I'm heading to Tel Aviv for a party tonite and then tomorrow I'm going back to Maale Chever to be with with my teachers family for Shabbat, so this is going to be the last posting for a few days.

There are certain things that you encounter in Eretz Yisrael that you just don't find anywhere else in the world. During coffee break (man I miss the huge Starbucks cups) this morning, I was talking to a guy (about forty years old) who'd been living near Chicago before he moved to Israel. When the guy told me the name of the town, I knew he must have been one of the only Orthodox Jews in the area. When I asked him about this, he gave me a recap of the last twenty of his life, in a nut shell.

It seems this guy grew up in a secular family with no attachment to religion whatsoever. He married a non-Jewish women a little more than twenty years ago and they "somehow" ended up visiting Israel as part of their honeymoon. One day he wanted to go to the Kotel (Wailing Wall) and she wanted to go shopping, so they parted ways for a few hours. While standing at The Wall, this guy was approached by someone who asked him if he was Jewish, and if so, would he like to put tefillin on. He did so and enjoyed the experience very much.

Well, he and this woman returned the to the States and stayed married for the next twenty years. All the while, he was living with the struggle of wanting to become more Jewish. About five years ago he began driving to Northbrook for minyan every morning, but still he continued to return home everyday to his non-Jewish family. Finally, about a year ago, he spilled the beans to his wife. She understood that he couldn't live like this anymore and she agreed to divorce him - for close to a million dollars. He was willing to pay the cost, and they parted ways. The next thing you know, the guy's on a plane to Israel. He's now officially made Aliyah and he's recently gotten re-married to a Jewish women. He's in our ulpan learning Hebrew during the morning and he runs a software development company in the afternoon.

And I got to meet him. An amazing story.

Congratulations to all you Red Sox fans. Nomar who?

Perhaps we'll have some good news from Ramallah by the time I blog again next week.

Have a wonderful shabbat.

posted by Avi G @ 13:45