Today I'm going to celebrate. A real celebration. One of heartfelt joy. With fun.
But just before you attack me, pressing a finger to my temple and twisting it back and forth while expressing pity, I will explain what befell me on this bland summer afternoon.
Today, several joyful things happened at once, without scheduling or prior preparation. Without an organizing committee. Without budgets from the Department of Torah Culture. Nothing to do with the specific date or the theory of numerology. Just like that.
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Today I discovered that I have been writing a column for Haredim10 for four months. And I will only be able to explain this to you this coming Thursday.
Today I discovered that even people in the US are reading my column. I'll explain how I found out about it in a moment.
Today was the first day since the column published two weeks ago about jobs for the ultra-Orthodox ("Go to work, not to work...") that my email inbox was quiet and polite. I'll explain what happened in the last two weeks in a moment.
And today I celebrate a week without cigarettes.
And I'm going to explain this to you right away.
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Last night, to celebrate my week without cigarettes, I went to a great ice cream parlor. Its owner, a good friend of mine, who is Italian by birth, makes amazing and delicious ice creams from natural ingredients and a fine Italian recipe.
Perhaps because of the context of "natural ingredients only," I preferred this specific place. We were sitting with a couple of old friends and suddenly a kind man entered the place, who addressed me directly and apologized.
It turns out that the place I was sitting was right in front of the fridge with the kilo packages of ice cream. It turns out that he just wanted his favorite ice cream, in a one-kilogram package.
With a broad smile, I brought him what he wanted, and he sat down at the table next to us, and a sight unfolded before my eyes that I will not forget for a long time: within about ten minutes, the kind man, with a calculated and engineered method, eliminated the contents of the Styrofoam container (pistachio-flavored diet ice cream, if that interests you) down to the last drop.
And all with the help of a tiny, colorful plastic spoon, the kind used to serve tastings to customers before the actual sale.
It turns out I was squinting, because in one of the few seconds he wasn't looking intently into the Styrofoam packaging, he 'caught' me looking at it, and announced with a shy smile that he was diabetic, and once a week he allows himself to eat his favorite ice cream, the kind that's made without sugar and contains real pistachios.
I looked at him, and I saw myself. Sitting and emptying my cigarette box with deep concentration and methodicality. Day after day. Weeks. Months. Years. "Allowing" myself just one more cigarette.
Just that "good" cigarette that "helps" with concentration or "digestion" or whatever.
So today I celebrate a week where every moment I have put all the choice back in my hands. Hundreds of times already during this week, I have chosen to defeat the addiction and go another moment (or another automatic habit) without the cigarette.
And it's fun. Huge satisfaction. It's a reason to party.
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And today I discovered that I also have readers in the US.
The truth is, at least one. His name is Voloi (Zeev, in Hebrew and in Hebrew as an affectionate term) and he is the brother of my neighbor. When she came in to say that she was flying to the US to stay with him for Rosh Hashanah, she proudly noted that he wanted to tell me that he regularly reads my column.
So, dear editors: I'm asking for a raise. Do you know what an effort it is for me to write in such a way that even in the US they will read me?!
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And today my email inbox was quiet. Finally.
Two weeks ago, I wrote about my experiences before (and during) the lecture to a team of Haredim from an organization that deals with finding jobs for Haredim.
Since then, I myself have had a job.
Because I promised to answer every email, and for some reason quite a few of my readers wanted to check at once whether I was keeping my promises. Otherwise, I have no satisfactory explanation for why you sent me so many emails.
So I want to summarize and clarify a few points that will summarize the flood of responses I received.
I am in favor of everyone who can, sitting down to study. That is the ideal. That is what I was raised on and I pray for the day when I can sit down to study all day again.
In the same breath, I am in favor of those who have decided or are forced to enter the labor market, learning the ways to do it properly and understanding that the big world is not exactly what they have known up until now. And that there are "slightly" different rules "out there"...
I agree that there is exclusion of Haredim from workplaces and that there are (still) a few ignorant and foolish secular employers who think that if they hire Haredim, they must build them a synagogue in the middle of the store, kick out women within a 4 km radius of the Haredi's place of residence, and commit to a notary to eating kosher at home as well. Which makes the variety offered to the average Haredi somewhat difficult.
In the same breath, I argue that we are both (partly) to blame for the situation that has been created, and also (partly) to blame for the illegitimate demands of inexperienced candidates to accept jobs and/or salaries that do not match reality.
So that's it. I answered everyone by email personally. And now I've summed up the matter publicly.
""And the land was quiet forty years."...
So is anyone still surprised that I went to party?
May you all (the six loyal readers, from Dan to Eilat, from Israel and the USA) have a wonderful and lovely day.
Yours, Micah Sholem.
See you in two days, in Thursday's column.
Comments, comments, insights, ideas, compliments, words of thanks, and songs of praise can be sent to: [email protected]
And with God's help, all who ask will be answered.
