Insulation, please.

Israel has been fortunate to be the beneficiary as well as the creator of a number of technological advances. Whether it's cell phone technology, revolutionary care techniques for trauma victims, computer science advances, pick your area, and Israel is likely involved to some extent. Given the above achievements, why are Israeli homes and buildings insulated so poorly?

The summers can be unbearably hot, and the winters are not freezing, but cool enough to require the use of heat inside one's home. If you are fortunate enough to have both air conditioning and heating in your home, why wouldn't you want to insulate in order to keep the heat in/out or the cold in/out. Seems like common sense. Fiberglass insulation that allows for efficient heating and cooling would save all sorts of money and cause less of a strain on the electrical grid.

Then there's the matter of windows. Weatherstripping is cheap and effective. Please Israel, use it! I know that windows and doors are one of the most difficult areas to insulate, but if you can feel a draft, it probably wouldn't hurt to use some caulk or weatherstripping. I don't get cold very easily, but when I can feel a draft, something should be done. We're talking the opposite of nuclear science, it really doesn't take much!

Hebrew phrase of the day; Kar li! "I'm cold"

Word Recall?

Quick story. This morning I boarded the bus bound for the shuk. I was startled to find that the cost of a cartisia (multi-ride bus ticket) had increased since my last purpose. While discussing this with the driver, all of the Hebrew that I have accumulated vanished from my brain, leaving me stumbling for words, and sounding like a small child.

I learned this week, that the story I mentioned in my last post is quite famous. In fact, it is featured in a collection of t'shuvot (halakhic answers to specific questions), whose name I do not recall, that emerged out of the destruction of the Shoah.

Shabbat shalom.

Intersection

Last week I had the opportunity to visit Yad Vashem, Israel's Holocaust Museum with fellow Pardes students. I had never been to Yad Vashem at night before, but I was surprised to find that the lack of natural light emphasized the murder of the Shoah. As I worked my way through the permanent exhibit, I encountered two instances where my current learning intersected with stories of the Holocaust.

The first, a man was recounting a story of another gentlemen who went to a rabbi with a question about his son. The questioner wanted to know if it was possible to save his son from an impossible situation that would surely result in the son's death, knowing that saving one child would inevitably cause the death of another. The rabbi was unable to give psak (a Halakhic ruling), because in Jewish law capital cases require a court of 23. At Pardes we are leaning sections of Tractate Sanhedrin which deals with the court system and the different requirements for the courts that hear capital cases.

The second, inside one of the many display cases was a get (Jewish bill of divorce). Upon closer examination, I realized that it was a get al t'nai (conditional get). Conditional gets are used to protect the woman in event of the disappearance of a husband. In this case, the gets was being used so that the woman could remarry if the husband could not be located. As part of my night seder learning this year, in Tractate Kiddushin, the gemara introduces texts that address get al t'nai.

These two intersections brought me to the brink of tears. More interestingly, however, is the fact that the realization that I, holocaust victims, and holocaust survivors were learning and living by the same texts. If that's not an intersection with both the horrors of the Shoah and the beauty of the tradition, I'm not sure what is.