The Electric Company

I was looking over our utility bills to prepare for our taxes (even half a planet away, I can't avoid April 15) and was thinking of the word "electricity," which in Hebrew is Cheshmal (hard H in the beginning, like Chanukkah). I was told in Hebrew class that the word Cheshmal only occurs once in the Bible - it is the radiant or "flashing-fire" light described in Ezekiel 1:4.

So, when modern Hebrew was invented, they needed a word for electricity and since no one knew what this radiant lightning-like light was, they decided to use the word from Ezekiel to mean electricity. Cool, huh?!

12-Packs on Sale - Only $18!!!

I noticed that our local market had many 12-packs of Dr. Pepper piled up next to the wines. I love Dr. Pepper and it's not generally sold here - I consistently drink Coca Cola from 1.5 liter bottles. I picked up a case and asked the clerk how much for a pack and he looked back at me incredulously. Apparently, the Dr. Peppers were there and ready for individual sale, not as a pack. Plus, they were to be sold for 7 shekels each - about $1.66 per can! The clerk told me he'd give me a pack for only 6.5 shekels each so the case would cost a whopping $18.57! I instead picked up another 1.5 liter bottle of Coke for 6.75 shekels.

The Weather Outside Was Frightful

Last Thursday was absolutely beautiful - sunny, warm, blue sky. But, by Saturday afternoon, the weather turned awful. Saturday night was incredibly windy and rainy and the noise of the wind kept us tossing and turning all night long. This morning was not much better and I wasn't looking forward to walking the twenty minutes to Hebrew class. Jen suggested a taxi but I wouldn't hear of it. I walked through the rain and wind and discovered that just under half my class showed up, which made for a better student-teacher ratio after all.

Apparently, according to the Swede in my class, our classmates are a fair weather bunch and during the bad weather at the end of December (before I started with the class), there were several days where only the "hearty Europeans" showed up. He also told me that bad weather is like a dentist's appointment - you just have to get through it! He also said, "It's not like Siberia! This is nothing!" At least the forecast for the imminent future is nice.

Yad Vashem

Yesterday, Jen and I visited Yad Vashem's (the Holocaust Martyrs' and Heroes' Remembrance Authority) new Holocaust History Museum here in Jerusalem. It was our first trip to Yad Vashem and the huge campus is breathtaking in its size and number of memorials. The new museum itself is architecturally outstanding and beautiful. The visitor takes a chronological path from Jewish life before the Holocaust through the rise of Nazism and murder of 6 million to the post-Holocaust years and the founding of the State of Israel.

While we were visiting, there were many groups of Israeli soldiers visiting as part of an IDF member's training is to visit Yad Vashem to understand what Israel is fighting for. The museum makes a strong point toward the need for the Jewish state throughout as one is regularly reminded through the exhibits that the Jews of Europe had no where to go to avoid persecution and murder.

Yad Vashem is an incredible place but, unfortunately, we should have walked the grounds and seen all the memorials before having visited the museum as we visited on a Thursday afternoon when the museum is open until 8 p.m. but by the time we finished the museum, the grounds were growing dark. We'll definitely go back as we also need to visit Yad Vashem's neighbor, Har Herzl.