Ido, the park bench and his parents

Hello everyone!

As Rabbi Larry has posted, we've had some incredible experiences over the last few days.  We'll tell you more soon and upload some photos of us in the Dead Sea, views atop Masada (and a few on the way up!), and of Nachal David, in Ein Gedi National Park, where we were fortunate enough to hike where David hid from King Saul 3000 years ago.

Back in Jerusalem, though, I had a quiet moment that encapsulates Shabbat for me.

Exhausted, I was taking a rare afternoon nap when Keithen woke me without thinking.  He felt bad, but I was miffed, so I took a walk in San Simon park.   It was late Shabbat afternoon, right across the street from our apartment.  Every  metre of the park was filled with folks congregating with each other, young families with children running and playing with siblings and friends.  I found an empty bench on the peripheries of the park -- right next to a bench with two elderly couples on my right, and a bush on my left.  I quickly realized that this particular bush was the place for toddlers just out of diapers to deal with emergencies, which may have explained why the bench I had chosen was the only empty one in the park, but I digress.

I sat on the bench and felt quite the outsider as I observed the scene before me, and couldn't help but admire the ease with which Shabbat is practiced in this neighbourhood, where families all live close by, people walk more than they drive, and, on Shabbat, it is so easy to teach your kids what Shabbat's all about -- no need to wrestle away the Nintendo or fight about why the TV needs to be off -- there is a much more engaging alternative.

The bench was the kind you see in Israel with a metal latticework atop it to provide some protection from the sun.  All of a sudden, a little boy ran up with two of his friends, tzitzit flying, kippah miraculously in place without the aid of clips.  He couldn't have been more than four.

To my astonishment, the little boy wrapped his legs around the pole supporting the latticework on top of my bench, shimmied up, found a few handholds and within seconds was sitting above my head! I looked up -- then to my right, where my elder neighbours were also sitting, worried and astonished.  Worried that he'd fall off, I got off the bench and stood next to it in case the child lost his balance on the latticework, which had a sloped portion.  I played peek-a-boo with him for a moment (while keeping a watchful eye), and this little bocher was young enough to find this fascinating.

Unsure of whether to intervene -- surely his parents were nearby(?!) -- I waited, "spotting" him in case he fell.  After a few minutes, up walked his dad and, in perfect English (he was speaking Hebrew moments before), Ido told his aba that his friends didn't believe he could do it.  Aba told Ido to please remember to climb down the way he came up.  He then reassured me that Ido takes climbing lessons and knows exactly how to get up and down.  "Oh, Ido's a monkey, that's for sure."  Ido, for his part, started to show off a little and stood up; Aba made Ido  promise not to do that or he couldn't go up anymore, and so Ido promised.

Exit Aba, who returned to socializing with friends and playing with children.  I marveled at the way Israelis seem to raise their children to be independent in a way we don't -- or can't -- in Canada.  "This is how the independent spirit is fostered in Israel," I thought. "Maybe we hang on to our kids too tightly at home," I mused.

Not more than one minute passed when Ido's mother ran up (from the opposite direction as his Aba) having discovered Ido's activities for the first time.  She shook her finger, and ordering Ido down from atop the park bench.  "Ido!  You are going to fall and break your neck!  Do you want to be the only one in the Gan  in a wheelchair!  Your friends are going to be running and playing and you will be the only one who can't!  Do you want to fall of the bench and hit the concrete and end up in the hospital?  You could die! Get down RIGHT NOW!!!!"

Ido, for his part, wisely did not argue with his mother -- and was smart enough not to point out that Aba said he could, lest he not be  permitted to climb the park bench another day.

And then, I thought, we are not so different, after all.  I laughed all the way home, renewed in spirit by Ido, the park bench, and his parents.

Laurelle