Dear Friends, shalom,
Being free on Friday afternoon I took the bus to Kiron to visit Ariel and Lilach and had a great time playing with their kids Ophir and Alon. On the way to the central bus station in Tel Aviv to return to Jerusalem Ariel took Ophir and I for some ice-cream at “Iceberg” in Ibn Gvirol str.
This made me a little late for our traditional Friday dinner with Pnina, but I was enjoying myself so much that I couldn’t resist staying a little longer.
Being busy all week Fridays and Saturdays are the only time Ariel has to play with his kids and the only time I have to spend with them.
Saturday Ettie and I spent with Tamar and her parents in Haifa. We had a great time; first we drove to the top of beautiful Mt. Carmel to Stella Maris, the Star of the Sea where the Crusader church there commemorates the establishment of the Carmelite order of monks and nuns.
There’s a magnificent view of Haifa from here and there’s a cable way where one sits in bubble like cars with maximum visibility of the beautiful sea and the city below as one is carried gently to the lower cable station.
Down below there’s a restaurant called Yotvata after a kibbutz in the Negev desert famous for its dairy products.
Ettie and I shared a chocolate milkshake that South Africans know as a double thick chocolate malted once served most famously in Hillbrow Johannesburg. But I was a long way from there now in physical distance and time but really most of all in family situation and frame of mind.
Now I remember that being a young university student on a night out with my friends at the Milky Way in Hillbrow, I was dreaming, in those distant days of a day when I would be where I am now, sipping chocolate milkshake in Yotvata, at the foot of Mt. Carmel, with my granddaughter Tamar opposite me diving into her chocolate pancake and ice-cream.
Then we drove to Wadi Nis Nas the famous Arab, Christian and Jewish neighborhood of Haifa all mixed together where we sat at Nadima’s and ate stuffed egg plant and zucchini, Alush (a kind of spinach like vegetable) and the usual humus.
Tamar, a girl with lots of initiative, got up from the table, as is often her custom in a strange place when she’s curious about something. In this case it was a little boy walking around like someone who belongs there. She asked Nadima if this was her grandson and what was his name.
She was thrilled to find that this was indeed the case and his name was Phillip. She went on to explain to Nadima that her grandmother also makes stuffed vegetables but that hers were also very tasty.
Like all children Tamar wants each event to follow an order planned ahead of time, so she asked “and what do we do after this?” and again “what after the cable way?” What after lunch? Etc.
The plan, designed earlier was to end up at the beach. Tamar had been waiting for this from the moment we started our outing.
I was very proud that she listened patiently without complaint when I explained that it was still too hot to go to the beach and we should go later after first going somewhere else.
It was only 2 o’clock and I decided that it was a bit early for the beach which I had promised Tamar and she was waiting patiently for it.
We drove out to Zichron Yaakov, a picturesque town of the first pioneers who came here in 1886, passed the vineyards, planted by Baron Edmond de Rothschild on our way to the beautiful gardens laid out around his tomb.
By now it was three o’clock and the temperature had cooled off, so, to Tamar’s ultimate joy we went to the beautiful beach at nearby Tantur, an Arab village located in one of the few protected bays on the Israeli part of the Mediterranean Coast, known by the ancient Biblical name of Dor, where once Solomon’s ships began their arduous three year journey to Africa and back to the Red Sea.
In a flash Tamar donned her cute red and white bikini and went splashing excited in the warm, calm water.
She loved it and splashed with Ettie for hours while I went in occasionally and Boaz and Sigal relaxed on our new beach chairs, carried all the way from Jerusalem especially for the occasion.
When I was a little child I wasn’t as patient as Tamar and threw temper tantrum when things didn’t go my way. My mother used to beg everyone to forgive me saying it’s all because I’m a child and I should be forgiven for the things I say and do.
As I grew older, however, the explanation that I was just a child didn’t get me off the hook anymore so it changed to “forgive him he’s not very intelligent” (they did tests which proved this to be true).
After I had acquired a university degree, however, and became a teacher this explanation also didn’t suffice so my mother accused me of saying these things to provoke discussion, to be the centre of attention or simply because I enjoyed annoying people who wanted a tranquil mind unhampered by uncomfortable thoughts.
People simply don’t like their beliefs and ideas to be contradicted and so use the labels like childish, stupid and provocative instead of considering that a statement might be correct even if it contradicts their beliefs.
I try to put fixed beliefs aside as I examine them again and consider possible alternatives.
A child can be excused for complaining when things don’t go exactly according to plan but I expect an adult to exercise a little patience in considering that there might be a better way to do things than the plan originally set out.
For example if I was Tamar’s age I might have complained last Thursday, a very hot Jerusalem day when the police closed the road for a crowd waving silk flags with all the colors of the rainbow for the annual Jerusalem Gay Parade.
The police had been planning this parade and exactly where and at what time roads would be closed etc. but for me it came as a big surprise and made a big mess of my plans.
Suddenly all roads were blocked; I wouldn’t be going home as I’d planned. I had walked tourists through the old city all day and worst of all I wouldn’t get home to eat my favorite snack of hot dogs and spicy ketchup that I had carefully chosen in the market the day before until quite late.
With the idea of waiting for the parade to end I went into the Jerusalem Cinematech on the off chance a good movie was showing. It so happened that it was the last day of a French Film festival, so I saw “The grocer’s son”, an excellent, very entertaining movie with a powerful, clearly stated message, that a down and out young man, considered to be lazy and not good will lift himself up to the heights of the perfect son of great achievements all because of he loves a lady who encourages him, showing him that he is worthwhile and good.
Wishing you a great no news day
Yours truly
Leon Gork
Come for a Jerusalem Walk with Leon Gork
Jerusalemwalks.com
legork@netvision.net.il
Tel: 052 3801867