Rain and Snow

As I'm sure most of you in North America heard by now, Israel just experienced a "winter"storm. Jerusalem received enough snow to shut the city down. Schools were canceled, buses stopped running, people were advised to stay home from work. The Jerusalem/Tel Aviv highway was even closed in certain spots. In Modiin we did not have a snowfall but boy did we have rain. It just kept pouring and pouring. Rain, sleet and hail. I had to constantly remind myself that rain in Israel is a bracha and not something we should complain about. It was reported on Arutz Sheva that the precipitation from this one storm front helped raise the level of the Kinneret by 11 centimeters. There is still a shortage of water though.

Last week we celebrated the bar mitzvah of our dear nephew Eylon Hagege up north in Maalot. We were lucky it took place last week and not this week because the north was also crippled by the snow. The kids spent almost the whole afternoon playing outside so had it been cold and snowy they would have probably gotten a little bored in the afternoon. (BTW, the simcha was a beautiful event enjoyed by all. )

The snow did not however affect the crazy ice hockey enthusiasts that came from as far as North America to participate in the International Hockey Tournament that my brother Danny arranged. When I called him on Wednesday to see how things were looking he ecstatically reported that every player left early in the morning to avoid the bad weather. Even my brother Eli hopped on a bus from Jerusalem instead of waiting for his lift.

The kids and I really wanted to drive to Jerusalem to play in the snow, but David said that when he hears of snow he wants to run to Eilat.