Last night, this house was visited by a mosquito plague. I managed to sleep right through it, seeing dreams with soapy rags flapping their wings at me and with some pitot, lisping something incomprehensible out of their gaping mouths as they crossed the road on a red light. But in the morning my kiddles woke up with hundreds of mosquito bites all over them. It must be the season. It must be that my cat, flooded by her feline hormones, sorely failed her job. What else do I feed her for, if not for her incessant efforts to keep the house creature-free. (Get off the hamster cage, you beast! The hamsters are not included in the "creature" definition. No. Just kidding, I speak Russian to my cat, and most of you wouldn't understand, anyway)
In the morning, as the opening notes of the latest floral sqeak in detergent fasion floated through my window, my now five year old baby woke up and moaned: "mommy, I need a qui-tow cream".
And so it happened, that in our trip to the Old City, a little jar of Tiger Balm came with, making regular reappearances all the way through the bus ride, the tram experience and the sauna hike.
On the tram, this Israeli woman starts tut-tutting at me, saying, look, your child is all covered in bites, do you know? Of course I know, I say, pulling out the Tiger. She says, "but why don't you use Fenistil?" "Only in Israel" - I answer her. "What?" - she doesn't quite follow. Only in Israel people would give you parenitng / medical advice on the tram, I think. Not the first time, either. 16 years ago, by this very same Safra square in Jerusalem a stately policeman of about 2 meteres tall approached us in a brisk step, scaring the daylight out of us, only to inform us that Jerusalem weather is no joke, and I should dress my baby warmer. "Have you got a hat?" - he asked, - "if you do, you should put it on the baby, or go home", - and he strolled off a little less urgently.
I thank the woman and explain why I prefer the Tiger. She pulls out her phone and takes notes of what else it's good for.
We are so lucky to live in a place where people dish out advice unashamedly. Where we are not too polite to comment, and ask, and be involved. Where every baby is everybody's baby. For good and otherwise.
Everywhere we go, people talk to Tamara. One seller at the shuk gave her a dried apricot, and another praised her for helping mommy. An exhuasted- looking Cofix waiter smiled and waited so patiently as she chose her cake. Coming from a country where kids are seen but not heard, if at all, I appreciate the feeling those people give my daughter. That she is real, she matters, she is special. Thinking back to my childhood, it's impossible to imagine. I believe very strongly that the way a society treats its children and the elderly defines it more than any other attribute. It's the mirror of our humanity, its measure and expression rolled into one. A magic mirror of who and what we really are.
At the hardware shop she settled on a chair, behind the sweaty, stressed, pushy crowd, and looked at the giant poppies opening and closing gently above our heads. A woman standing behind me in the queue stepped aside to give me a view of my daughter, so tiny and so grown up, taking in the world through a dirty Shuk window; her kindness and the view, together, made my breath catch in my throat. Just like every time I see the youth group volunteers singing Shabbat zemirot with a Down syndome kid who likes singing best of all, and they don't mind singing with him for hours in the park. Just like when I see the neighbors' kids holding back in a race to let the weaker boy win, and I turn away so they don't notice my tears. Just like when I see 17 year old boys taking babies to the park to let mommy rest. Just like when my own kids are loving to each other, and I, for one brief second, see my job done.
May we never lose our humanity, neither out of fear nor out of stress, and may we cherish the light in each other, in our children, and in this blessed Land, which we may inherit only if we learn to see and appreciate.
