OMS

A lesson in giving your kids more credit for common sense:

A pagan lives on my moshav. Nira moved here about 12 years ago. She's a real live, honest to goodness, sun worshiping pagan. I picked up on her religious persuasion immediately. My neighbors were incredulous. Here in the cradle of the world's three monotheistic religions, the very idea of worshiping the sun is absurd.

But I was worried. Nira was very active with the school and the preschoolers. She organized a winter's solstice for my then 4 year old Netanel's preschool Hanukkah party. The other parents thought it was quaint, or eccentric, but harmless. I almost fainted.

I am very open minded about these things. Over the years I have explained to my kids that there are things we believe, and things that Nira believes, and the difference is that the things that we believe are true. But I was never really sure if I was getting through.

Until tonight.

Observant Jews traditionally write the Aramaic or Hebrew initials for "Lord Willing" at the top of every thing they write on. (I don't. What do you do if you want to toss the paper later on?)

So tonight Netanel and I were sitting outside and he comes up with this one:

"I wonder what Nira writes at the top of her pages. 'SW'?

At first I didn't know where he was going with this.

"What?"

"You know, like how we write 'LW' for 'Lord Willing', does she write 'SW' for 'Sun Willing'?"

"I don't know. I never realy thought about it." Sometimes I'm amazed at the way his mind works.

"And lets say she backslides and goes secular. Does she go around saying the sun doesn't exist?"

"I guess so."

"So then how does she explain that big light in the sky?"

I'd never really given it much thought, but what happens if a pagan goes atheist? Good question.

Now I'm not sure if I worried too much about Nira, or if making sure my kids know a pagan when they see one paid off.

But I have another question. Now days they have all these initials on Messenger, like 'LOL' and 'TMI', and that 'OMG' is swearing. (sorry)

So what does a pagan write; 'OMS'?

s

על האישה המושלמת. שעה 20:00, מוצא שבת

to die a little

Almost exactly 2 years ago, Maayan returned from India and Nepal. It ended one of the most anxious 8 months of my life, more than even her army service when she rode the bus every day from platoon to platoon everywhere from Ramallah to Gaza and suicide bombers were the evenement de jour.

Before and during Maayan's travels to India, her friends were happy for her. They cheered her on, encouraged her – and I grumbled.

I didn't get in her way, I even facilitated, but never once pretended that I liked the idea.
I respected her enough to let her do what she decided to do without trying to stop her, but I loved her enough to die a little every time I thought of the danger. While she was there, I couldn't bear to even talk to her when she called, to hear her voice. The anxiety was too much for me.

When she came back, we found out things that wisely she had kept from us while away. In Nepal she had been inches from death. (See the story on Avital) Maayan sees the adventure as a great life experience; I see it as a near brush with tragedy.

Who were Maayan's friends? I mean, her real friends? Were they the ones that told her what she wanted to hear, encouraged her to take chances and were happy for her? Did any of them care enough about her to warn her? To be worried?

And if Maayan hadn't survived Nepal; what would her friends be worth then?

Who is a friend?

My best friend is Barry, who happens to also be my brother. Barry injured an eye when he was six years old doing the only stupid thing he's ever done in his life, but he sees me. I'm about as good as a wet T-shirt at concealing anything from him. Barry is my critic. He says the things that people think but are too polite (but really just too cowardly) to say. I listen to Barry because even though he doesn't like everything I do and almost nothing that I say, I know the bottom line is that he loves me nevertheless.

Real friends are honest. They say what they think. They aren't yes-men and they aren't cheerleaders. They aren't "almost always nice". They assume that you know that no matter what they say about what you do, their opinion of you is unconditional. Real friends will do or say what they believe you need, even if it isn't something you like. To be a real friend you have to have guts. Or nerve.

Who were Maayan's friends? Avital certainly was. But I wonder how many of the others cheered her on because they really believed it was good for her, and how many because it was an easy way to win her smile.

I wonder if any of them loved her enough to die a little inside.

A Big Fat Jewish Wedding

Before Yael and I got married, her brother Yehudah asked me to come with him on an errand. It seemed innocent enough and I agreed. He drove me out into the marshes in Haifa's harbor district where poisoned streams of industrial waste flowed in canals by factories and the electrical power plant. The perfect place to dump a body.

He started talking about Yael, and told me what a stand up girl she was, and that he would hate for her to get hurt. Coming from a hairy, muscled Mediterranean guy like Yehudah, the message was clear.

Obviously, I did the right thing without further persuasion. I discovered later that while Yehudah is a little wild, he's not violent and the ride in the marshes was a practical joke.

Yael's family is a big one. When they are together there's noise and confusion and lots of good Indian food (Her parents came to Israel from Bombay). And do the math. Yael is one of six brothers and sisters which all have at least three kids each and if you take in account cousins and nieces and nephews, that adds up to a lot of weddings and brises and Bar Mitzvahs.

Yael and I saw "My Big Fat Greek Wedding", a comedy about a girl of Greek-American extraction that falls in love with a regular WASP kind of guy. The story hinges on the contrast between her colorful and spicy family and the groom to be that is as bland as "toast" according to the girl's mother. All through the movie Yael and I laughed and our eyes would meet; the movie was about us!

Weddings Greek, Jewish, Israeli, or Indian – they are all variations of the same genre of loud and crowded chaos.

And to be honest, I am toast. I like quiet, I like tranquil, I like boring. I hate big, fat Jewish weddings. Once I told my brother Barry about an up coming (Yael) family event. I was all pushed out of shape because they were putting a lot of pressure on me to go.

Barry was taken aback by my stick in the mud attitude.
"You're lucky enough to have people who go out of their way to invite you to share their celebration, to spend time with you - and you're angry about it?!!"
As usual, Barry has a point. Yael's family pays me the highest compliment; they want me to be part of their family. And I'm not in the mood to party with them.

Being toast is chutzpah.

There's this parable about how God is like this guy throwing a big, fat Jewish wedding. He sends out invitations, but everyone in town are toast. They have better things to do, they're busy, they have excuses. They blow the guy off.

The guy doesn't cancel the wedding. He invites the poor and the beggars, and they all have a great wedding. It turns out that this guy is a pretty serious dude, kinda like the goon Yehudah pretended to be. He punishes all the people that didn't bother to come to his wedding.

The moral of the story is that God pays us the greatest of compliments. He offers to let us be part of His family, and if the invitation is the greatest of favors, then blowing it off is the greatest of insults.

What I'm wondering is this. What about toast? What about a guy like me that doesn't like big, fat Jewish weddings, but shows up anyway? What about someone that goes to the wedding, but can't wait for it to be over already?

What does God do about toast?

Out with Irene

Barry gave us the movie Blackhawk Down on CD a few months back and since then Netanel has played it dozens of times, sometimes even as background noise while he's on the computer or studying for a test. .
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As war movies go, Blackhawk Down is just about as realistic as it gets without getting shot at. It's all there – a senseless mission, the snafus, the command detached from reality or humanity - soldiers getting screwed more by their thickheaded officers than the enemy, commanders in the field (generally NCOs) that save their men from above mentioned officers and enemy alike.


In the autumn of 1993 US Rangers and Delta Force had been dropped into the middle of a civil war between Somali warlords with the naïve idealistic objective of restoring order. On October 3, Operations issued orders for a questionable daring mission codenamed "Irene" to apprehend hostiles in the heart of Mogadishu, but a series of mishaps on the ground and breakdowns in communications end up with the Rangers under siege with critically wounded casualties and isolated units scattered in a city stirred and swarming.

At this point, I want to clarify that my qualifications as a military analyst are from the ground up. In my 26 years in Israeli army uniform, I have never been more than a crewman of an M-109 self propelled howitzer. My crew has never fired a live round at a live person, not even during the 2006 war in Lebanon (Because our battalion's new crop of crew commanders fresh from regular enlisted service were unable to make heads or tails of the outdated equipment we have in reserve battalions and the 670th was declared "unfit for combat" that summer.)

The Israeli Army is ever short of infantry for duty on the borders and on the West Bank, so a good 80 to 90 percent of my service over the years has been as a foot soldier far from my beloved howitzer. I've been out with "Irene" a few times.

"Irene" was your garden variety abduction operation in enemy territory (called "an arrest" by the military). I've participated in a few "arrests" over the years, if on a much smaller scale. In an operation like this you have 3 units:

1. The attack team. This unit makes the arrest and is as small as possible with the best soldiers available. Few so they don't get in each others way, best so that they don't shoot each other or the arrestee by mistake.

2. The isolating unit; to prevent anyone from coming to the aid of the arrestee.

3. The extraction force, by far the largest of the three, remains out of the picture but ready to come to the aid of the first two units should something go south during the operation.

Delta was the obvious choice to enter and apprehend, and Rangers lowered from Blackhawks were assigned to isolating the site. The extraction force was a convoy of (Rangers?) on Hummers.

What went wrong?

Surprise is essential. Going in at high noon, "Irene" depended on the speed of its helicopters to compensate; but since evacuation was on wheels, dealing with an armed response was inevitable.


Using the Blackhawks to achieve fire superiority over the city made them more or less static elements of the isolation force. Since their main advantage is fire in motion, they became sitting ducks.

Ideally, the attack and isolating units leave the scene independently. Assigning the extraction force with evacuating detainees with their captors meant that there was nothing left in reserve in case something went wrong. When the convoy got lost in the city, evacuation was delayed, compounding the fiasco.

Another thing about the movie is how you see the Rangers more or less ignoring the Somalis shooting at them. This is pretty accurate. You have "suppressive fire", which isn't really meant to kill anyone but just to get the other guy to take cover; and "effective fire" when you shoot through sights in hopes of actually hitting someone. The Somalis were using a third kind of fire which is called "making a lot of noise, but not hitting much of anything except innocent Somalis". The difference between "effective fire" and shooting off your gun is the big difference between Hizbullah fighters and gun toting Palestinians.

Netanel and I watch the same movie, but we're not looking at the same thing. Our points of view are from different places in life. "Irene" for me is just one more screw up, only on a much grander scale than any I have participated in. Here in Israel, more often than not the guy you're after isn't home and nobody is eager to risk dear life to get him.

For Netanel it's different. It's starting to sink in; before you know it he will be in uniform and on his way to "Irene". He's started asking questions, technical questions; picking the brain of that old soldier, Abba.

But for me, if anything is harder that going out with "Irene", it will be those three long years when Netanel will be out there with an "Irene" of his own.

Footprints in the Snow

Maybe you were always there and I just can't remember.
All that comes to mind is a girl with freckles and big glasses giggling with her girlfriends;
then one day the glasses and giggles were gone,
and you were beautiful.

Our paths crossed, but I never dreamed they'd meet,
and could scarcely believe it when it did.
We made footprints in the fresh fallen snow
as I walked you home that night,
And I kissed you and you kissed me back.
And time paused for a moment
In a world bright and pure and white.

We counted the stars I'd seen so many times,
And for the first time I knew their wonder,
And I suppose the world went 'round,
But all I can recall is the snowflake in my hand.

The moment was magic; I didn't wonder when it passed.
You were no longer a girl and I not yet a man.
We went our ways without a struggle or a song,
And the tracks we made vanished and were gone.

Years have blown away and melted, and snow is sprinkled in our hair.
I don't regret the path I've taken, nor should you.
Yet every now and then I look back and remember
our footprints in the snow.

Joyeux anniversaire,
Ami

Grease is the Word

I was secretly pleased when my 13 year old Odelia asked me to rent out the movie "Grease". To the best of my memory, it was a wholesome light hearted 50's style musical, much better fare than the shallow sexually explicit Hip Hop ghetto fare shes been into lately.

Either my memory or my better judgement failed me this time. Grease is the story of how Sandy, an intelligent poised young lady from Australia, hooks up with a handsome dark stranger (Danny) over the summer, and much to her delight it turns out that he is an old hand at her new high school. The only thing is that her beau is a shallow bully who's interest in the "land down under" has nothing to do with Geography.

Sandy is at first disappointed, but Danny sincerely wishes to clean up his act and even cuts down to two packs a day and signs up for the track team. But Danny's heart isn't really set on scoring on the field and Sandy has to make a choice, and she does. In the end, she shows up and much to the delight of Danny and his loser cronies, she's every bit a slut as her arch rival Rizzo.

The moral of the story: Girls, if you have a mind and some character, you'll miss the dream-boat. He's only interested in tying up to a dingy. But if you lower your standards to the lowest common denominator and pretend that you don't have anything of value above the waist, well, by golly your ship will come in and everybody will love you.

Sometimes I'm glad that English isn't Odelia's mother tongue. While she's smart enough to pick up on the plot, most of the crude inuendo and not-inuendo went right over her head.

What was I thinking!?!!!!!

And what more, how did "Grease" pass my parent's strict Fundamentalist G-rated-only censurship? And I hear there is a Grease revival bringing in new converts daily; how is it that feminists world wide aren't up in arms?

"Grease" runs just about 180 degrees against everything I want for Odelia. It is a dramatization of the dilemma she faces these days; to make the most of the brilliant mind and gifted imagination God gave her, or to submit to the dictates of the bimbo brainless babes that rule Junior High.

Thank you, Hollywood. Now I have another mess to clean up.

Odelia asked me what "Grease" means.

"Oh, it's something goopy and slimy that's hard to wash off."

Jerusalem Day

Last week was "Jerusalem Day" marking 40 years since the city was reunited. Whoever declared the day slept through his history class or Math in school, since to my reconning if the city was reunited in the Six Day War (1967) that works out to 41 years.

Children made the pilgrimage to the capital, from schools and youth movements from every corner of the nation.

Our 9th grade represented our school. We got off the bus at Jaffa Gate at the old city and quickly got organized by the walls, which in bygone days defended the inhabitants and today protect vistors from the sun.

We walked on the ramparts around to the Jewish Quarter.

On the wall that once divided the Jordanian east from the Israeli west you can see the contrast between the arid landscape to the east and the Mediteranean climate to the west that I blogged about last week.

Jerusalem adorned herself on her day with children like a matron decked in jewels. Hundreds, thousands explored the city and then converged on Independence Park downtown.

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Nothing excites children like other children. They screamed and broke away when they spotted kids from other groups they knew; hugs and kisses were exchanged, and then they had to be forced back lest they get left behind.

We regrouped and in the cool of the afternoon we set off by groups in a parade down boulevards closed for the occasion; a white river of flags and youth flowing through town and pouring into Teddy Stadium.

Our hosts, the children of Jerusalem, put on a show for us.

Every dance group and community center in the city must have been preparing for weeks. Acrobatics, songs and dancers complete with colorful floats and costumes treated the children.

I've learned from experience to look at the kids at events like these. They are the real entertainment. Pictures or even film can't capture the energy in a stadium packed with ecstatic youth.
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For some of our kids, this was the first time they had been in Jerusalem. I'm sure that they will never forget their first taste of the capital of our nation and center of our heritage.

Jerusalem Day is education at its finest.

Tiny Dancer

Take me closer tiny dancer
Count the headlights on the highway
Laid down in sheets of linen
You had a busy day today
(from "Tiny Dancer" by Elton John)

I didn't know it was you when it came over the radio driving home.
I'd seen you around but didn't know you,
and yet all that week Elton John's song
"Candle in the Wind" kept running in my head,
only the words had changed;

And I would have liked to have known you
But you were just a kid
Your candle burned out long before
Your legend ever did

You did so much in such little time,
you danced before millions.

You are famous,
but I didn't know you,
You're gone but you touched us,
we still feel you.

You made waves
that reached every corner of the sea,
but the stone that you dropped
in our little pond
has left us dry.

And you're still here,
dancing here,
a tiny dancer in my head.

Ballerina,
you must have seen her dancing in the sand.
And now she's in me, always with me,
tiny dancer in my hand.