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?
Friday, October 8, 2010
First Rain in Israel Greeted with Delight
Sunday, February 1, 2009
Let It Rain
Aside from the ‘ceasefire’ and elections, the hot topic in Israel at the moment is water, or rather the lack of it. It seems that our water sources are drying up and our supplies are running out. Mismanagement, consumer wastage and climate change have, between them, given us a shortfall between demand and supply.
On arriving in Israel I found it bemusing that although people spoke of the need for rain, the sprinkler systems in public and private domains continually clicked on at regular internals, as if showing irreverence to the situation. Public actions were, and are, seemingly out of synch with governmental concerns.
Apparently, in the past, Israeli kids grew up singing songs in kindergarten about saving water. Today though, the passage of time appears to have eroded this ingrained respect for nature’s provision of water and seems to have been replaced with the assumption that, if you turn the tap on, water will come out.
For the first time, Israel, advisor to many countries in the world on advanced technology to manage water systems, is ironically facing a drought; not only a literal drought with taps being turned on to no effect but a drought of ideas on how to solve the problem.
There appears to be government level discussion, research and trials but, as yet, no clear decision on the way forward. Anglo discussion boards are full of posts submitting ideas on how we can all preserve water and reduce our individual consumption.
Last night we had a massive thunder storm; lightening bolts shrieking from the sky and violent rainstorms pelting down. We have seen little rain this winter and last night's storm will do little to redress the national water shortage.
Let’s hope we find a way to adopt those ideas which are the cheapest and most effective and, above all, develop a strategy so that the country can worry about all the normal ‘soress’ and get the basics right.
Sharona B
