I am thoroughly convinced that buses in this country exist outside of the dimension the rest of the world exists in. I don’t understand how it is possible for them to squeeze into these incredibly narrow spaces, spaces that I would feel uncomfortable going through on my bike. (The other day I was on a bus that was passing another bus in an extremely narrow road, and I swear that at some point the two buses intersected and were intersecting over one another-something that, as far as I know, is impossible!)
And even more so then the extremely narrow spaces are the speeds that they send these enormous machines through the street at. Yet they always manage to stop on a dime, and navigate through cars, other buses, and pedestrians.
Besides that today I had a great “only in Israel story.” I was on the bus from Beit Shemesh to Bene Brak, and at one of the stops in Beit Shemesh a man came speeding towards the bus on his bike, with his small son in a carrier on his back. The man pulled in front of the bus and asked if the bus would wait for him so he could run his son into his house (which was right in front of the bus stop). The bus driver asked if anyone minded, and no one had a problem with it. The man took 2 minutes running inside and then running back out, throwing his bike in the bottom of the bus and finally climbed onto the bus.
At the next stop we had a guy come onto the bus wearing his tallis and tifilin. Only in the country!
My trip for the day (after I went to Bene Brak to drop off my stuff-and by “Bene Brak,” I mean “Givat Shmuel” were I’m staying) was to Beit El to visit the Arutz Sheva studio.
I got to the bus station and was waiting for the 2pm bus when Walter Bingham, one of the radio hosts, sat down right next to me.
Just so you know who this is, Mr. Bingham made Aliyah 4 years ago from Britain. He is well into his 80’s and actually fought for the British during the 2nd World War.
So he gave me a little tour as we were driving through the Binyamin region of Israel. On the way he pointed out a few Jewish towns, like Kochav Yaakov, as well as Ramallah, which we could see in the distance.
The first person that I met in the studio was Ben Bresky, cool guy who does a lot of the audio editing and mixing for the studio as well as hosting a music show once a week on Sunday.
While I was there I actually recorded a commercial for the station, I send it out when it gets played.
After schmoozing for about and hour I headed across the street to the Yeshiva there to do some learning (with all of this running around I’m a little behind in the Daf). I had a great seder, and the yeshiva was quite impressive, about 200 boys, I’d say ages 14-18 all doing their afternoon seder in the Land of Israel. This is Judaism, Torah in the Land of Israel, you can’t get any better then that.
I went back to the studio a little while later to say hi to Goel Jasper and Dovid Gancher who were there to do the Aliyah show. They were interviewing the translator of the Eim Habanim Semeicha, Rabbi Moshe Lichtman (who I believe lives in Beit Shemesh).
I then when back to Jerusalem and treated myself to my favorite schwarama resteraunt, and had a Chetzi Chetzi.
Now for those of you who don’t know what that is, it’s basically a Schwarama, but with strips of Schnitzel in it. I don’t want to imagine how good/bad it is for you, but it was sooo good.
Anyways, probably won’t be able to post again before Shabbos, which I will be spending in Neve Daniel with the Eastman’s.
Have a great Shabbos!
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