WHEN TWO WORLDS COLLIDE...

B"H


Monday, August 18th

Expenses so far incurred without receipts: Internet = 10 NIS, 5 NIS, 20 NIS, 53 NIS, 10 NIS
Tzedaqah = $5 US, $5 US, 30 NIS, 10 agurot, 10 agurot, 5 NIS
Water = 10 NIS, 10 NIS, 5 NIS, 5 NIS, 5 NIS
Art/Sofrut supplies = 19.90 NIS, 55 NIS
SUCH A DAY!
BARUKH HASHEM!!
Went to my sofer's & just had a magical time in the presence of him, his clutter, his amazing art & wow, I'm just speechless :)
It was really quite breathtaking & *almost* overwhelming to be back in his studio & just around his person. There was old work, new work, indescribable poetry & images. Ahhh...no wonder he's one of my heroes :)
His wife & children dropped in while he & I were having tea (he's *so* fussy - it's kind of endearing & alarming at the same time) & we hugged & chatted.
They congratulated me on my engagement & looked really happy & excited. After they left he gave me a shopping list & told me to go to a particular place in Me'ah She'arim, "if I wanted an experience"...I said yes, of course, but would they sell me the goods? He said, well, tell them what you really want to do with it & see what kind of an experience you have :) He asked me to buy him a Tiqun Tehilim if they had & gave me 100 NIS. Watched him work on a ketubah.
Into the bowels of Me'ah She'arim I went, list in hand, surrounded by the rough hewn stone plastered with warnings to women about modest dress, patchy sidewalks (if you can call them that), stained roads & the most indescribable odours. Everywhere there are men & boys. They wander the sidewalks with their eyes turned away from me if they're over, say, 10 years old. To the younger ones I'm a curious sight with my bare forearms & they stop their street games to stare. This one is Bratzlav, the other Kotzk. Followers of R' Areleh Roth abound in their striped kaftans...those look *so* comfy! It's like wearing your pyjamas ALL the time! I wanna join! :)
I happen into the sofer supply place & am met by a couple of young, overweight men dealing with the sofer & an extremely stern middle-aged looking woman in a chestnut-coloured sheytl (wig) sitting on a chair facing the entrance. She stared at me hard - the only way she'd stop is if I looked back at her for a bit too long. There was a clock on the right hand wall between the door & the shelves with all the goodies. It had a slot in it to put tzedeqah, so I popped 10 agurot in there, hoping they'd hear the sound & feel like they could trust me. It was rather like being in the jungle, my being more concerned with their image of me that I was able to carry my own Self to them. I removed my shades, again hoping that would facilitate his eventual co-operation. "S'licha" - I slipped between the stern woman & the two men & began browsing the shelves...I WAS IN HEAVEN! So much klaf & bar magnifiers & d'yo (ink) & erasers & knives! YAY!
I took a small bottle of Nahari ink & found a qeset (inkwell) for myself & put them on the lower shelf in front of me. There was a special sofer ST"M drawing table/lightbox made of gorgeous wood in the back, complete with qeset holder, lamp & a shelf. I drooled. I didn't dare ask how much, but BOY would that table make my fantasy job faster & easier...I also found a couple of boxes of mezuzah klaf already cut & scored! & they were only 10 NIS! & they came in different sizes! I was so excited I wanted to buy the whole shebang, but I just took note & will come back later when I know how much money I have left. I'm going to e-mail my potential mezuzah clients in the meantime...
The kindly old sofer asked me in Hebrew if he could help me. I put the ink & qeset down on his table & asked "Yesh l'kha sheysh kulmusim (do you have 6 quills)?" & he showed me that he only had uncut ones, the turkey feathers were 4 NIS each & the stripped ones (with fletch removed) were 5, so I just got 6 of the unstripped ones & asked for a Tiqun Tehilim, which he didn't have, but he told me that I could call the number of the publishers of the tiqunim he had there on the shelves. It was a number in B'nai B'rak. A town so religious that they don't have a police force. Apparently everyone there is too afraid of G@d.
I made my purchase (only 104 NIS!) & asked for a cheshbon (bill). He was very helpful & I won't be so freaked out next time I go :)
Perhaps my baseball cap - worn principally for the sun, but with the added bonus of giving people the impression that I'm married - is what did the trick. He may have assumed that I was in doing an errand for my non-existant sofer-husband.
I sauntered out of Me'ah She'arim I into Strudel to treat myself to a celebratory beer. It was so yummy. Weinhefeshaften or something - wheat beer from a 1027 recipe. Hung out with the ne'er-do-wells there, including a guy from Toronto, who was obsessed with the Tragically Hip to the point of believing that "Bob Kagan" was written about him at his summer camp & tried to guilt me into making aliya, a woman who forced her parents & a beit din to allow her to choose her own name for herself when she was 5 ("I was very stubborn") & the sexy granola serving wench with her puppy called "Nekafah" (which will remain untranslated).
They were curious about my bag of feathers, so I told them what I was up to & they thought it was really cool. There's always a great flow between secular & observant people when one of them is a boundary-crosser, provided the crossing is out of expansiveness & love.
I walked home.
Barukh HaShem.