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As soon as I got to the cafe, S. (6) started waving and singing my name. When I got up to the table and greeted the kids, he asked me how much I thought I was worth. "A thousand sheqels," I said. He grimaced and "secretly" checked to see how much fake money he had with him. "Uh... how about 200 sheqels?" he asked. "OK." I took the plastic card and he squealed with delight that he had bought me and now I was his; he grabbed my arm and hugged it tightly. Of course then came the real point: "And since you are my slave you have to do whatever I want."
"What do you want?"
"Uh... eat milk and meat... TOGETHER!"
"Asur," I said, raising my eyebrows.
Y. looked gravely up from where he had been playing Mario. "You are never obligated to do what your master says if he orders you to do something forbidden," he told me. He's been learning a little about slavery recently and was asking such intriguing things the time before as, are waiters my slaves?
S. next ordered me to eat a sufganiah, a sort of doughnut. I went down to the bakery part to find one and Y. came happily with me to order a hot chocolate cake.
***
The loathesome YMCA tower has been banging its bells in the night and early morning; even in Jerusalem it's hard to escape Christmas carols, in this case clumsily banged out by some American Protestant Quasimodo in a moustache and sweatervest. At night when we pass by with the kids I like to tell them, "Wow, look at the light on that tower... it looks just like a firey eye, doesn't it? A firey eye watching us all the time, from some sort of dark lord?"
My hope is that they will grow up and one day be able to read secular books, and then they will read Lord of the Rings, and then they will get a strong image in their head of the YMCA whenever they read about the Eye of Sauron, and be filled with fear and aversion, and have no idea why.
"What do you want?"
"Uh... eat milk and meat... TOGETHER!"
"Asur," I said, raising my eyebrows.
Y. looked gravely up from where he had been playing Mario. "You are never obligated to do what your master says if he orders you to do something forbidden," he told me. He's been learning a little about slavery recently and was asking such intriguing things the time before as, are waiters my slaves?
S. next ordered me to eat a sufganiah, a sort of doughnut. I went down to the bakery part to find one and Y. came happily with me to order a hot chocolate cake.
***
The loathesome YMCA tower has been banging its bells in the night and early morning; even in Jerusalem it's hard to escape Christmas carols, in this case clumsily banged out by some American Protestant Quasimodo in a moustache and sweatervest. At night when we pass by with the kids I like to tell them, "Wow, look at the light on that tower... it looks just like a firey eye, doesn't it? A firey eye watching us all the time, from some sort of dark lord?"
My hope is that they will grow up and one day be able to read secular books, and then they will read Lord of the Rings, and then they will get a strong image in their head of the YMCA whenever they read about the Eye of Sauron, and be filled with fear and aversion, and have no idea why.
