Some of us rarely if ever put themselves into the hands of Jerusalem's legendary bus service. Others of us, the more adventurous and outgoing kind, use buses whenever we can. Love them or loathe them, our buses are very much part of the fabric of everyday life in the Capital. Our member Zev Hochberg shares with us here a few of his personal experiences.
As a recent newcomer, I’ve been amused by some “only in Israel” moments on bus rides around Jerusalem.
We’re all family!
The girl protests her innocence, the man says he was happy
to get up and let the friends ride together—but the old woman is having none of
it. She continues her mussar for a while. But when she gets up to leave the
bus, she approaches the girls, gets in a last few words with a big smile, and
you can see that she’s just barely restraining herself from giving them a
grandmotherly pinch on the cheek!
***** ***** *****
***** ***** ***** *****
They grow up so fast here
As the bus pulls up to the stop, a very self-assured looking
little girl (maybe 10 years old) calls out יורדים אנחנו (“we’re getting off”), and proceeds to
hold the rear door open while her little sister (maybe 8), then her littler
sister (no more than 6) and finally her littlest sister (around 2 or 3) file
off the bus, whereupon she begins to march the whole group home.
***** ***** *****
***** ***** ***** *****
Is it just me, or is there something wrong with this
story?
On a bus in Ramot, a very harried looking man in traditional
religious garb gets on, and questions me about the bus’s destination. I answer,
and he calms down. A while later, a bus inspector enters and starts to check
that everyone has paid their fare. The man turns to me and says: “Two minutes
ago a miracle happened to me”.
He pauses. I nod encouragingly to him to continue, and he
explains. In his confusion about the bus’s destination when he boarded, he had
forgotten to pay—until suddenly, literally moments before the inspector
entered, he somehow remembered.
Ah, I ask, is the fine very large? No, he explains, you
don’t understand. it’s not about the fine. Can you imagine the terrible chillul
Hashem if I hadn’t remembered to pay? A man such as himself, with a long white
beard and large black hat.
Indeed, it was even more than a miracle, he elaborated: it
was a gilui shechinah, a revelation of the Divine Presence—that’s what it was!
God was so concerned about the desecration of His great name that He caused the
man to remember to pay!
The man continues in this vein—and expatiates at even
greater length when a yeshiva bochur gets on the bus and provides the man with
an appreciative audience.
Part of me cannot fail to be moved by the enormous quantity of emunah on display. Another part of me wanders what he’s been smoking. But a large part of me really wanted to ask him if any of his grandsons serve in the army and then to point out gently what an opportunity for a kiddush Hashem that could be.
