This Month's Story

This was my first trip to Israel. My feelings were ambiguous. I didn’t like the food and it was noisy. In preparation for the trip, I had called a very close Israeli friend in Haifa to tell him I was coming.

“I heard, Paul. That is great! We’ll get together after the meetings.”

“You heard I was coming?!?”

“It’s a small country.”

After the meetings, my friend drove me to Haifa to stay with his family for a few days. On the drive north, I look up at the Golem Heights flabbergasted how close to the coast they where. We passed soldiers with Uzi’s hitchhiking on the road. We picked up a young girl with her weapon who crammed herself gratefully into the car’s small back seat. She had gone home for the Sabbath and was now trying to get back to her post in Lebanon.

“You went home for the Sabbath?” I asked.

“Oh yes, no one fights on the Sabbath.”

I looked over at my friend, who shrugged. He had once told me the story of his flying on the Sabbath during, I think, the Yon Kipper War. He was a pilot in the Israeli Air Force and that day had dropped propaganda leaflets on the retreating enemy. When he returned he was arrested and disciplined for flying on the Sabbath.

I was accepted by my friend’s family, at least the two teenage children didn’t stare at me. I had to wear a yamaka and was asked to say the prayer at the evening meal. The next day, my friend’s wife, Edith, took me under her wing and started to take me to “visit the country.”

My friend was right. It was very small.

We went to the Wailing Wall in Jerusalem. I placed my written plea in a crack in the wall as I stood and said the simple prayer Edith had taught me. As we left, I looked back at the wall where my prayer was held in a crack among hundreds of others. I wondered where the prayer slips went from the people that had visited the week, month, or year before. I asked Edith.

She shrugged, “Perhaps their prayers have been answered.”

We stopped at an Arab shop and I went inside to look at some beautiful ceramic ware. The shopkeeper came over and pointed out a colorful platter. I admired it and then explained that I was just looking and didn’t have room in my luggage for anything that large and fragile.

“Don’t worry, I will wrap it so nothing will break. You are my first customer today and I will make you a very good price and look, see there are other dishes to match! Oh, how your wife will love you when you go home.”

There is more to this, even the unbelievable part where he asked me to think of his wife and needy family. But suffice to say, I walked out of the shop with a well-wrapped, very large bundle and Edith grinning from ear to ear. Included in the bundle was a set of coasters that the shop keeper insisted I take with his compliments for being such a good customer. I swear he was smiling when we walked away.

Later, Edith dropped me off at an Arab rug merchant while she ran an errand. Here I quickly saw that I was out of my league as the merchant started to lay out beautiful rugs costing many hundreds of dollars. After giving me the sales talk for a few minutes, the merchant seemed to pause and then pulled down a particularly stunning small rug.

It was beautiful! It shimmered in the light as he turned it about.

“This is silk, it’s very costly.” He told me how much, and I gasped. He brought out two more that were equally extraordinary and even more expensive. I sat, feeling one particular rug’s soft velvety quality, watching how the light played at the intricate patterns. After a long moment, I turneded reluctantly to the merchant.

“These are all unbelievably beautiful, but I can never afford these!”

The door tinkled as Edith entered the shop and the merchant got up. “I know, but it is a slow day and you obviously liked my rugs, so I showed them to you.”

That evening at the dinner table I told my friend about his wife and my adventures, especially about the Arabs we had met.

Why then, I asked, are there the troubles?

“I don’t know, Paul. There are many, many reasons, many very complicated, very old reasons. But, you know, I am sorry to say, I really don’t know.”

My visit to Israel was many years ago, but I am told nothing has changed.