{"id":10121,"date":"2006-06-28T07:15:00","date_gmt":"2006-06-28T07:15:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/production.ou.org\/life\/other\/is_it_mine_take_you_home\/"},"modified":"2015-10-21T13:59:09","modified_gmt":"2015-10-21T18:59:09","slug":"is_it_mine_take_you_home","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ou.org\/life\/israel\/is_it_mine_take_you_home\/","title":{"rendered":"“Is This Mine?” & “I’ll Take You Home”"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"image\"<\/div>\n

Is this Mine? <\/b><\/span><\/p>\n

Racheli S. is the daughter of a friend of mine. She told this story to her mother, who told it to me. Only in Israel\u2026.<\/p>\n

Racheli was sitting behind the Egged bus driver one day when two little boys who live in our neighborhood got on after a hard day at Cheder. She overheard the conversation, and observed what happened, and was happy that she did.<\/p>\n

The bus driver had a full head of long, very curly hair \u2014 the kind of hairstyle that one often sees on carefree young women. That was the only item on his head, though he did wear a very small earring.<\/p>\n

Our two young neighbors boarded the bus: one, an 8-year-old Yemenite boy with very long peyot, and his friend who is from a standard Ashkenazic Yeshivishe home.<\/p>\n

As they were paying the bus fare, boy number 2 tilted his head towards his Yemenite friend and bragged to the bus driver, \u201cHe got a 94 on his Chumash test!\u201d<\/p>\n

The long-haired, curly-headed bus driver responded with words of praise, and then gave the \u2018hero\u2019 2 shekels as a prize for doing so well on the Chumash test.<\/p>\n

Almost immediately, the driver called the two boys back and, at the next red light, he wrote a note to give to the mother of the Yemenite boy \u201cSo that she should know that it is ok where the two shekels came from.\u201d<\/p>\n

Amazing, isn\u2019t it?<\/p>\n

But then, as the \u201ccash-prize recipient,\u201d his friend, and Racheli disembarked from the bus, Racheli noticed that the little Yemenite eight-year-old looked very troubled.<\/p>\n

Asking him if something was wrong, this eight-year-old cheder student responded: \u201cDo you think that this is my money? Maybe it really belongs to Egged\u201d [the bus company].<\/p>\n

Makes you proud, doesn\u2019t it?!<\/p>\n

\n

I\u2019ll Take You Home<\/b><\/p>\n

One of the things that I like best about living in Eretz Yisroel is the fact that one often gets the feeling that people, complete strangers actually, really care about you. No, it may not be all the time, but it certainly is often enough to be worthy of note \u00ad\u00ad\u2014 and it certainly deserves being commented on, and appreciated, each time it happens.<\/p>\n

Take the time that I was a young student, freshly arrived in Israel, many, many, many years ago. It happened in the middle of summer, on a very hot, very dry, day, and I was riding on the bus going somewhere or another.<\/p>\n

Suddenly I began to feel woozy. I guess my face turned particularly white or something, because a middle-aged woman sitting across the aisle from me, a woman who was a complete stranger to me, asked me if I felt all right.<\/p>\n

When I answered that I felt woozy and a little nauseous, this complete stranger commented that I probably had not been drinking enough, because it was very hot outside. (Please note that I was speaking in pidgin Hebrew, due to the fact that I was not particularly fluent in the language \u2014 so she needed extra patience and concern to figure out what I was saying.)<\/p>\n

Another woman, seated farther along the aisle, turned in her seat to look at me. She then reached down into her sal [a plastic basket for carrying packages], took out an orange, and tried to hand it to me, commenting, \u201cEat this. It will be good for you.\u201d<\/p>\n

Feeling quite woozy by now \u2014 so much so, in fact, that I only barely registered the fact that a complete stranger was handing me an orange and urging me to eat it in a variation of \u201ces mine kind\u201d \u2014 I refused, as I really didn\u2019t feel that I had the energy to peel it or eat it.<\/p>\n

At that point another woman, who was sitting behind the original \u201cshe needs water\u201d woman, said that I needed to eat some salt, since it was really very, very hot outside. Everyone in the vicinity seemed to agree with this assessment.<\/p>\n

Our bus was approaching Machane Yehuda, the Jerusalem outdoor shopping Market which is filled with various small food stores.<\/p>\n

At this point, the \u201cshe needs salt\u201d woman stood up, rang the bell for the bus to stop, and said to me, \u201cCome. I\u2019ll get off with you. We\u2019ll buy a begaleh [a big pretzel with salt].\u201d<\/p>\n

Though I was \u201cout of it\u201d enough so that none of this interplay between strangers seemed strange or unusual to me, I was cogent enough to realize that I wasn\u2019t going to allow a complete stranger to disrupt her day by getting off the bus with me at the very busy Machane Yehuda outdoor Market.<\/p>\n

So, after assuring this stranger a few times that I really was well enough to buy a begaleh all by myself, and that she really didn\u2019t need to get off the bus, I got off, and she bought me a begaleh. I don\u2019t think I paid for it, and I know that I never thought to ask her for her address in order to thank and\/or reimburse her. But, after watching to be sure that I had started to eat the begaleh, and seeing that, B\u201dH, I really was feeling a lot better, she got on the next bus that came by that was going her way.<\/p>\n

And I, I don’t think that I ever saw her again \u2014 nor would I even recognize her if I did. But the memory of that bus ride, and the public discussion on the bus regarding the state of my health, has never left me in all these years.<\/p>\n

Nor the kindness of that \u2018stranger\u2019 who got off the bus to help me.<\/p>\n

\n

Reprinted with permission from<\/i> ON BUS STOPS, BAKERS AND BEGGARS, by Tzvia Ehrlich-Klein, Feldheim Publishers, available at all Jewish bookstores or online. Tzvia Ehrlich-Klein is author of <\/i>ON CAB DRIVERS, SHOPKEEPERS AND STRANGERS (Feldheim), ON BUS DRIVERS, DREIDELS AND ORANGE JUICE (Feldheim), A CHILDRENS\u2019 TREASURY OF SEPHARDIC TALES (Artscroll), HAPPY HINTS FOR A SUCCESSFUL ALIYAH (Feldheim), and the newly released <\/i>ON BUS STOPS, BAKERS AND BEGGARS. Tzvia Ehrlich-Klein writes for The Jewish Press and various publications in Israel, England, and the U.S.A. and has edited several books including <\/i>SALT, PEPPER & ETERNITY (Targum) and<\/i> TO DWELL IN THE PALACE (Feldheim), an anthology on life in Israel. She lives in Jerusalem, Israel.<\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Is this Mine? Racheli S. is the daughter of a friend of mine. She told this story to her mother, who told it to me. Only in Israel\u2026. Racheli was sitting behind the Egged bus driver one day when two little boys who live in our neighborhood got on after a hard day at Cheder.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":132,"featured_media":49064,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_cloudinary_featured_overwrite":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[85,1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10121","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-inspiration","category-israel"],"yoast_head":"\n"Is This Mine?" & "I'll Take You Home"<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\""Is This Mine?" & "I'll Take You Home" - Reprinted with permission from "On Bus Stops, Bakers and Beggars", by Tzvia Ehrlich-Klein\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.ou.org\/life\/israel\/is_it_mine_take_you_home\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\""Is This Mine?" & "I'll Take You Home"\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\""Is This Mine?" & "I'll Take You Home" - 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