the Pair of Pacifiers

Last week, I was at Shefa 'Mall' with my baby.

 Mall is in parenthesis because I am from New Jersey, after all, which is the mall-capital of the universe, and what Israel calls a 'mall' is sometimes more of a run-down...area...of commerce. I had picked up a Fisher Price mobile on said outing- a bit of a mistake because it's not electric and therefore needs to be wound every 60 seconds (as if I didn't have enough endlessly repetitive menial tasks on my plate right now?)

 Anyway, I needed to replace her clear-colored-and-therefore-totally-invisible-and-easily-misplaced pacifiers, so on the way out, I headed to the pharmacy. FYI babies know the difference between pacifiers and have preferences, so it's a good idea to addict your child to a replaceable model.

 The female employee at checkout was a bit intimidating- she seemed like she had just finished her army service. She scanned the 2-pack of pacifiers, gave me change, looked up at my baby in her stroller, and then kept the pacifiers on her side of the counter. She then began the interrogation: 

"How old is she? Why would you get these for her??"

(was she referring to the objectionable act of giving a baby a pacifier to begin with? I started to shrink. It took me a minute to figure out that she thought my 6-week-old was older than the 0-3 month recommended age for that particular pacifier- she's big. I stuttered that she was only a month and a half.)

"Is this for now? Are you going to give her one now??"

(she had noticed that my baby was agitated. I stuttered that, yes, I was. I wondered what she was getting at.)

"WHICH one are you going to give her now?"

(I stuttered that it didn't matter- they were identical, after all...)

She disappeared with the pacifiers I had already purchased- ten dollars for a 2-pack, by the way. I was just standing there with my agitated baby, a now-agitated mommy. I wondered if she was tattling on me to the Misrad Ha Briut (ministry of health) for some yet-unknown parental offense. 

She then reappeared with both pacifiers out of the box and slightly damp. She explained, 

"I just wanted to sterilize them first. I boiled both of them." Then, she complimented my baby for being so cute. 

There's a famous metaphor for Israelis- they're compared to cactuses ('sabras' in Hebrew) because a cactus is prickly on the outside and soft on the inside. 

interruption

Since becoming a mother, it's been a unique challenge to attempt to string together 3 words befo....

She's up. There goes that!

Nothing is like Living It.

This picture is from my engagement party, 19 months ago. 

I remember thinking, when the picture was being snapped, 'I am going to look back on this picture and think-


I knew NOTHING about my husband back then!'

And it's true- I had no idea who he was.  

Wait- that sounds a little reckless. How could I get engaged to someone I didn't know?

You can't know someone until you're married to them, even though this doesn't absolve you of your responsibility to date with your eyes open. I had prepared myself extensively to date, and when my husband came up as a potential match, I had even more preparation to do. 

When this picture was taken, my now-husband and I had just gone through a very comprehensive process to determine whether we were right for each other. This included background checks of three official references plus many unofficial ones (before our first date),  a DNA compatibility test, a complete lack of physical contact (to keep away those rosy lenses), many hours of dates spent discussing our backgrounds, values, and what we envision for our futures, meetings with family members of the other party, constant guidance from mentors, a go-between to listen to our feedback and set up our earlier dates, permission from my father for my husband to propose, and much more. After every date, I would write pages and pages in my journal of exactly what I had asked this potential spouse that I was meeting, what his responses were, anything I noticed, and any questions I had for the next date (assuming there would be one- both parties had to agree to each subsequent date). I was in touch with my Rebbetzin, my Rabbi, and the matchmaker in between dates, so that they were all aware of what was happening and how I felt about it. My husband, on his side, did the same. 

So why did I think I knew NOTHING about my husband when this picture was taken? After all, I'd just gone through a very exhaustive process to determine that my husband was the right one!

Because preparation only goes so far. As much as I read about marriage, spoke to people about marriage, and imagined my then- fiance in that context, we had to forge our own way in order to know anything about each other. There are no generalizations in our life- it's completely unique. My husband and I are two soul-halves of one whole that has never come into this world before, and never will again*. Our marriage is taking place in a time that will never repeat itself. So as necessary as all my preparation was, it was not like living it.

Nothing is like living it.

*reincarnation is a Jewish belief, however, if our souls are to return, they will do so in different physical bodies than our current ones. 

How did I end up living here?

(This photo is not really from my neighborhood, but it could be. You get the idea.)

I live in Unsdorf- one of the most religious neighborhoods in Jerusalem. I never thought I would live here. I viewed myself as 'religious, but...you know...more open' (whatever that means), and as such, assumed I would live in one of the more 'open' or 'mixed' neighborhoods. How did I end up living here?

Our spiritual guide is the sainted and scholarly Biala Rebbe. When my husband and I were engaged, we decided to make our home in Israel, and to start off in Jerusalem. But of course, there are a myriad of neighborhoods to choose from. So my husband asked the Rebbe where we should live, and he responded,


 "You should live close to me."

I was both warmed and discouraged by this response. Warmed- by the feeling of such a great person reaching out to us. It was so personal and paternal, the kind of support we needed to start off our lives together. Discouraged- by the reality that his neighborhood was the most expensive and sought after, and apartment searches in that neighborhood were yielding no viable results. I also feared leaving the community I had lived in for 4 years, where I was surrounded by support and familiarity, not to mention English speakers. 

We searched for a suitable apartment in the areas surrounding the Biala Rebbe's neighborhood, without success. There was one apartment  in Maalot Dafna, that one basically entered through a rabbit hole, and had no windows. There was one in Har Nof, also without windows, where every room seemed to be shaped like a piece of pizza. I had high hopes for one in Kiryat Moshe, trying to ignore its shattered window. But alas, it slipped through our fingers anyway. We even found one that was an 8 minute walk from the Rebbe's home. When we visited, we saw that the couple was drying their laundry (no dryer of course) in the tiny bedroom, due to lack of space. Since it also lacked windows, it smelled of mildew. This apartment was the most expensive of the bunch (not that the others were cheap), and we would have needed to take over the lease much earlier than we wanted to, so we declined, praying that we were making the right decision, in light of the advice to 'live near him'. 

The Rebbe told me, when we were engaged, to stop looking for apartments until after Pesach because I wouldn't find anything. So after so many unsuccessful attempts, I completely stopped.

The morning after Isru Chag (the end of the week-long holiday), I was back on Yisa Bracha (the apartment listing service here), and read an ad for an apartment in Unsdorf. I barely scanned the ad before calling my fiance. I had learned from experience that you must act quickly if the apartment seems remotely viable. We met at the address, had a look inside, and were shocked to discover a cute little place with actual windows. Small, but well-kept. Something about it made me start envisioning our life there. We met the landlord who lived next door and my fiance was thrilled to be able to speak to him in German (since his mother tongue is Swiss German). The rent was actually $50.00 less than the cheapest we'd seen, with no long-term commitment. Everything looked picture perfect. I asked, almost as an afterthought, 
"Where does the Biala Rebbe live exactly?"

My fiance responded, 


"The building next door."

Whoa. And every day we see, more and more, why we were destined to live here.We can't stay forever, but we will leave with heavy hearts when the day comes. With wonderful, exceptional neighbors, my husband's shul and yeshiva a stone's throw away, and close proximity to the Rebbe, who has blessed us every step of the way, we want to stay as long as we can. 

By the way, if you had asked me in the first few months, I would have been whistling a different tune. I started off feeling miserable, isolated from my pre-marriage community, and afraid to even attempt to speak Hebrew with my neighbors. Last Rosh Hashanah,  I spent 2/3 of the holiday in tears because I felt so out of place here (which, if you know anything about the holiday, is not the idea at all). I guess things can change, even my attitude. 

mini letters

Dear Geula,

Maybe you should make a stroller lane on the sidewalk. I pushed a stroller there today and I felt like a contestant on Double Dare. 

Dear My Shadchan,

Thank you for making me the happiest woman on earth. 

Dear Pack n' Play,

I really like the changing table.

Dear Air Conditioner,

You are a lifesaver.

Dear Egged Bus Service,

I really like you much more now that I am no longer pregnant.

Dear Ladies on the Bus,

Maybe I could use a bit less constructive criticism on how I am caring for my baby. 

Dear Mailbox,

You look locked, but you're not. What's with that? And who has the key?


Dear Wedding Ring,


I am still looking for you, and if anyone else finds you first, I don't have yiush* so you're not hefker**. Mmmkay?


Dear Digital Camera,


If only your batteries didn't die so quickly, and if only I enjoyed uploading pictures...we'd get together much more often.


Dear Jerusalem, 


Thank you for hosting my life.

*yiush- a hebrew term for an owner's 'despair' of finding their lost object, rendering it...
**hefker- ownerless according to Jewish law, and not considered stealing if kept by the finder.

Traffic-stopping Attitude

I took a cab today to a doctor's appointment on the other side of Jerusalem, with my infant nestled in her Baby Bjorn Active (even this part of the story would never happen in America).

We'd traveled about 3 blocks when I heard the cab driver calling his friend, a makolet (convenience store) owner, and telling him in Hebrew that he'd be there in half a minute.

And I concluded that since the doctors office was more than half-a-minute away, he must be making a pit-stop (not that he felt the need to inform me). I asked myself, "Why is it that all drivers seem to be best friends with people who sell food?"- based on the many times I'd seen city bus drivers being passed a falafel in the middle of the street, in the middle of their shift.

In this case, my driver needed a bottle of water (yes, the meter was still running on this small detour but I didn't make it an issue because water is important).

To receive the bottle from his friend and pay him, he stopped in the middle of the road, diagonally, across the ONCOMING traffic lane, which was curving around a bend in front of the store. He didn't pull 'over', he pulled 'across'.

After getting the water and thanking his friend, he pulled back onto the lane moving in the proper direction, nanoseconds before the oncoming traffic collided with his diagonal and backwards (in their lane) vehicle.

Now, I had an infant strapped to my chest, and it was objectively dangerous, so I involuntarily let out a scream when this stunt happened.

To which he replied, 'What- you think they wouldn't stop for you? You're ehhhm...a VIP!'

Thanks for the compliment? It's just this invincible Attitude, and if you don't have it, you must not be truly Israeli.

Bagel Shop Attitude

My father went to the bagel store on his recent visit (for the locals, this took place at Holy Bagel in the Tachana Mercazit). He saw that they had various cream cheeses and two varieties of harder cheese- one in yellow slices, one in white blocks.

He pointed to the yellow slices and asked, 'Excuse me, but is that muenster cheese?'

The Israeli bagel employee just looked at him. These sorts of questions don't always warrant a response in this country. 

My father, not knowing this, tried again. 'Do you speak English?'

'Ehhhmm, a little bit. What do you want?'

'I would like to know what kind of cheese that is.'

'This? This is yellow cheese.'

'It looks like a yellow cheese, I was wondering what type of cheese it is.' (by the way, my father is flawlessly polite- he said this in patience, not sarcasm)

'It is yellow cheese!'

'I am asking what kind of cheese it is- is it American cheese?'

'It is ehhhhm, it is like American cheese but it's yellow. We call it Yellow Cheese.'

The Attitude

I wish I could capture Israeli culture on this blog. It would be an accomplishment for 2 reasons:

 1) it's a catharthis for those readers who live here and deal with the constant collision between Israeli culture and our chutznik (immigrant) sensibilities, and
 2) it's entertainment for those of you who haven't experienced it yet.

I wouldn't even call it a culture. There's no specific dress, food, music- most people in Israel are relatively recent immigrants from somewhere else, so the 'culture' is very borrowed and mismatched.

I visited Switzerland this year- now, that's a culture. It's long-established, it's documented, it's basically unchanged in its dominant traits and values over the years. You can easily describe a person or an object as 'very Swiss', and this conjures up an image that is more or less consistent in many peoples' perception of the culture. The cheese, mountains, watches, chocolate, yodeling, knives- it's not a stereotype. These are genuinely prominent elements of the culture.

Israeli culture? Um...falafel? Nope. Not unique to Israel. Israeli music?..let's just say that Israel has not made major notable contributions to the music industry.

The only thing I can think of that is very 'Israeli' is the Attitude.

By the way, I don't criticize Israel for having no real culture- it keeps things interesting, and the Attitude is more than enough to remind you of what country you're in.

I can only tell you anecdotes to illustrate the Attitude, but bear in mind that there is one rule:

 you must hear the dialogue of the Israelis in a thick -ehhhhm...Israeli- accent.

I'm a what?

And...we're back from a very extensive commercial break.

Actually, I was becoming a mother.

WHAT?! I know. I'm a mother.

And that's about all I can write right now on the subject. It's too powerful for words. It cannot be contained in them. A writer would have to be much greater than myself to attempt it.

Some things in life are too profound for words. In the future, I may have words for it, but its been almost 5 weeks and nothing of literary structure has formed from the oceanic experience of becoming and being a mother.