The Siren and My Tattooed Savior
My daughter’s starting an MA in psychology in Jaffa this November (this is the same daughter who was devastated after being rejected last year from all the programs she’d applied to, and b”H this year SHE GOT IN!!)* So this afternoon I drove her with her stuff for to her new apartment. Afterwards I went to find something to eat near the Flea Market. and after eating a delicious sabich, I heard the dreaded rise and fall of a siren
I stood up, looking around for a shelter in my unfamiliar surroundings when I noticed a bunch of people entering what appeared to be a hall in the beginning stages of construction.
The owner, in his mid-thirties and covered with tattoos, led us all down to the basement. I was a little scared to go down the steep stairs with no railing, but then I remembered all those poor soldiers killed and injured just yesterday in an attack, and down I went.
The only thing in the entire unfinished basement was a lamp shaped like a blackjack wheel that lit it up the basement with an otherworldly UV light.
The owner introduced himself to the people who’d sought refuge in his basement and asked our names.
And then I asked him what this place was going to be.
“It’s going to be a hall for parties and dancing. We’ll have a bar over here, and a DJ over there.”
Then he pointed to my malachite necklace, and to his own necklace, also malachite. Mine was an oval, and his looked like a cross between a tear and a lightning bolt.
And then out of the blue, he announced, “My father has a brain tumor.”
“What?” I said, hoping I hadn’t heard him correctly.
“I said my father has a brain tumor. And just today he moved to Tel Aviv, to a hospital here for treatment.”
Then he dialed a number on his phone: “Eema, are you OK? And Abba?”
A few moments of silence while he listened.
“Good. I’m at the hall, we are in the basement. You see the wonderful welcome to Tel Aviv Hezbollah arranged for you? I’ll swing by later to visit Abba…”
Enough time had passed. People started climbing up the stairs and going outside, and the owner accompanied us. And then I told him, “I want to give your father a blessing.”
“OK, but not here, not in this place, let’s go outside,”
So we stood outside on the street, and I asked him: “What’s your father’s name?”
“Eliezer,” tears began to fall.
“And his mother’s name?”
He then pointed to a certain tattoo by his wrist of a palace: “Malka.”
“I want to bless Eliezer ben Malka, that a year from now you and your mother and your father will say, ‘Those doctors gave us such a terrible diagnosis, and look at Abba today!” More tears.
“And I want to bless you that in the merit of the kindness you did for us, inviting us to seek shelter in your basement…”
He interrupted, “I didn’t do anything, I didn’t invite you in, you all just came in!’
But I insisted: “You did let us come in, and in that scary time of danger you gave us a safe place to be. May the merits of your chesed for us go directly to Eliezer ben Malka. May you see miracles!” Tears, tears.
And then we said goodbye. And I checked my phone.
My daughter whatsapped that the siren an hour after she’d arrived at her new apartment had provided an unexpected opportunity to meet all her new neighbors–in the building’s bomb shelter.
And that’s kind of how I felt too. The siren had provided an opportunity to meet my neighbor. And to be reminded that one person might define himself as “secular” and another defines herself as “religious” but a Jewish soul is a Jewish soul is a Jewish soul.
*In retrospect, it was a true blessing she didn’t get accepted last year. This year she had a super meaningful and formative year teaching evacuee kids from the Gaza envelope. She also realized this year that the specialty within psychology she’d applied for last year wouldn’t have been a good match for her, so this year she applied and was accepted B”H into a specialty that we hope will suit her better.