Reflections on the Year

They say that ארץ ישראל נקנה ביסורין, the Land of Israel is acquired through tribulations. We have had our share, from the pre-Aliya packing and selling of goods (our house is still available for purchase at a very reasonable price. Please contact me ASAP if interested) to the absorption center, to another move and getting our lift delivered. I think that over this year we have learned a tremendous amount about ourselves and about what is important. We have greater insight into the typical Israeli attitude about things and we have been forced to adapt our expectations of things to match our reality.

But it seems that we are missing something. We have been trying discovering who we are. We have been trying to find our purpose in this world, the reason why we are here. This is a long process. But along the way we have been learning and improving in other ways.

It seems that there is something we hare missing, some lesson we have refused to learn. I say this because whenever things are picking up something always brings us down a notch. This lesson is usually financial. But this past week Hashem gave us a more powerful lesson.

I took last Thursday off from work. We were finally taking a small, and well-earned, vacation. On Thursday we were going to a Nefesh B'Nefesh (NBN) event for olim in the North. From there we would head South to Yerushalaim. Ayelet's brother Daniel was hosting a Chanuka party for family. We would spend Shabbat with Daniiel and Elana and head over to my sister after Shabbat to see them and my brother from Efrat.

This was the plan. The NBN event was very nice. We all had fun, especially since it was surrounded by glorious downpours. As we drove South on Road 90 (the Jordan Valley road) everything got complicated...

We came around a downhill turn on the wet roads and began to slip. My guess is that we hydro-planed because I became aware of the car turning more and more to the right. Ayelet was driving at the time and did everything she could to correct the direction of the car. To no avail. Sitti gn shotgun it became clear to me that we were going to sideswipe the embankment on the side of the road. I did not realize that we also jumped over the ditch between us and the embankment. When we hit, the car was facing 180 degrees the wrong way.

After the car hit the embankment we bounced back and rolled over at least once. It was a sideways roll, not end over end. the car came to a rest rightside up, facing the road, and spanning the ditch.

The kids were, understandably, freaked out. Ayelet came to her senses first and flew out of the car to check on them. Meanwhile, I tried to find out glasses and my kippa. Everything loose in the car flew around the car. This includes the DVD player that still works and my teudat zehut that is missing, We calmed everyone down and did some quick triage. Everyone was alive and seemed okay. Ayelet had bruising on her neck and collarbone area from the seatbelt and would soon feel some constriction and swelling.

I love Israel. The number of people that stopped to help was extraordinary. In America most people wouldn't stop on the highway if they saw another car needed help. Here total strangers were bringing us bottles of water without asking. The first car to stop called the police for me. The second car was full of Arabs. They also offerred to help and told me that 2 of their friends had similar accidents in the same place. Pretty soon an EMT stopped on his way home. He started checking us out. In the middle of his exam another car came around the bend and smashed his car. After that I yelled at helpful passers-by to keep moving since this was apparently a dangerous bit of road.

Baruch Hashem we are all alive and well. We were transported to the hospital and released later that night. Thank you to NBN for helping us out, Tzippy and Yoel took care of us at the hosptal. A further thank you to our families for their support and chaffeuring help.

I will continue the story tomorrow, as now I must get some sleep...