Last Year's News

I have recently come under fire for not writing anything on my blog in a long time.

Actually, I am lying through my teeth. The truth is that besides for one or two people, no one has said a word to me about the fact that I haven't written anything in almost a month. But it sounds more impressive this way.

Anyway, I have not written anything in a while for several reasons, not the least of which is that I'm running out of interesting topics to write about. I guess I could write about the leaky toilet in my dira, or the new payphone they're installing in my yeshiva, but somehow I don't think that would cut it. Perhaps it is time to engage in the real challenge of journalism: writing about truly mundane, boring topics in an exciting fashion, as if they were the Presidential Elec- no, wait, that's still too boring...

On second thoughts, that IS what I have been doing until now - writing about theoretically boring topics as if they were majorly exciting world events. And judging by the fact that I've succeeded in stringing along my readers for several months like that, I'd say it's working. So I guess for now I'll continue on the same track.

Meanwhile, until someone is kind enough to suggest a more interesting topic, let's do a little history lesson: I think I'll write about some of what's been going on in my life since the last time I wrote almost a month ago. After all, I believe that was meant to be the original purpose of my blog, as stated here, before everything went to pot. I am, however, calling it a history lesson since the following events technically occurred last year, during 2007, which is no longer with us. (Sniffle, sniffle...)

First on the list of recent events of historical significance is the marriage of my cousin to a girl from South Africa. (No, no one in the family has a series of shrunken human heads on a stick. They prefer to put their shrunken human heads on a chain instead.) Since the wedding took place here in Israel, it meant that I merited a full-scale familial invasion, consisting of my parents, my brother, three of my sisters, several aunts and uncles, and a truckload of assorted cousins.

Needless to say, a visit from home is the best thing that happened to me since I got here. That's right: I finally got some more cold cuts and tuna fish. But best of all, I got to have my very own Amigo for a week. An Amigo is a rental cellphone from the Israeli cell carrier Mirs, which is the local equivalent of Nextel. This means that they have a "walkie-talkie" feature, which enables you to talk to another Mirs phone user just as if it were a regular phone, except that there is a distinctive "prip-prip" sound at the beginning of each transmission, which serves the important function of notifying anyone nearby that you are using a Mirs phone.

The wedding itself took place at the Hadar Sheraton City Tower in Ramat Gan, on the night of Sunday, December 23rd. In case you haven't figured it out from the name "Hadar Sheraton City Tower", it was an extremely memorable (meaning very fancy, and presumably expensive) affair. I personally had a blast, and hope to be completely sober once again sometime before Pesach.

I am, of course, lying through my teeth again. I couldn't have gotten drunk if I would have tried; anyone who knows me at all knows that I can't stand alcohol. My primary interest in an alcoholic beverage would be to see if I can set fire to it. But I thought it sounded good, so I wrote it anyway. If you don't like it, sue me.

On Monday night, I spoke at the sheva brachos. It was the first time I allowed myself to be coaxed into speaking in front of a large audience since my arrival in Israel. I think it went pretty well, despite my initial nervousness. I attribute my success to the fact that I consumed three shots of Johnny Walker Green Label before ascending the podium, which, to be frank, is three shots more than I ever drank in my whole life. I'm not sure what I said in my speech - it seemed to make sense to me (and any other patrons of Mr. Walker) at the time, though I'm not sure it made any sense in the long run...

On Tuesday, we rented a bus, and all my family members and cousins who were interested went to Teveria, Tzefas, and Meron to daven at various kivrei tzadikim. We were roughly 20 people on a 50 passenger bus, so it's a good thing we had the walkie-talkie phones, or some people may have gotten lost. Come to think of it, maybe some people DID get lost. So if you ever rent a bus here in Israel and you find some random, dazed individuals who don't appear to be from your tour group, give me a call. Thank you.

Perhaps the most interesting sheva brachos of all was the Shabbos Sheva Brachos, which took place in Netanya, at the Galei Sanz hotel, smack in middle of Sanz-Klausenberg-ville, and right on the shore of the Mediterranean. The kallah's family had sent out scouts to hotels across the country, and Galei Sanz was the only one that met the two critical requirements of 1) having a top-notch hechsher, and 2) being available in the middle of holiday season. The entire Shabbos was beautiful, and very well organized. There was even a printed schedule that was distributed to all the guests, which was strictly adhered to.

I am, of course, lying through my teeth again. As I'm sure you have figured out by now, trying to get a bunch of "Heimishe Yidden" to conform to a printed schedule is like trying to fit an elephant into a Volkswagen Beetle: it just won't work. Period. So everyone got used to a new schedule: one that was dictated more or less orally, created pretty much on-the-fly. Which suited me just fine: I'm a big fan of improvisation, just so long as it doesn't spread to, say, helping a choking person. ("I can't remember the Heimlich maneuver, so let's try sticking this vacuum cleaner nozzle into the victim's mouth and see if we can't suck the ole' blockage outta his throat.")

Seriously, though, Shabbos in Netanya was absolutely wonderful. But for me, the highlight was that I merited to meet Rabbi David Orlofsky, whom I quoted extensively in Coming Home to the Wall. To my pleasant surprise, he told me that he had actually read it when it was published in the Hamodia, and had even commented to his wife "Hey, look! This is the first time I've been published in the Hamodia since I stopped writing for them!"

And this time, I'm not lying through my teeth.