Shwarma, Gas Masks, and Normalcy

So darling wife lost her teudat zehut somewhere, and instead of going to open a bank account today, we went to get gas masks.

Let the incongruence of that sentence sink in slowly. (If there is nothing incongruent about that sentence, hello, fellow Israeli.)

It seems the government is handing out gas masks, so we walked to the mall 20 minutes away from our house and voila - we are the proud owners of 4 gas masks, complete with our names written on the box on the side.

Following this, we went to get some shwarma.

Once again, let the incongruence sink in.

While sitting at the table, watching my 2.5 year old daughter figure out if she likes shwarma or not ("I dont like this chicky! I like shwarma!"), it occurred to me that half the other families in the restaurant had the black or orange (adult or child) boxes too. And decided to go for shwarma. And this was normal.

Not normal in the sense of "sure, who's worried of being gassed to death with a massive chemical/biological warfare arsenal when there is food involved?", but normal in the sense of "there will always be those who want to harm the Jewish people, and we will take the necessary precautions, but there is still life to be lived, and that includes 18 shekel shwarma, and we are going to live it Pass the napkins."

And as insane as that may sound to some of you, I think it may be the only way to live. While the awareness of the possibilities of life is crushing, and in Western society we do our best to avoid them, there is something to be said for living life on the edge, in awareness of all that Is, and may not be for much longer. Call it stoic, call it crazy, call it Larry, it is on that razor edge of awareness that one can taste Life, sense it beating in the moment, with its eternity and its fleetingness, all at once. Its a nice place to live.




Elsewhere in the news, for those who are following our saga, we have more or less unpacked everything that we took on the plane, been shopping in the shuk and in our neighborhood stores, explored our environs (there are some GORGEOUS areas near our apartment, and some good shopping too!), and have been slowly stocking the fridge and freezer. The rest of this week should see us replacing darling wife's teudat zehut, opening a bank account, shopping for Rosh HasShana (yes, already), and attending my brother-in-law's swearing in ceremony (Tekes) for his army unit at the Kotel. It will be a packed week...