Life is full of little frustrations. One of mine is technology, in all its forms. I'm a machineophobe, and when it comes to figuring out what all those baffling little symbols mean, I'm hopeless. I had my fill of techno-trauma this week. Between our washing machine and the oven, I was defeated.
The oven is nothing but symbols, and no Rosetta Stone instruction book to decipher them. I just keep pushing buttons until I feel the oven get hot, which isn't the best way to cook. I ruined a couple of good steaks that way. For sure, baking is out. I just hope the chicken I'm making for tonight's dinner will cook through without burning on the outside.
But that's nothing in comparison to the washing machine, which in this case is also a dryer. It's a European invention, designed for the small apartments typical in both Europe and here. This one has an instruction book, which helps only a little. When the guy who gave us the apartment orientation said a cycle takes 9 hours I thought he didn't know what he was talking about. Turns out he wasn't far off. The first load I did took 6. The second was a bit faster because I changed the setting to a 30 minute wash and 3 hour dry. Even after the 3 hours the laundry came out slightly damp. I put in a load at 9 this morning. I set it for a 40 minute wash. It's now 145PM and still washing. Something is clearly amiss. I called the fix-it guy who said it will take 3 more hours, don't worry, and if it doesn't finish by candle-lighting time just disconnect it from the electricity and he'd come over on Sunday to look at it. Fortunately there's nothing in the machine that we'll need before Sunday.
These were the low points of an otherwise stellar week.
Jerusalem is an intellectual moveable feast. The array of educational and entertainment programming is second to none. There's my Monday morning class (3 lectures, each 45 minutes, on the Book of Ezra, Torah (the Bible), and a guest lecturer on a subject of his/her choice, usually topical). On Tuesday night I went to the first of a 4 part lecture series on Megillat Esther, timed for the upcoming holiday of Purim. Each lecturer interprets the Purim story through a different lens. This week's talk was given by a professor from Bar Ilan University, who examined the relationship between King Ahashveros and Haman. He made a very cogent point that they were both manipulative in a very Middle Eastern politics way. Wednesday we went to one of our favorite institutions in Jerusalem - Pardes - for the second of a 3-part series on tools that are used in Biblical exegesis. I think the highlight for this week was a program we attended last night - a presentation by Khaled Abu Toameh - appropriately entitled Meet the Press. Khaled in an Israeli Muslim Jerusalemite, a highly respected journalist, and an excellent speaker. He talked about the so-called peace process and why it's guaranteed to fail, the role of the media in perpetuating the so-called narrative, the cluelessness of the State Department, EU and the international press, the thread of anti-semitism that runs thru it all, and some of the ways the Israeli government needs to work better with its Israeli-Arab citizens. Fascinating.
And we haven't even been to any of the museums yet ... that will be next week.
Shabbat Shalom from Jerusalem.
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