synthesis: The process of merging, uniting, or combining different things, ideas, or styles into one complex entity, which has both the constituent elements and a new essence [multiple words].
Between heaven and earth
So we went to New York, flying - for medical reasons - to be precise, on El Al flight 477, the number of which I remembered well. I couldn't stop imagining our pilot landing on a deserted island as part of some international conspiracy, and in the news in Israel, as well as around the world, the ritual of "What happened to flight 447 on the way to New York" would never cease.
Or also: "Flight 447, which departed from Israel on August 15, and which carried 700 passengers on board, including journalist Eliezer Heun, disappeared from radar 6 hours after takeoff.".
Of course, everything will work out to everyone's satisfaction in the end. All the passengers will be released - it was a kidnapping, by the way - unharmed, and I, as a well-known journalist who just happened to be on the scene of the incident, will be interviewed by the various networks and humbly explain that we kept our cool thanks to faith, and thanks to our steadfast ability to withstand.
Mom will be happy, and will send the interviews to her friends on WhatsApp, and on my Facebook account, the letter K will appear next to the like icon.
But none of this happened, for some reason, and the flight, thank God, went smoothly and without any mishaps.
Yes, I met the Gat brothers during one of my endless 12-hour wanderings. How are you, the Gat brothers? I asked, because I didn't remember who was Aryeh and who was Gil. They were just as nice as on screen, maybe even nicer.
Meanwhile, in the seat behind me, a middle-aged couple argued throughout the entire flight.
The fight broke out during takeoff and encompassed all the events of the past few days. The exchange of accusations and insults between the two could fill a thick volume, but it wasn't until the end of the flight, when the husband said, "And despite everything, I forgave you," that I realized that the couple had found a great way to pass the long hours.
As if to confirm my thoughts, I heard the man say to his wife: "That's it, we're done for today," and the woman mumbled something not very clear, but then fell silent.
I was a little sad to say goodbye to the grumpy couple, probably in light of the fact that the Israeli television programs that were shown on the plane made it clear to me to what a low entertainment low the Israeli media had descended to.
Street sweeper with a fashion bag
Manhattan is the most expensive city in the world, my father-in-law, who accompanied us, told me, and also gave me a chain of warnings upon landing: Don't shout and speak loudly (like you usually do), don't attract attention (like you usually do), don't stick to people (as above), don't look people in the eye (also as above), don't stand in the middle of the road, the stairs, or the exit (like you like to do), and stop saying like a provincial Israeli that Central Park (which is over 4 km long) reminds you of Sacer Garden.
I quickly realized that the man knew what he was talking about.
In America, anything can happen, even absurd contradictions. An American may be surprisingly nice to you, but then look at you with the eyes of a mass murderer, just because you brushed against him when you tried to get out of the train door. In the elevator, they will smile at you, they will press the desired button for you, but if you have to go up and the passengers in the elevator at that moment are actually getting off, there is a high probability that they will not let you in.
Everything can happen at the same time.
For example, I was surprised to find a homeless woman sitting in one of the corners, her mind scrunched up with intellectual effort as she tried to solve a crossword puzzle. She couldn't have been more than 35. I have an eye for these things, and besides, she also wrote it on a piece of cardboard she had placed at her feet.
A few meters away, a street sweeper was cleaning the road, which caught my eye. When I looked at him again, I realized what had caught my attention. He was dressed like a senior bank clerk: perfectly pressed, clean trousers and shirt, and elegant business shoes.
Two days later, I met his sister in the park, carrying a fashionable bag in one hand, and with the other, picking up bits of dirt into the trash she was rolling.
People walk quickly through the streets, and the wide sidewalks are filled with crowds. Walking among millions of people increases the feeling of one's insignificance and of being just another unimportant detail in the gigantic human machine.
The day Shlomo Artzi wants to remember that he is just a not-so-young Jew with gray hair, he will have to take a walk in Times Square, lit up at night like daylight. He can hum his familiar songs to himself, no one will even spit in his direction.
Trains from Hell
New York, as anyone who has visited it knows, is networked with 468 passenger stations and 373 km of train lines, most of which are built underground.
""You have to take the subway," all the good souls prepared us. "You can easily get from place to place in New York using the thousands of cars.".
This is true, of course, if you ignore the unbearable heat that prevails underground. In hell, one can assume, there is a similar subway network, only there you might know some of the people. Why didn't the Americans think of solving this lacuna? How is it possible that in a significant number of stations there are no elementary waiting benches? What do disabled people do (there were two of us), in many stations where there are no elevators or escalators? Only the Americans can answer this question, or rather, they can't.
They don't have the leisure or desire to deal with it.
The train also attracts all sorts of bizarre creatures just trying to make a few cents off the tired passengers. For example, we met singers of all kinds on and off the train.
One of them recognized the kippah on my head and sang "Hava Nagila Hava" with me, and also told me "Sababa.".
On the other hand, an unidentified woman threw her kippah over my head on Broadway, her eyes filled with abject hatred. I tried to muster the list of swear words I knew in English and discovered that my repertoire was very meager. I chose to do it in Hebrew. It was easy, and it also gave me a good, liberating feeling.
Later, at midnight, a couple, a bride and groom, boarded the train. They posed for pictures and smiled at the sleepy passengers. I couldn't help but imagine the groom from the Beit Matityahu Yeshiva and his wife from the Wolf Seminary, boarding the 400 line after the wedding.
In New York, I also met a good friend from my yeshiva days, a Hungarian immigrant who is married to a local Haredi girl, and today serves as a lecturer at Touro College.
He told me the following anecdote: "On my first day at work, with my English still broken, I presented the students with a simple, basic math question, and suggested that I read the names while they thought about the solution.
When I finished reading the names, I asked who wanted to answer the problem? Everyone looked at me with their mouths open. It turned out that they were all Russians who didn't understand a word of what I was saying.
I told the college president: "I'm asking for double pay - a math teacher, and an English teacher.".
And what do the many schnurners among the opponents of core studies, who can barely pronounce a word in English, do when they come to extort rich Jews for the benefit of their institutions?
They hire 'drivers' - young English-speaking men, who take a sizable chunk of the money donated by the rich to the poor Abrahim from the Land of Israel.
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