The ONENESS of Israel

Israel is a place of ONE. 
We've got One G-d. One Torah. One Land. One People.
One, that's how we like it.
One!
So, we're thrilled on those years that we get ONE day of snow.
One.
It's enough for us. We go outside and make our snowfolks. We have a snowball fight. We take enough photos to fill facebook and overload all our email carriers.
One day of snow.

The kids are so happy, they talk about it for a whole year until we're possibly lucky enough to get another day a year later - even a few flurries are appreciated.

But this year, Mother Nature over did it. Mothers usually know what their children want and need. And Mom, we didn't need this:

"From Wednesday night through Saturday afternoon, approximately 80 centimeters of snow fell in Efrat, 50 centimeters in Safed and 60 centimeters in Har Bracha, near Nablus in the Samarian mountains, an Israel Meteorological Service weather forecaster told The Jerusalem Post on Saturday night.
Areas in Jerusalem ended up receiving between 40 and 50 centimeters of snow, despite predictions that the capital would get up to 1 meter." (Jerusalem Post)

Okay, we had a lot of snow on Thursday. Fun, fun, fun. See our snowmen. See our snowball fight.
But then when it snowed again on Friday and Shabbat, that was too much!!

Besides the fact that there was no transportation, and folks were stuck wherever they are, the electricity went out in 35,000 homes (1.4% of the country). Three of those homes belonged to my own children, who were freezing INSIDE their homes with their babies bundled up as much as possible.

I don't blame Israel Electric Corporation, and I know they were working around the clock to restore power. I don't even mind (now) the two six hour black-outs we had, but I can't stop thinking about all the children and senior citizens and ill and well, everyone, freezing in their homes, apartments or caravans.

Mother Nature, we thank you for wanting to give our children a little bit of excitement. I thank you for the beauty of the wadis and hills blanketed in white. I thank you for the opportunity to see the smiles on my granchildren as they made snow angels. I thank you for the walk I took with my friends in the stillness of the white night.

But for future reference, here in Israel, let's keep with the theme - ONE. Only ONE day of snow per year fits in just fine. That's the way we like it.

(My thanks to all the emergency workers and government/ electricity/ hospital/ security folks who tried to keep us all safe over these days. May you be blessed.)