A two-month holiday

Where I left it, the plan was to move back into our house on September 7. Needless to say, that didn't happen. There was some miscommunication which resulted in the plasterer starting two weeks late, which delayed everything else. (Apart from the flooring—for reasons unknown, the builder decided to go ahead and lay the flooring before the plaster and paint. As you can imagine, the new flooring looked like shit when we moved in. Thankfully, most of it came up.)

 

So our build that was ahead of schedule was suddenly two weeks behind schedule and we were in a blind panic to find some place to live. A friend who was heading to Israel offered us her studio flat for three weeks, another friend offered to host our son and a third friend offered to host our daughter. (She was supposed to be on placement in Gisborne for seven weeks but at the least minute she cancelled it, and then left it to us to find her a place to live. Shis is 22.)

 

The fixtures finally arrived but it turned out the builder was only interested in the bath, and only because we'd designed the bathroom to the exact width of the bath. He built the bath wall parallel to the hallway, and he built the bedroom wall parallel to the outside wall, so both of those rooms are perfect rectangles. However, we later discovered where those walls intersected – in the en suite – was not square! (When I was measuring the existing rooms, it looked like the hallway was narrower at one end, but I thought I was doing something wrong. I now realise it was because the walls weren't parallel.)

 

The rest of the fixtures went in the garage, and it was so packed when you opened the door it was just a wall of stuff. We even had to store our bikes elsewhere.

 

Meanwhile, we started getting nasty emails from our neighbour. The house is actually the rear-unit of a townhouse (or "semi-detached" if you're from the UK) with a shared drive and two garages in between the two. The shared drive is quite small and I'd assumed there was no way to get a car in the garage. I even told the neighbours before we moved in we were going to park our HV on the drive so we could charge it. They did not say anything at the time.

It turns out they normally do keep their car in the garage, but at the time I spoke to them they were storing some stuff for a friend, and so weren't using it. Once the friend collected his stuff, they wanted the drive clear; otherwise they couldn't angle the car into the garage. Except at that point, the renovations had started and the builders were using the drive as a tip/work area. Hence the emails. Unfortunately for her, I have a long history of ignoring people who are complaining, so I didn't respond, which obviously made her even angrier.

We told the builder we had to move again on the 22nd, and to his credit he made a big push to try and get everything finished. Unfortunately this meant that the painter, plumber, electrician and builder were all trying to work on the same day. We stopped by in the morning and they had so many questions, and needed lots of little things (like door knobs) that we ended up spending the entire day with them, adding to the body count. However, by the end of the day everything was looking pretty good so we...moved to another friend's house.

The areas that were renovated looked good but the rest of the house was a disaster. The plasterers, in particular, had sanded down the walls without any protection, and there was plaster dust everywhere. (Funny story, my wife complained and the next day they had taped up sheets to stop more dust. Why they didn't think to do that in the first place is beyond me.) We spent an entire day cleaning the house, and by "we" I mean my wife, son and someone we hired. The two daughters made themselves scarce. Our son just focused on his room because he was desperate to move back, while my wife tackled the rest of the house and I...did other stuff. (Stuff that was important for moving in, like installing toilet roll holders, to be fair.)

It was also Yom Kippur, the Jewish day of atonement. My wife was leading two of the services so she took the day before to prepare for that, while I went to the house to do the last final bits to get it ready for move-in...and then got distracted and painted the hallway. Or more specifically, half the hallway. The other half had been part of the renovation and been painted, while the other half was wallpaper. The painter wanted $5000 to strip the wallpaper, smooth the walls and then paint, which was simply not in the budget. Instead, I painted over the wallpaper, which doesn't look great but is good enough. At some point in the distant future, we'll look at stripping the walls, but right now that's not even in the top 10 list of things the house needs.

After Yom Kippur we started shifting things back to our house and finally moved home...into our old bedroom. We'd just spent a lot of money creating a new master bedroom with en suite, but we couldn't move in because our bed was too big. Our sleigh bed is 2.6 meters and the new bedroom is 2.8 meters, so there was only 20cm (about 8 inches) to squeeze past the bed to get to the en suite! The answer was to buy another bed frame, but I wasn't willing to buy new and my wife didn't like any of the used ones we saw,, so we were stuck. However, the day after we moved in, we found a bed on Trademe (New Zealand's answer to eBay) that she liked and we could afford, so we bought it. The only problem is it's in Hamilton, about a six-hour drive away, so that's a project for next weekend.  

We moved out on 2 August and moved back on 29 September, so it was like a very expensive holiday, except we didn't go anywhere or see anything. We moved four times (five if you include moving home), almost separated once (that's kind of my thing) and didn't enjoy a single minute of it. While we were in town, living on our own in a studio with a barely-functional kitchen, we thought we'd at least get to experience Wellington's nightlife, but instead we were just fighting all the time. And in the end, we don't have a flash, fabulous space; we just have a functional space. But we are quite happy with how it came out, and we've turned what was effectively a 2 bed/1 bath (with a study and extra toilet) into a proper 3 bed/2 bath home, so I have to believe we've increased the house value significantly. (But don't tell the local council, as they'll just increase the property tax...)

. 

Drasha - 8 July 2023

My drashot tend to fall into two themes: Family or progressive Judaism. This portion is all about family, so let's talk about progressive Judaism.

The daughters of Z'lofchad petition Moses for their father's holding, and God responds that their request is just. This is often celebrated as women's rights, as progressive Judaism. However, God then spells out male-preference primogeniture: All sons will inherit first, and daughters only if there are no sons. That may have seemed revolutionary at the time, but hardly seems worth celebrating today.

Immediately following this, in Numbers 36, other members of the Menashe clan argue that when the daughters of Z'lofchad marry, their holdings will be transferred to their husbands, thus reducing the Menashe portion. God resolves this by declaring the women who inherit property can only marry within their own tribe. One step forward, two steps back.

As progressive Jews, we constantly struggle with morally problematic statements like this. How do we treat the Torah as a moral authority while honestly confronting the ethical issues it raises? Dr. Rabbi Zev Farber argues that responses fall into three basic categories:

Fundamentalist—Double down and argue that the Torah reflects God's will and must by definition be moral; it is actually our modern ethical sense that is wrong.

Dismissive—Such laws simply showcase the worthlessness of religion, which should be toppled entirely for the betterment of society.

Selective—Point to uplifting parts of the Torah and ignore the problematic ones. 

The third option is quite popular because it's easy, but it's also self-serving: How do we engage with the fundamentalists, the dismissives or the apologists if we aren't engaging with the same texts they are? This is not a question of different interpretations; this is them having a viewpoint and us feigning ignorance.

The good news is, we're not the first to grapple with issues in the Torah; the Talmud is almost exclusively dedicated to this. For example, the rabbinic sages were quite distressed by capital punishment: how does Judaism hold that life is sacred when the Torah casually states, "One who insults one's father or mother shall be put to death"?

The sages' response was ingenious: They didn't argue the Torah was wrong, but they put so many restrictions on it that it became moot. Cases concerning offences punishable by death had to be decided by 23 judges, with at least 13 finding the defendant guilty. (And if all 23 find the defendant guilty, then the person is released, because clearly something was wrong with the court.) Two witnesses were required, they both had to be adult Jewish men who had seen the crime in full, had seen each other, had warned the defendant that the crime was a capital offence, had heard the defendant say he was aware but was going to do the crime anyway, and the witnesses had to agree to be the executioners. (Some of this comes from Deuteronomy – "A person shall be put to death only on the testimony of two or more witnesses… Let the hands of the witnesses be the first to put [the condemned] to death" – although in that portion God was only referring to blasphemy and idolatry.)

I think it's fair to say very few executions occurred under these conditions. The Mishnah states that a Sanhedrin that executes one person in seven years — or seventy years, according to Eleazar ben Azariah — is considered bloodthirsty. In 75 years, two people have been executed by the Israeli government: Adolf Eichmann in 1962 and Meir Tobianski in 1948. I don't need to say anything about Eichmann but you may not be familiar with Captain Tobianski. He was accused of spying by the director of the IDF's intelligence branch during the War of Independence, and after a field court martial was executed by firing squad. A year later, an inquiry was held and Captain Tabianski was exonerated, reburied in a military ceremony and his gravestone reads, "Killed by mistake." The man who ordered his execution was tried and convicted of manslaughter.

In 1954, Israel outlawed the death penalty except for treason and war crimes. In 1959, the Central Conference of American Rabbis and the Union for Reform Judaism passed a resolution formally opposing the death penalty, calling it "a stain upon civilization and our religious conscience."

Dr. Rabbi Aaron Panken talks of a rabbinical school discussion with Dr. Lawrence Hoffman, debating the difference between "Truth" and "truth". Truth with a capital "T" was a singular, irrefutable truth that could never be changed or adapted, while "truth" with a lower-case "t" represented truths that were malleable, transformed or reformed by time, location and experience, seen differently by those with varying outlooks. By that definition, the Torah is not always "true" but it is always "True" in that its ideas and narratives remain the vital underpinnings of Jewish life, debate and thought.

So the "Truth" of Torah is the march of progress, from stoning rebellious children to supporting them. We celebrate the daughters of Z'lofchad while we reject male-preference primogeniture and the entire concept that when women marry their holdings become the property of the husband. We don't deny the Torah contains these things, but that those were truths - lower case t - for the age and the time that have been re-interpreted under the Truth - upper case T - of tikkun olam, making the world more just over time.

Shabbat shalom.

1 Farber, Z. (2021). Can the Torah Be a Moral Authority in Modern Times?. TheTorah.com. https://thetorah.com/article/can-the-torah-be-a-moral-authority-in-modern-times

2 Exodus 21:17

3 Deuteronomy 17.6-7

4 https://reformjudaism.org/why-reform-judaism-opposes-death-penalty

5 Panken, A. (2015). Torah's Progressive Truth. TheTorah.com. https://thetorah.com/article/torat-emet-torahs-progressive-truth

WTF?

The original plan was simple: Take a large laundry area+second toilet and turn it to a  large laundry/storage area+small bathroom, then take a small bedroom+large bathroom and convert it to a large bedroom+small bathroom. There was a clear dividing wall, and because we would always have a working bathroom there was no need for us to move out. So what the fuck happened?

First, the builder thought the bathroom and laundry should be reversed - big bathroom with a window and small laundry. However, that left no storage area, and so it wasn't going to happen. 

Both the builder and plumber said a shower-over-bath was out of fashion, but I wasn't willing to get rid of the bath, so I re-drew the plans and squeezed a separate bath and shower in the family bathroom. This stole space from the other rooms, of course, but crucially it meant I had to tear down the dividing wall, so I wouldn't have a working bathroom. This was probably for the best, as it meant the builders could do everything at once, but it meant we had to move out. The builder estimated 4-6 weeks. 

Remarkably, my wife found a couple who were going to Europe for 3 months and wanted a house sitter. More remarkably, they didn't have any pets, as my allergies probably couldn't deal with that for any length of time, and they had three bedrooms. We had two kids at home (although one was only with us for a couple of weeks) and this was some divine-intervention level luck. 

Back to the house, I noticed the driveway was about the same size as the part of the house we were remodeling, so I took a role of masking tape and marked off all the walls, then drew the fixtures in chalk. The first thing we noticed was that the family bathroom, although bigger than the first iteration, was still too small for a separate tub and shower, so we went back to a shower over tub. The second thing we noticed was what I thought was chalk was actually indelible on porous surfaces, such as a driveway, so the driveway now has blue toilet fixtures drawn all over it. 

Once we agreed on the new layout, we started looking at fixtures. We went to the fancy plumbing shops but It quickly became obvious we had a Home Depot budget. So no tiling, no "wet areas," everything was modular with acrylic walls, etc. It was the most vanilla layout imaginable, but we consoled ourselves that it was functional, and we could upgrade later (even though we know we never will).

The couple were leaving on Tuesday and the builder said he could start Thursday, so we were all set to go. I put in an order for the fixtures and we started packing our stuff. My daughter had the day off and my son didn't have any early classes so it was the perfect day to move. 

Monday morning, the builder called and said he could actually start Wednesday, which was great. Monday afternoon, the couple called and said the wife had an atrial fibrillation and they were cancelling their trip.

Now this is the weird part of the story. We didn't have a plan B and I was mentally preparing to call the builder and cancel. He was squeezing us in before he started a big job, so I knew we couldn't postpone as he wouldn't be available again for at least six months. I was back to square one, trying to find a builder, only now I had a bunch of fixtures on the way.

But the couple, who knew our situation, said they were going to stay with their daughter nearby so we could still move into their home! That was very generous, but it was also crazy. Who in their right mind would kick an elderly couple out of their home while they're dealing with medical issues? Turns out, I would.

They just asked for an extra day to pack so they would move out Wednesday morning, the same day the builder was starting. My daughter was working and my wife had to drive her, and my son had an early morning lecture. Needless to say, it was a bit mental but thankfully it was only ten minutes away. Then we started calling everyone we knew to find another place to live. (I looked at some long-term rentals but the cheapest were $1000/week and that was just not in the budget.) 

We had several friends going on holiday and we put together a complicated plan, moving between three houses over 6 weeks. Then, one of the friends had to cancel. In desperation, my wife called the builder and asked when we could move back in. He said he should have the electrics and plumbing working first week of September, so the new plan is to move into our friends' house on August 18, when they go to babysit their grandkids, then back to our house before they get home on September 7.

Meanwhile, the renovation is ahead of schedule, which is great, but those fixtures I ordered two weeks ago still haven't arrived, and I can't even get a delivery estimate! I'm just told it's with the manufacturer. I think Kiwis have perfected the art of "drop shipping" in that, they just drop the ball. The builder is already talking about having to stop work if they don't have the fixtures, which would mean they won't be ready for us to move back.

Watch this space. 

A moving tale

After 7 years, we finally bought a house! (Technically, a townhouse.) I don't remember if I discussed this previously, so apologies if I repeat myself. (I know I mentioned it in passing here.) When I arrived in New Zealand in September 2014, I didn't have a work permit and my now-wife was divorced but still in the process of selling the family home, and not working. I did not think that was the best time to ask the bank for a mortgage, so when we decided to move to Wellington in January 2015, I suggested renting for a year. In fact, I remember showing my wife a chart of house prices and pointing out they'd been relatively flat for six years, so we wouldn't be "missing out" if we waited a year. Famous last words.

Fig 1: The chart that convinced my wife it was ok to rent for a year.

We found a nice house in Karori and signed a one-year lease, with the intent that at the end of 2015 we'd buy a house. Except...I didn't get my work permit until November 2015, so I still didn't have a job! We approached the landlord about moving the lease to month-to-month, which is when they announced they were moving back into the house and needed us out in January!

Suddenly, instead of looking for a house to buy, we were frantically looking for another place to rent! Thankfully we found another house in Karori and moved in. The landlords didn't even want a one-year lease, which seemed odd but they assured us they weren't planning anything. Two months after we moved in, they put the house on the market.

By then I was working and we considered buying the house ourselves, but having lived there for three months we knew how much deferred maintenance it needed, so we passed. It was also right about then my wife was first diagnosed with cancer, so that was all we were focussed on. A young family bought the house but needed to fix up and sell their old house, so they said we could stay until December. My wife had surgery and was scheduled for radiation therapy in January, so we weren't looking for a new place at all. Then a Hanukkah miracle occurred: The new owner got a job offer in Australia and so was moving his family there, and we could stay as long as we liked!

Now it was 2017 and we still hadn't bought a house, but the real estate market had shot up 40% in the past year! I honestly don't know what happened to cause that, but I was sure that it was a bubble and again convinced my wife to sit tight and wait another year.

Fig 2: In 2016, between February and December the median house prices went from $400,000 to $540,000!

Needless to say, in 2017 house prices went up another 33%!

Fig 3: From $400,000 in 2015 to $600,000 in 2018, that's a 50% rise!

At this point we were getting scared we'd be priced completely out of the market, but couldn't find anything we liked. That's when I learned about leaky homes, NBS (New Building Standard, an earthquake rating) and all sorts of weird and wonderful things about Wellington property. (I heard the New Zealand Company, which was responsible for British colonization, drew a map, divided it into sections and sold them sight-unseen to Brits without revealing the topography of Wellington! As a result, Brits would spend three months on a steamer to get to New Zealand only to find their "land" was straight up a hillside! What could they do except build a house in the hillside!)

In New Zealand (as in the UK), you have a seller's agent but no buyer's agent, so you're left to do all the due diligence and negotiating yourself. In addition, New Zealand has developed the "tender" process, which is best compared to a silent auction: Everyone submits their "best and final offers" in sealed envelopes, and at the appointed time all the offers are opened and the buyers choose the best one. (Or they can reject all of them.) In the US, if you saw a house you liked you'd submit an offer, there would be some back-and-forth, if you came to an agremeent, great, and if you didn't, you moved on. In the UK, the process wasn't quite so straightforward, but it was similar. In New Zealand, suddenly you're submitting an offer that was legally binding for three weeks! If you saw another house you liked, you couldn't make an offer until you'd heard back from the first! And you couldn't make an offer "subject to inspection" so you'd have to organise an inspection -- and pay for it -- before making an offer. You also needed a lawyer to review the paperwork so you were spending $500-$600 every time you made an offer, with no guarantee of being successful! And we were astoundingly unsuccessful: We were consistently outbid by $50,000 or more.

In one instance, we made an offer on a place we really liked of $800,000 and it sold for $875,000. Less than a year later, a nearly identical property came on the market and we were determined to get it, so we bid $900,000. It sold for $950,000. (Thank goodness; I don't know how we would have serviced a $900,000 mortgage.)

Then in 2020 Covid-19 hit, we were all in lockdown, the economists were all predicting a financial apocalypse and all I could think was, we might finally be able to afford a house! Instead, prices went up another 20%.

By this point, my wife had been told the cancer had returned and was stage 4, and the 5-year survival rate was 25%. Suddenly, having the stability of a house was more important than ever, but our requirements had changed. One of the kids had moved out so we could get away with a 3-bed, but we didn't know what my wife's mobility would be like so we started looking at single-level houses "on the flat." In Wellington, these are quite rare, and coveted by baby boomers who were downsizing, so they could outbid us every day of the week. We eventually stopped looking because the median price had doubled since 2015 and we simply couldn't afford anything bigger than a broom closet.

Thankfully, the owner in Australia was happy for us to stay and pay his mortgage. He only raised the rent once in seven years, and that was less than 8%, at a time when most rents in Wellington had gone up by about 50%. We even looked at renting a smaller house but we would have ended up paying more.

House prices peaked in 2021 and then did a 20% nose dive. This was a combination of inflation causing mortgage rates to go up; the government finally implementing restrictions to stop people from taking out unaffordable mortgages*; and the borders re-opening. So many Kiwis had returned to New Zealand during the pandemic that New Zealand had its first "net positive migration" in decades, and they were all cashed-up from working overseas. Once the borders opened again, there was a mad rush for the exit. In mid-2022 we started looking again, and in November we made an offer on a cute townhouse with an evil doll's closet. (Don't ask.) We were going to bid $850,000 but with more doom and gloom prophecies in the news, I reduced it to $825,000. It didn't matter; it sold to someone else for $875,000.

My wife was devastated. She was exhausted from looking and very worried about how much time she had remaining. In addition, sellers were holding off, so there were very few properties on the market. We were looking across Wellington, from Khandallah to Miramar, and everything was very depressing. In March a property came on in Karori, not far from our home, so we went and looked and were completely unimpressed. It smelled of mould, it looked very tired, it had the most bizarre layout (fully a third of the house was devoted to the bathroom and laundry area!) and although the house was on level, it had stairs to the front door. However, the previous owner had obviously had mobility issues as he'd installed an outdoor stair lift, so that wasn't a showstopper.

If there had been other houses to look at, I would have quickly forgotten about that one, but instead I sat down with the room measurements and realised we could turn the tiny third bedroom into a proper master bedroom with en suite, that would make the house nice and improve its resale value. My wife agreed, but neither of us was particularly interested in taking on a big remodel, so we submitted a low-ball offer. Of course we won.

We went into full panic mode. We tried to see if we could do the remodel before we moved in, but it quickly became apparent that was not going to happen. We were lucky to get the carpet replaced before we moved in! I think we had both resigned ourselves to living in a dump until we did the remodel, but with the new carpet the house stopped smelling of mould, it was warm and comfortable, and it looked much better. We're actually enjoying living here!! (But we still want to do the remodel.)

Fig 4: The full picture of Wellington house prices over the past 10 years. We figure the same house we paid $750,000 for in 2023 would have cost $420,000 in 2015, which is when my wife wanted to buy.

* The phrase "closing the barn door after the horse has bolted" is applicable here. Many young people, who had only experienced low mortgage rates and increasing house prices, had stretched themselves to get onto the property ladder. Unfortunately, when the rates went up they couldn't afford the mortgage, and when the prices dropped they couldn't even sell their homes for what they owed!

B'shallach

[Drash, 4 February 2023]

Depending on who you ask, the Israelites have been enslaved for between 861 and 400 years. However, I'm not going to talk about maths; I'm going to talk about the first two verses of B'shallach:

eretz pelishtim ki karov hu ki amar elohim pen-yinnachem ha'am bir'otam milchamah veshavu mitzrayemah.

G-d did not lead them by way of the land of the Philistines, although it was nearer; for G-d said, "The people may have a change of heart when they see war, and return to Egypt." 

vayyassev elohim  et-ha'am derech hammidbar

So G-d led the people round about, by way of the wilderness.

At first glance, it appears G-d is trying to protect the Israelites by taking them on a longer but safer route. Except it wasn't safer: At the end of B'shallach, Israel is attacked by the Amalekites! And after the battle the Israelites did not want to return to Egypt. So what was the point of taking the round about way? 

Let's hold that thought and consider what G-d must think of the Israelites. He has just sent ten signs - or plagues - which devastated Egypt, and has appeared as a pillar of cloud during the day and a pillar of fire at night to lead the way. Does G-d really think that, at the first sign of hardship, the Israelites will abandon Him and rush back to Egypt, into the arms of their enslavers?

We don't have to wait long for an answer. Less than a week since they left Egypt, the Israelites say to Moses:

Was it for want of graves in Egypt that you brought us to die in the wilderness? For it were better for us to serve the Egyptians, than that we should die in the wilderness.

Moses' response is to part the sea, and the Israelites sing a song to G-d, but just five weeks later they again complain:

Would that we had died by the hand of the LORD in the land of Egypt…when we did eat bread to the full; for ye have brought us forth into this wilderness, to kill this whole assembly with hunger.

Quail and manna rained down to feed them, and yet in the very next chapter the Israelites are again murmuring against Moses and Aaron:

Wherefore hast thou brought us up out of Egypt, to kill us and our children and our cattle with thirst? (17:3)

 

And that's just B'shallach! In Ki Tisa, the Israelites create the Golden Calf, and in Shelach, after the report of the twelve spies, the Israelites cry out:

And wherefore doth the LORD bring us unto this land, to fall by the sword? Our wives and our little ones will be a prey; were it not better for us to return into Egypt? (Numbers 14:2-3) 

Honestly, the Israelites sound like whinging POMs. However, Mati Shemoelof, in a 2016 article entitled "What we left behind," wrote: "Egypt in this context is not the Egypt of an enemy. Egypt is their identity. Egypt is their mother tongue. Egypt is the first memory. Egypt is the frame of reference, the context in which they live. When they say that they want to return to Egypt, it is like saying that they wish to return to their mother."2

Now let's go back to the question: Why did G-d lead the people in a round about way? Rashi3 suggests it was a trick, so when the Israelites inevitably tried to return to Egypt they wouldn't know which direction to go.

However, I have a simpler explanation. If the Torah is a metaphor for life, and Genesis is about birth, Exodus is about growing up. G-d is pushing the Israelites out of the nest. He didn't bring them the long way around to protect them or confuse them, but to teach them. As slaves they were infantilized, provided with food and water, shelter and protection. As they had to contend with providing for themselves, it is natural they looked backwards and longed for the familiar.

Mati Shemoelof goes on to suggest the reason the Israelites, including Moses, were not allowed to enter the Promised Land was because G-d realised they were so assimilated, they would always identify as Egyptians. "Their call to return is almost childish… Their wish to [return to] Egypt is a wish to be with the dead parent…but there is no way to heal the trauma and to make peace with it." Rashi also suggested only one-fifth of the Israelites left Egypt; the rest were so assimilated they would never leave. Joshua and Caleb, the only spies who looked forward and could see themselves living in the Promised Land, were the only men from their generation allowed to enter.

We've all taken a "round about" approach to life. Not long ago, one of our children said to us, as only a teenager can, "No offense, but I don't want your lifestyle." [pause] Surprise, honey, neither did we. When we were her age, neither of us dreamed of a middle-class suburban lifestyle in New Zealand. But here we are, and we wouldn't change it for anything.

Wouldn't it be great if we could stay children forever? No responsibilities, no consequences, everything is taken care of for you. But we know that would not make us happy. According to the Zohar, Mitzrayim is derived from m'tzarim, meaning "narrow straits." Leaving Mitzrayim is to go from a narrow strait into the wider world. Being taken care of is comforting, but constricting; it closes us off to opportunities and prevents growth. The wilderness is scary, but it is full of possibilities.

B'shallach translates to "When he let go." As we push our own kids out of the nest, I don't know what their future holds, but I hope they have the same hope, faith and resilience as the Israelites to walk into the wilderness.

I will end with the poem "Scaffolding" By Erez Bitton (translated by Tsipi Keller). It may be about Moses, unable to finish the journey but encouraging his children to continue. But it's also about my own father, who passed away 28 years ago. As some of you know, he had a massive heart attack when he was just 45. Back then, open heart surgery was in its infancy and nobody knew if he'd survive but, with three children under 13, he promised my mother he would not abandon her. He did survive but his heart was badly damaged. When it finally failed, 14 years later, his youngest child was 21. He wasn't able to finish his journey, but he kept his promise.

On the threshold of half a house in the Land of Israel

my father stood

pointing to the sides and saying:

Upon these ruins

one day we will build a kitchen

to cook in it a Leviathan's tail

and a wild bull,

upon these ruins

we will build a corner for prayer

to make room

for a bit of holiness.

My father remained on the threshold

and I, my entire life,

have been erecting scaffolding

reaching up to the sky.

1 Seder Olam Rabbah (Ch. 3), https://www.sefaria.org/Seder_Olam_Rabbah.3

2 https://www.972mag.com/what-we-left-behind-in-egypt-mizrahi-thoughts-on-israel/

3 https://aish.com/48942381/