Happy Half-Birthday to Me

כ"ו חשון תשס"ז

May the next half-year be happier and more fulfilling than the last half.

Shabbat shalom...

Rimonim

ט"ו חשון, תשס"ז

On Friday, I bought myself a shabbat treat: a rimon. I had seen them here every once in a while, in the fancier supermarkets, for what I consider to be astronomical prices, and moved along. I didn't even have one on Rosh Hashana. But I finally gave in this weekend. As with many things these days, how much I like the fruit intrinsically comes second to the associations I have with eating it.

Before last year, I thought eating a rimon wasn't worth the annoyance. Why would anyone want to bother with a fruit that had to be eaten one drop of juice at a time? Then I went to Israel and discovered that people don't spit out the seeds one by one...they eat them. Pomegranate kernels are tossed into salads, served alone in bowls as a complement to other desserts, and when a whole one is pulled open, some people will break off a piece of the spongy yellow padding, peel any skin away from the clinging red gems, and take a mouthful right from the source.

Having had this revelation, I resolved -- and quickly succeeded -- to get used to chewing and swallowing what I had previously regarded as inedible, and got right down to the business of enjoying rimonim. They're colorful, tart and sweet, and (to me, at least) they are the most exotic of that collection of produce known as the sheva minim -- the seven agricultural species specifically identified in the Torah text with the Land of Israel. (D'varim 8:8)

I have always found rimon trees to be exciting. I'm no botanist -- there are only a few plants I can identify by the shape of their leaves or the color of their stems or trunks. Fruit trees in general are exciting, therefore, because seeing one in season automatically informs me. But spotting a rimon hanging off a branch is a different grade of excitement altogether, because it tells me I'm in Israel. Yes, I know they are grown elsewhere. In fact, the one I ate yesterday had "USA" on its label -- but I've never seen a pomegranate tree anywhere else but Israel, and furthermore I'm willing to bet they grow here only in commercial groves, not along the street in people's yards.

So I find rimonim to be exciting. All through last fall and much of the winter, I enjoyed them, and then missed them when they disappeared from the shuk and our local produce stores. Not being acquainted with their seasonal schedule, by late spring I assumed, regretfully, that I'd see no more (of the Israeli kind, at least) until my next trip to eretz hakodesh. But at the end of June, maybe a week before my departure, I was privileged with this:

Shavuot

י"ד חשון, תשס"ז

My group from Nishmat spent the night of Shavuot, when it is a custom to stay up all night learning Torah, at the home of one of our rabbanim in the neighborhood of Nachlaot. There were shiurim straight through from right after dinner until an hour or so before dawn, with hot drinks, luscious cheesecake, and a few mattresses laid out on a landing and in one bedroom upstairs for whoever needed a power nap (or who gave up altogether). After the last shiur, those of us who were able helped clean up a bit, and then set out towards the kotel for shacharit. It so happened that I left the house on my own. Walking through the alleys of Nachlaot it was quiet, and the night air fresh. I don't mind walking by myself, generally, but I think the thought crossed my mind that it was an awfully long way to go alone in the middle of the night, and I shouldn't have let the others leave without me.

It was a silly thought. As I came onto Rechov Yafo (Jaffa Street) a saw a few other people. Then a few more. Then many more. By the time I'd gone several blocks there were streams, and before I'd passed the Iriya (City Hall) it was a crowd. Men, women, children, all dressed for the chag and all heading in the same direction for the same purpose. A couple of times I passed women from my program who had come from the same place I had, but I felt no need to latch on. I was a single unit, but only one component of a breathtaking entity.

We were walking the same route as we had on Yom Yerushalayim. It was on the path outside the walls, near where I took that last picture barely a week before, that I first noticed I was approximately keeping pace with a particular girl. She was bundled in a winter jacket, and had a distinctive body language that made me notice her. She seemed simultaneously focused, excited, independent -- but also vulnerable. After a bit, she too noticed that we were walking "together," as it were, and we exchanged that quick smile of strangers recognizing a commonality -- but her smile was warm, appreciative. (I hope mine was too!)

We continued in silence, despite having acknowledged a link. Sometimes one of us passed ahead for a few moments, or other people moved between us, but we kept ending up aligned in parallel paths, and continued sharing anticipatory glances. We entered the Old City through Sha'ar Yafo (Jaffa Gate), and, as on Yom Yerushalayim, people were splitting about equally between the route through the Arab shuk and the one that circumvents it -- a much more popular course towards the kotel on any ordinary day. I decided I might as well take my chance when I had it, and went the more direct way. It being still significantly before dawn, the shuk as a place of business was deserted, with all wares behind locked metal doors and proprietors presumably asleep in their beds. As a thoroughfare, however, it was far from deserted. The crowds from the wide street and walkways had funneled into this enclosed alley, and though we were still walking along at a fairly brisk pace, periodically there was a traffic jam (or, to use the Israeli term, a p'kak -- a plug/stopper, like in a bottle). My traveling companion and I, still periodically becoming seperated from one another but now literally bumping up against each other when we met, finally made verbal introductions. Just our names and where in the world we were from -- nothing further. As we reached the end of the shuk she tried to link arms with me, but I shook my head, realizing how much harder it would be to navigate the throng that way. We moved into the tunnel just off the kotel plaza, at this point somewhat less than capable of directing our own bodies. (New Yorkers, picture the 6 line at rush hour!) It was dark and pungent and loud, but I leaned over to this comrade of mine to share an editorial note of sorts: "Here, the light at the end of the tunnel is the holiest place on Earth."

We made it through, of course, but were separated. That was the last time we communicated in any way, although I saw her for a brief moment later on as I moved closer to the wall than I had been initially. My encounter with her was memorable for its setting and its negligibility -- a fraction of a relationship based on a greater extent of mutual identification among thousands of people with whom we also strongly identified, a rudimentary bond based on visibly shared emotions.

My davening wasn't particularly noteworthy, since I was pretty much asleep on my feet, but hopefully Hashem heard my overflowing internal thanks for bringing me to that day, that place, that time, as part of His holy nation.