup of American party fame is nowhere to be found here.
  • Many local kitchen towels do not actually absorb liquid. This seems like an odd quality for a towel to lack.

    They’re transparent, but at least they’re kosher for Pesach.

  • We have yet to find any American-style sponges or washcloths.
  • When it comes to customer service, e.g.dealing with the phone company, I’ve found it to be surprisingly personable, but often incompetent — sometimes astonishingly so — and maddeningly inconsistent. For example, I spent a long time at the Orange store setting up our cell phones. The people there couldn’t have been nicer, and worked extensively with me to get my service set up. But when I walked out, I discovered that the data plans on our phones had not been activated. I went back and got that taken care of, only to discover later that international calls on our phones were blocked (despite having purchased all-inclusive plans with free international calls). I later called Orange to have my voicemail system language changed to English (thanks to a tip from a neighbor that this could be done), and the super-friendly English-speaking rep did it for me instantly. When I called back later to get Debbie’s done, I was told by a different rep that she could not do it, and Debbie would have to call a different number from her phone. The Bezeq (phone company) rep called me when she was supposed to in order to set up our home internet; she already had my name, knew I spoke only English, and even gave me her personal cell phone number. But I had to tell her multiple times that the address they had for us was wrong, and only later discovered that there were a number of previously-undisclosed additional steps that had to be done to effectuate service.

    Debbie spices

    Debbie shopping for spices at the Machane Yehuda shuk.

  • Cell phone service is way cheaper here. We’re paying about $35 per phone to get unlimited minutes, texts, international calls (!), and 1G of data per month (and once you hit the limit, it neither stops nor charges you extra – the download speed just slows down).

Another treat of shopping — felafel for lunch.

There’s always more stuff to get, but the major shopping is done, and we hope we can focus on the reasons we’re here. With so much to do, it is easy to get the idea that getting settled is our principal focus, and to forget the real mission. Time to aim a little higher.

The trip, Stage 3: London to Jerusalem

The thing about flying El Al is that, once you board, you feel like you’re in Israel already. The staff has that paradoxical surly-but-kind manner, everything’s in Hebrew with often unintentionally hilarious English translations, and you’re surrounded by an eclectic mix of fellow Jews. Our plane had the typical assortment: chassidim and other “black hat” Orthodox men and families, classically underdressed secular Israelis, American 20-somethings on a group trip, and some Israeli kids who looked way too young to be traveling alone. Not to be found: the notion of any public comportment. When it’s just us, we climb on the seats, argue with the flight attendants (and everyone else), talk loudly across the plane, complain about where we’re seated, share food, and generally act like the plane is our collective living room. Welcome home.

The flight from Heathrow to Ben Gurion kind of tracked the first leg, except we had less space (no bulkhead, no bassinet, and only 4 seats across in the middle section). The boys quickly fell asleep, but then Shalom soon woke up with his same punitive crying routine. A movie on Debbie’s iPad made it bearable, but we arrived at Tel Aviv exhausted and with frayed nerves. On the other hand, we were really excited to be there.

As an aside, I initially forgot my duty-free bag on the plane — I nearly lost my scotch! Fortunately, I remembered and high-tailed it back in time. They let me get back on the plane to retrieve it. The notable thing was that I got to see the cleaning crew in action. I might have guessed how massive it was had I taken the time to think about it, but it was truly impressive how many people come on to clean up and prep the plane for its next flight.

One last leg remained for our voyage in: to get ourselves and our massive baggage load into the Old City and into our apartment. We’d arranged a driver in advance (if you need one, let me know — he’s a really good guy) to pick us up. But we had taken two SUVs to get to the airport in Chicago with all of us and our stuff and — though I’d emailed the driver several times to warn him about the large baggage load — I was getting worried that we wouldn’t be able to fit everything. There was also the fact that you can only get so far into the Old City by car, and that I only sort of knew where our place was.

After getting all of our bags loaded onto two groaning carts, we headed for the exit area where the driver was to meet us. Before we got there, he spotted us and went to go get the car. He pulled up in a minivan-ish thing, and I was sure it would never happen. Sure enough, our bags quickly ate up all of the trunk space with lots more to be packed. But somehow, with stuff at our feet, in our sides, and on our laps, it all went in. I have to tell you this was nothing short of an open miracle. Welcome to the Holy Land.

We got some more much-needed Divine assistance when we got to the Old City. First, the parking lot attendant let us pull in to unload the car. Okay, that didn’t really qualify as miraculous, but convincing a grumpy Israeli security guard of anything in the middle of the night seemed unlikely. The next step was more crucial. I went ahead to scout, and pretty quickly found the address, about where I believed it would be. The problem was that the landlord had told me there was no separate apartment number, making me think our place was the only one at the address. But when I got to Ma’amadot Yisrael 7, there was an entranceway leading to 3 apartments. Worse, all had nameplates, none of which matched my landlord’s name. It was well after midnight, and I had no working cell phone.

Ma’amadot Yisrael 7

I did know that our place was accessed via a “Shabbos lock” (a built-in combination lock), which only one of the apartments had. But I was apprehensive about trying the code on that lock, to say the least. If it was the wrong place, the resident was going to think someone was trying to break in to his home in the middle of the night. It also bears mentioning that many Israelis are well armed.

Anyway, I decided to quickly and quietly try the code. It worked perfectly, and I stepped into the apartment, looking exactly as it had in the video our friend Isser shot for us. Having seen that video so many times (as we showed it to friends and family), it was dizzying to walk into it, actually. I turned on some lights and headed back to help ferry baggage. What I would only realize later was how unlikely it was for the code to have worked perfectly the first time. As it turns out, the lock sticks, and you almost always have to punch the last number a bunch of times, or start over, in order to get it to work. But, had the code not worked perfectly that first time, I would have assumed it was not the right place, and wouldn’t have known what to do.

In fact, when I came back with the first load of bags, I tried to enter the code and it didn’t work. I tried re-entering it a few times, with no avail. Now, I assumed that I’d somehow accidentally locked the bottom lock when I’d closed the door, and believed we were stranded outside — again, late at night and with no cell phone. Just then, the neighbor from the apartment next door came by. He’s handy, thoroughly familiar with our place, and knew the code. Oh, and he’s from the States, so there’s no language issue. I told him our predicament and he said no, the lock just sticks, and promptly opened it. Once again, had this neighbor not happened to have been around, at nearly 1:00 a.m., I don’t know what I would’ve done.

We finally got all of our stuff inside, tipped our driver heavily, and went to bed. But first I thanked G-d for the “small” favors, which made such a huge difference. Again, welcome to the Holy Land.

The trip, Stage 1: Chicago to London (UPDATED)

The last stretch of packing and prepping the house for our departure & renters was pretty hectic and stressful. It made it hard to focus on where we were going, and on not killing my family.

In the end, we had 8 large suitcases, each packed right up to (okay, maybe a bit over) the 50-pound limit. I am forever grateful to the AA skycap who put the bags through without weighing them.

“Hey, the service here is pretty good for coach.”

Things went pretty well on the first leg of the trip. Not only did we have the super-helpful skycap, but there was the nice gate crew who killed time by asking Olympic trivia over the intercom (when I correctly answered that Nancy Kerrigan was the Olympian who had 7 bodyguards at the 1994 Winter Olympics, I won a discount coupon that I had to give away — only good through October — and a silver medal, just like Nancy Kerrigan!). They also helpfully moved us to the bulkhead seats with a bassinet for Baby Mo. I’d planned to get to the airport extra early just for that (those are first-come, first-serve), but they even preserved my scamulous move of leaving the empty middle seat in our new row.

Yitzi has his takeoff candy tucked under his chin… for safety.

There are 5 seats in the middle, and we had 4 tickets, so I reserved like this: XXOXX. That middle seat will be the last one on the plane taken and, even if it is, the inhabitant will jump at the chance to trade for an aisle. No risk! Anyway, when the gate agent moved us, she kept the configuration, which meant no one sat there, and we had all 5 seats (plus bassinet) to ourselves. Score!

The melatonin kicked in quickly.

I was dreading the trip, because Shalom (our 4-year-old) is not famous for flying well long distance. He doesn’t sleep, then takes it out on the rest of the plane. So, this time, we decided to take the common advice we got: drug the children. Many suggested Benadryl, but there are kosher concerns, so we decided to go with melatonin, which many also swear by. At first, it seemed we had hit the jackpot. Fast-acting!

Unfortunately, we should have chosen Long-Lasting. After not-long-enough, Shalom was awake and possessed. Crying and unresponsive to logic, bribes, and threats. He did eventually snap out of it when we revealed the existence of his personal TV screen (hidden in the bulkhead seats of a 777 until you pop it up) and put on The Pirates! Band of Misfits. But he remained short-fused the rest of the way — not surprising, given that he had maybe 2 hours of sleep. Yitzi slept much better and Mordechai was, as predicted, the easiest passenger.

Between Shalom’s issues and the fact that an hour delay and an eastward flight gave me a quick window for shacharis (morning prayers), I got very little sleep myself. Nevertheless, we arrived at London’s Heathrow Airport tired but happy at about 9:30 a.m. local time.

 

Only women and transvestites may change diapers here.

Update: I forgot to include American Airlines’ blatantly sexist baby changing instructions in the bathroom. Check out the depiction of the diaper changer. Of course, I construed this as a statement of official policy and refused to change any diapers on the plane, to avoid getting tazed by a sky marshal.

 

Welcome Mordechai Leib Shmikler

Okay, now we’re ready for the passport application. Mordechai Leib entered the bris of Avraham Avinu this morning, and received his name. No one is happier than Yitzi, who took great offense at our joke that we were going to name his baby brother “Honey Peanut.”

Mordechai is named for Debbie’s paternal grandfather. He was famous for his ahavas Yisrael (love for his fellow Jew), which we hope his namesake will also enjoy.

We are still deciding on a nickname. “Mordy” is the obvious, but I can’t seem to say it without putting on my Old Jewish Man voice: “Mordy, pass the herring!”

Where are the kids going to school?

Assuming we find a place in the Old City, as we hope, it appears the boys will go to Yeshivat Aderet Eliyahu, more commonly known as “Zilberman’s.” It will be entirely in Hebrew, which will certainly be a challenge for them. But there are enough Anglos around to help ease the transition, we hope. We’ve been told by others who went through this that it takes anywhere from 6 weeks to a few months, and then the kids are sufficiently proficient in Hebrew to do fine. The bigger challenge for us is that none of the administrators speak English, so Debbie & I won’t be able to communicate with them so easily.

This is an area where the difference between the American mindset and the Israeli one is dramatic. We had an intermediary mention our situation to someone at Zliberman’s, and their response was essentially, “fine, we’ll expect them.” I can only imagine what you would have to do, and how long in advance, were the direction reversed.

Why are we going to Israel?

Okay, I feel like this is the first real, substantive post on here. Rubber-hits-the-road time. Looks like I’m going to answer a relatively simple question with an indefensible detour into a technical discussion of the history of Jewish law. This may portend poorly for this blog…

Neither Debbie nor I grew up as Orthodox Jews. Coming to it as adults, we’ve missed out on a lot of education. In particular, by the time I got interested, I was already working as a lawyer, which doesn’t leave a lot of time for playing catch-up. I squeeze in some classes and chavrusa (one-on-one) learning at night and on weekends, but real progress in Torah study requires the kind of focus and time that only can be done full-time. As much as I’ve tried to do what I can, my skills are still rudimentary. My secular legal training is actually helpful in many ways, but when I’m learning with a chavrusa, our relationship is inevitably more student-to-teacher than peer-to-peer. My goal for the year is to reach peer-to-peer status.

What is so hard about learning Torah? Isn’t it just the first five books of the Bible? You read it, you read some commentaries, and there you are. Right?

When Orthodox Jews talk about “learning Torah,” we almost always mean the Oral Law, i.e., the Talmud. Generally speaking, the Talmud contains: (a) Divine Law that, in our tradition, was received orally together with the Written Law; (b) additional laws enacted rabbinically, pursuant to authority granted by the Torah; and (c) assorted other material, ranging from historical material, to elaborations on the accounts of events described in the Bible, to inspirational stories of tzaddikim (righteous individuals), to health advice.

Originally, the Oral Torah was to remain just that – transmitted in oral form only. But, under Roman persecution, the integrity of its transmission was under threat. About 1800 years ago, it was redacted into the Mishna. Although it was written down, it was recorded in a very terse and cryptic form, the full meaning of which could only be understood by studying it from someone already well versed in it. This preserved the necessity of oral transmission, with the mental acuity it demands and confers. The Mishna turned out to be a little too terse to accomplish its goals, and written commentary on it – called the Gemara – was redacted some 200-300 years later. The Talmud consists of selections of Mishna, followed by the Gemara on that Mishna. There were actually two Talmuds, one redacted in Israel (the Jersusalem Talmud, or Yerushalmi) and one in Babylonia (the Babylonian Talmud, or Bavli). The one that we primarily study today is the Bavli.

What’s so intense about studying Talmud? Although it expanded considerably on the Mishna, the Gemara remains terse and often cryptic. It was designed to deliver a lot of information in a carefully structured way, working on many levels at once. Often, what seems like a fairly straightforward exchange gets tough in a hurry when you apply some analysis. Keeping in mind that they didn’t record stupid questions, you often have to puzzle out what a particular Rabbi had in mind when he asked his question. Wasn’t the answer obvious? Once you realize what he was really asking, the formerly simple answer is now a mystery. You unlock that, and you’re on to another mystery. Nothing is simple. On top of it all, the Talmud never just lists the canons of its own interpretation. You often have to figure them out from the recorded exchanges themselves. Imagine knowing nothing about baseball,then listening to the radio account of a baseball game, and trying to infer the rules from that alone. Sometimes learning Talmud is like that.

On top of this, the Mishna is in Hebrew and the Gemara is (mostly) in Aramaic. I’ve got a little of the former, and virtually none of the later. Fortunately, there are lots of stock words that get used over and over, so there’s not a huge vocabulary to learn, but still… For those of you who have some familiarity with Hebrew, you’ll also appreciate the extra degree of difficulty in that there are no nekudot (vowels) provided. Oh, and did I mention that the essential commentaries of Rashi and Tosafos – which are printed right there on the page of Talmud – are written in a different script that you also have to know cold?

After years of plugging away in my spare time, I can now do some of this. But I have a long way to go. I don’t know that I would ever get there without doing something like this, taking the time to work at it full-time for a time.

But this trip is not (I hope) just about me. For Debbie… well, I don’t want to put words into her mouth, and I hope she’s also going to blog here, so I leave it to her to say what she wants. But suffice it to say that being in Israel should present her with plenty of opportunities for her own spiritual and intellectual growth. For the kids, it is a chance to internalize our commitment to learning Torah. We can talk all we like about how important it is, but that won’t compare to them seeing their father leave work and take the family across the globe to do it. They also get a major boost to their education, immersing in Hebrew and an entire country that lives on a Jewish calendar. I also hope it will form the foundation of their lifelong connection to Eretz Yisrael (the Land of Israel). Strengthening our connection to the people, language, and land is something of great value to Debbie and me, too.

We’ve been talking for years about doing this, and we’re enormously grateful that we have the opportunity to do it now. I’m especially grateful to my firm for being amazingly understanding — more about that in future posts, I expect. If you made it this far, thanks for reading, and I hope this made things a little bit more clear.