Here's the latest for this week.

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Shabbat shalom,


Tzivia

Weird, wacky, wonderful (Hebrew) words: I'm already (כְּבָר) lying to you...

Running out to the car to get something?  Just popping out to the makolet?
Just let folks know you'll be right back... like by saying you'll be right back.
Right?

Wrong.
Not in Hebrew.  In Hebrew, you don't say, "I'll be right back."

(Okay, you can, before everybody rushes in to correct me -- there IS an expression, אני תכף חוזר / ani techef chozer / "I will immediately return," or תכף אשוב / techef ashuv / which literally means this very thing. But I would argue that few people use these expressions in real life, just write them on signs in shop windows.)

Instead, usually, you say, אני כבר חוזר / ani kvar chozeir / "I'm already on my way back."
Even while you're turning around and walking the other way.

This expression has been tickling my

It's not Israel, it's YOU (and other ugly lies of aliyah)

"It's not Israel, it's you."

At least, that's what I tell myself sometimes.

"It's all your fault," I tell myself.
Most of these thoughts start with the words, "That's what you get..."

That's what you get for living in an older building, without a vaad bayit.  A building that isn't maintained.  A building where the tenants seriously don't care about anything as long as the thing doesn't fall down around their ears.  A building where the neighbours physically threaten us