First Rain in Israel Greeted with Delight

Summer is officially over. The festival of Succot has finished and we now start to pray for rain. This year rain was forecast just over a week after the Succot celebrations had come to an end. It prompted me to finally get around to rolling up the bamboo roof from the succah and putting it in its case. The rest of the succah had been neatly packed away the day after the holiday. The roof however, is the worst post-Succot job for me.

The bag is long, thin and far too tight; I always need to roll and then re-roll the bamboo sheet in order to squeeze it into the bag, which only opens from one end. I always think it must have been designed by a man (excuse the reverse sexism) as any woman would surely have designed a big slit along the length of the bag with a plastic zip.

A Poetic Moment

As my son and I finally managed to store away our succah roof until next year, we watched as the leaves and blossoms blew off the trees making a colourful carpet on the ground. Out of the blue he said, “I love the smell of Autumn”. This is not the usual type of comment my boisterous twelve year old usually makes!

Joyous Rain Dance

First came the warning clouts of thunder, followed by a sudden deluge of rain. He ran outside, dancing in the first cool shower of the year, closely followed by his brother and sister. All of them enjoyed the liberating and curious feeling of the first drops of rain in a country that is 90+ degrees for much of the year.

I reflected on how strange it was that my kids, born and raised in England during their early childhood, should exalt to so much in a shower of rain. Just when did rain become a novelty factor? Just when did my kids cease being English and become Israeli?