Reasons #3721 and #3722 for making aliyah

Warning: The following post may exceed the recommended daily allowance for overt “I-made-aliyah-and-therefore-I’m-so-great” smugness. Proceed at your own risk.

In a hopeless attempt at making it up to you for the long weeks months years that I’ve been shamelessly neglecting this blog, I present not one but TWO (count ‘em! two!) reasons for making aliyah.

The first is fairly prosaic; the second approaches the sublime.

1) Reason #3721 for making aliyah

9:26 PM – Israel time – Motzai Yom Kippur 5775.

At that exact moment, our dear friends and family back in the States were nearing the end of the Yom Kippur Musaf service with visions of, well, just about anything edible, really, dancing in their heads, as Hamlet-like, they were mentally running through their options. (“To go home or NOT to go home during the break – THAT is the question…”)

Meanwhile, half a world away, here in TRLEOOB (=the real life equivalent of our blog), we had not only returned from shul after Maariv, made havdalah, enjoyed a delicious break-fast meal (potato soup and lasagna, thank you for asking), and put up our beautiful succah by that time, but we had even managed to post photographic evidence of said completed succah on the extended Shiputzim family’s WhatsApp group – thereby confirming our victory in the highly-competitive “Who Can Get Their Succah Up First” competition.

2) Reason #3722 for making aliyah

One word: Shmitah.

B”H, this is the third shmitah year since we made aliyah, which means that once again, we have the truly incredible privilege of partaking of peyrot shviit (shmitah produce).

For example, last night’s supper included this:

A package of otzar beit din lettuce from Otzar HaAretz

A close-up of the Otzar HaAretz label

Our custom-decorated shmitah receptacle

“וְהָיְתָה שַׁבַּת הָאָרֶץ לָכֶם לְאָכְלָה לְךָ וּלְעַבְדְּךָ וְלַאֲמָתֶךָ וְלִשְׂכִירְךָ וּלְתוֹשָׁבְךָ הַגָּרִים עִמָּךְ. וְלִבְהֶמְתְּךָ וְלַחַיָּה אֲשֶׁר בְּאַרְצֶךָ תִּהְיֶה כָל תְּבוּאָתָהּ לֶאֱכֹל.”

“And the Shabbat of the land shall be yours to eat, for you and for your servant and for your maidservant, and for your hired worker and for your resident who live with you. And for your animal and for the beast that is in your land: all its produce shall be to eat.”
(Vayikra 25:6-7)

Requisite Fast Day Food Post: Chocolate Chip Oatmeal Bars Edition

Note: In keeping with a longstanding Our Shiputzim tradition, the waning hours of a [very long!] fast day are dedicated to blogging about food.

It’s that age-old dilemma: Which homemade treats should you send back with your son the IDF soldier, when he returns to his base on Sunday morning?

At the recommendation of several Our Shiputzim readers, chocolate swirl blondies have become our default choice. (In fact, OS even had a batch with him during the weeklong Operation Pillar of Defense.)

Not only are they very easy to make, but they’re always a huge hit with OS’s fellow soldiers.

For instance, during basic training, one soldier took a bite and then - waxing lyrical – announced to the rest of the unit, “He who never tasted these cookies has never tasted delicious cookies in his life!”

But as parents of Israeli soldiers are all too aware, the vagaries of military life are such that providing one’s son with freshly-baked treats isn’t always an option.

Often, a soldier home on leave will receive a last-minute phone call from his commanding officer – to the effect that due to unforeseen circumstances, the soldier must report back to base within a few hours and won’t be home for Shabbat after all.

Last week, this exact scenario played out here in TRLEOOB*.

Fortunately, however, a quick look in the freezer revealed that one of the wonderful Shiputzim daughters had recently tried her hand at a different type of bar.

Unsurprisingly, they also proved to be extremely popular with OS and his friends:

Chewy Chocolate Chip Oatmeal Bars

Adapted from here.

Ingredients

• 2/3 cup canola oil
• ¾ cup sugar
• ¾ cup brown sugar
• 2 eggs
• 1 TBSP hot water
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 1½ cups flour
• 1 tsp baking soda
• 2 cups oats (i.e. kvaker, for the Hebraically-oriented amongst you)
• 1 package chocolate chips

Directions

Combine oil and sugars. Beat in eggs, water, and vanilla. Add flour, baking soda, and oats, and mix well. Add chocolate chips, and mix through.

Place batter in a baking-paper-lined 9x13 pan. Bake at 350 degrees for 30 minutes or until done. Let cool in pan before cutting into bars.

!צום קל ומועיל

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*TRLEOOB=the real life equivalent of our blog

Vote early, vote often

Here in Israel, we’re all busy gearing up for Election Day (i.e. Yom HaBechirot, for the Hebraically-oriented amongst you).

Which isn’t as easy as it sounds. In fact, the period leading up to elections is always very tense and stressful.

I mean, not only are our phones ringing off the hook as various and sundry would-be MKs call us “personally” to beg for our votes, but our inboxes and Facebook newsfeeds are overflowing with election-related posts – both serious ones as well as  countless versions of the following, um, “prayer”:

רבונו של עולם! תן לי "כח להשפיע" על "עם שלם", להתפלל ב"נץ", לעשות את "העבודה" ב"מרץ", לפעול כדי ש"התנועה" תהיה תמיד "קדימה", ללמוד את ה"שס" ולזכור שעיקר ה"יהדות" היא "התורה". יהי רצון שיהיה בעמנו "איחוד לאומי" ו"ליכוד" של כל חלקי העם וש"ביתנו" יהיה "בית יהודי" אחד גדול, כי "יש עתיד" ו"עוצמה לישראל"!

And then there’s the small matter of deciding which party deserves our vote.

Indeed, many voters (including myself, although YZG and the Shiputzim family’s first-time voters have all made up their minds) continue to waver between ideological and strategic voting and probably won’t make a final decision until arriving at their local polling stations tomorrow IY”H.

But IMHO, the biggest challenge is trying to figure out how we’re going to cram nearly four years’ worth of Sunday activities into a single day…

May tomorrow’s elections bring besurot tovot, yeshu’ot v’nechamot (good tidings, salvation, and consolation) for Am Yisrael, Eretz Yisrael, and Torat Yisrael.

Wonder of wonders, miracle of miracles

Warning: The following post may exceed the recommended daily allowance for hyperbole. Proceed at your own risk.

As every desperate/bemused/frustrated/resigned (pick your favorite adjective) Israel parent is well-aware, Chodesh Irgun is upon us.

So, why haven’t I mentioned this important fact, you’re no doubt wondering?

Two reasons, really.

a) It’s kind of hard to mention anything, when one is busy neglecting one’s blog.

b) I figured that by now, I’d pretty much said everything there was to say (and then some…) about Chodesh Irgun.

But then yesterday, a miracle happened.

Yes, a miracle.

Right here in TRLEOOB*.

<brief explanation>

First, a quick refresher for those who – for reasons best known to themselves – have not committed every single word I’ve ever written to memory. (But if you consider yourself to be an OurShiputzim expert, please feel free to skip ahead…)

Chodesh Irgun usually includes at least one communal seudah shlishit, and said seudah shlishit is inevitably preceded by the Call.

As I noted in my original post on the subject, the Call is when the madrich/madrichah (youth group leader/counselor) calls (hence the name) each of the chanichim (youth group members) to arrange who will bring what to the seudah shlishit.

Without fail, the Call arrives about an hour before Shabbat (when no one has time to run out and go shopping, even if the stores weren’t closed) and involves the most random items (which the typical family rarely stocks in their pantry).

</explanation>

If you’ll kindly consult your calendar, you’ll see that yesterday was a MONDAY – i.e. many, many, MANY days before Shabbat.

Yet, amazingly, it was, indeed, yesterday when one of the Shiputzim daughters got the Call from her madrichah!

And as if the Call’s timing wasn’t shocking enough, the Shiputzim daughter in question was merely asked to bring a bottle of drink and a can of pickles - neither of which is remotely obscure or exotic.

Astonishing, no?

In fact, I’m sure you’ll agree that this means that TRLEOOB* now qualifies for a recitation of שעשה לי נס במקום הזה (“Blessed is… the One Who performed a miracle for me at this site”)…

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*TRLEOOB=the real life equivalent of our blog

If only I had time to blog…

If I wasn’t busy shamelessly neglecting my blog, here are a couple of things I’d probably be writing about:

1) With good reason, the Israeli Olympic swimmers’ extremely impressive achievements have been the talk of the country

But as far as the Shiputzim family is concerned, the best part of the Olympic swimming competitions is Moshe Gartel, Israel Television’s colorful and entertaining commentator, whose amusing sayings never fail to crack us up.

For instance, two nights ago, during the semi-finals, Gartel memorably begged an Israeli swimmer’s international competitors to slow down.

“What do you care?” he asked the swimmers (who obviously couldn’t hear him and wouldn’t have understood the Hebrew anyway). “Won’t you let a Jewish boy advance to the next level?”

And earlier in the week, when a different Israeli swimmer entered the arena, he burst into song (yes, on air!) and greeted her with the words, “Ta’aleh v’tavo, ta’aleh v’tavo…”

Many more of Gartel’s gems can be found here.

2) A few weeks ago, we lost power here in TRLEOOB*.

Ever mindful of my civic duty ever reluctant to spend more than a few minutes sans air conditioning, I called the electric company to report the blackout and to check how long it would last.

As expected, I was immediately put on hold.

And that’s when I made a surprising discovery: Apparently, someone over there at the electric company reads Our Shiputzim!

I mean, why else would s/he graciously provide me with a bit of much-needed blog fodder?

You see, as I was waiting on the phone, a recorded voice came on the line and informed me that all the operators were busy.

Then, after apologizing for the delay and thanking me for my patience, the voice suggested that I could save time by heading over to the electric company’s website. (“DAAA-bell-yoo, DAAA-bell-yoo, DAAA-bell-yoo. Nekudah. Aye, Eee, See. Nekudah. See, Oh. Nekudah. Aye, Ell.”)

Normally, this would’ve been very good advice, but under the circumstances (see: the dictionary definition of “electricity blackout”), I could access neither my computer nor our wireless network…

But I certainly appreciated the gesture, and it’s always nice to meet an Our Shiputzim fan – even if that fan is only an automatic voice recording.

 

And so, dear readers, there you have it: the blog post I would’ve written – if only I’d had the time…

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*TRLEOOB=the real life equivalent of our blog

Kept in stitches

The following phone conversation may or may not have recently occurred in real life:

Mother: {calls her son, who’s away in yeshiva, after receiving no response to either of the two text messages she sent him}

Son: {rather groggily} Hi. I can’t talk. I’m getting stitches. I’ll call you back later.

Mother: ???!!!!!!!!!

Son: Whatever, it’s not a big deal. I fell and cut myself. It’s nothing. I’ll call you back. {hangs up}

Mother: ???!!!!!!!!!

On the off-chance that the above exchange actually took place, the mother-in-question thanks the son-in-question for graciously allowing it to be posted here on Our Shiputzim.

Furthermore, she continues to maintain that yes, it’s EXTREMELY blog-worthy…

Your thoughts?

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P.S. The latest Kosher Cooking Carnival is available here. Special thanks to Cooking Outside the Box for including my mini black and white cookies.

A negotiated settlement

We’ve all been there.

Of course, by “we”, I mean “parents of Israeli kids”, and by “there”, I mean “the Call”.

The Call arrives, with alarming regularity, on every Erev Shabbat Irgun, but it also can – and often does – happen on random Fridays throughout the year.

Basically, it works like this:

Some twenty minutes before candle lighting, the phone rings.

“You have a telephone!” one of your darling Heblish-speaking children inevitably yells across the house at his/her sibling.

It’s the madrich/ah, calling to say that they’re having a communal seudah shlishit in the snif (literally, chapter or branch – but also refers to the physical structure where the youth group meets) and that your child needs to bring [an obscure item, which you rarely buy anyway but certainly don’t have available this close to Shabbat].

Which is why I was pleasantly surprised when this past Erev Shabbat Irgun, the Call came at noon.

As the madrich pointed out, our local makolet (neighborhood grocery store) is still open at that time.

He mentioned this interesting fact, you see, because he had wanted ACSC (=a certain Shiputzim child) to bring chummus, but I had replied that we didn’t have any extra on hand.

Back when I was a brand new olah, I would’ve meekly accepted the harsh decree and headed off to the makolet at what is always the busiest and craziest time of the week.

Now, however, a dozen-plus years after our aliyah, I know that nothing is set in stone.

After all, this is the Middle East, where bargaining is a time-honored tradition.

And so, here’s how it went:

Me: {opens pantry and notices a few cans of pickles} Can we bring pickles instead?

ACSC: {dutifully relays the message}

Madrich: {hesitates} I think someone is bringing that already. {thinks for a minute} But we do still need pitot. Is that an option?

ACSC: {dutifully relays the message}

Me: {opens freezer and notices a large bag of pitot} Yes! How many do you want?

ACSC: {dutifully relays the message}

Madrich: Ten.

ACSC: {dutifully relays the message}

Me: No problem.

ACSC: {dutifully relays the message}

How do YOU handle “the Call”?

Misplaced optimism

I believe it was Einstein who famously defined insanity as doing the same thing over and over again while expecting different results.

And yet, nevertheless, millions of seemingly rational and intelligent parents worldwide – including YZG and myself – persist in answering the phone every. single. time. it rings.

We do so, even though we know that at least 97% of the incoming calls here in TRLEOOB* are for one of the various and sundry teenagers who dwell in our midst.

In other words, chances are that any given phone call won’t be for us.

But YZG and I don’t let the unfavorable odds deter us, and instead, we continually allow hope to triumph over experience.

As noted above, Einstein would probably have blamed this naive and misguided optimism on our mental instability.

And he might have had a point.

After all, back in his time, communicating with invisible friends – which is today referred to as “blogging” – was definitely not an indication of a sound mind.

But I would posit that there’s more to it than that.

Indeed, if you’re a parent, you’ll understand that the main reason WE answer the phone is because our kids don’t bother doing it themselves.

You see, even when the phone is ringing off the hook, the aforementioned adolescent denizens of our home are apparently – and inexplicably - oblivious to the noise.

It’s enough to drive the most patient of parents crazy.

Which would suggest, I suppose, that Einstein wasn’t that far off the mark…

!חג שמח

May you have a wonderful and joyous Shavuot!

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*TRLEOOB=the real life equivalent of our blog

The Mid-Atlantic States got a gazillion feet of snow…

…And all we got was a lousy t-shirt no Internet access.

Yes, that’s right.

The phone lines in our neighborhood went down late Thursday night, leaving your humble blogger without means to go online and, well, blog.

Although no official explanation was given for this communication disruption, a possible reason was suggested by a rather unexpected source.

You see, when the line died, YZG was in the middle of a business call with someone in the US who had no idea that YZG was calling from abroad.

And hours later, when our phone and Internet connection finally came back up, YZG found an email which basically said:

“Hi YZG. Our call was interrupted. I assume this was due to the inclement weather conditions in your area.”

So there you have it.

The unseasonably balmy (and frankly unwelcome) weather we’ve been experiencing here in Israel these past few days apparently knocked our phone lines out.

Makes sense to me…

שבוע טוב וחודש טוב!

My BFF Michal

In a comment to the previous post, Toby of the very funny A Time of the Signs blog wrote:

On the flip side of this, I've discovered that those folks calling to collect for various charities are very forthcoming about giving their names. As in, my kids will say, "Eema, Orli is on the phone." I'll pick up, wondering which Orli it could be, and I'm greeted with, "hi Toby, this is Orli from such and such an organization..."

This happens to me all the time, but the ultimate example occurred less than a week after our first sabra was born.

I answered the phone to hear a cheery voice gush excitedly, "Mazal tov, [Mrs. S.]!"

Clearly, it was one of my nearest and dearest friends.

But while my sleep-deprived brain tried to figure out exactly which one, the voice continued.

"It's Michal!" she chirped unhelpfully.

Now I was completely mystified. Still in the throes of my bleary, postpartum daze, I mentally ran through the list of Michals I knew.

Apparently, I was even more exhausted than I had thought, because I couldn’t remember having a best friend named Michal!

Finally, she put me out of my misery and explained that she was calling from one of the infant formula companies...

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P.S. In case you were wondering, I politely told her that I was nursing exclusively, thanked her for calling, and hung up…

Phone tag

Shavua tov!

If – like me - you’re an Anglo parent of Israeli teenager(s), you’ll surely recognize the following phone conversation. I mean, here in TRLEOOB*, it inevitably occurs whenever any of the older Shiputzim kids are away from home.

Me: {answers the phone} Hello.

Caller: Shalom. Is ACST (a certain Shiputzim teenager) there? [Note that the caller hasn’t actually asked to speak to ACST. They just want to know if ACST is there (“nimtza” or “nimtzeit”). Apparently they work for the Mossad or something and are charged with keeping track of ACST’s whereabouts...]

Me: Who is this, please?

Caller: A friend of his/hers. [You know, in case I thought that it was ACST’s sworn enemy calling.]

Me: {tries the direct approach} And what’s your name?

Caller: {only gives their first name, which is always so common that ACST has at least three other kids with the same first name in his/her class.}

Me: {feels like I’m pulling teeth} And what’s your last name?

Caller: {mumbles something unintelligible}

Me: {concedes defeat} Well, ACST isn’t here right now. Can I take a message?

Caller: {apparently startled by such an odd question} What? Uh, no, no thanks. Shalom. {hangs up}

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Teenagers.

You gotta love ‘em…

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*TRLEOOB=the real life equivalent of our blog