I think I can now officially give the tour of the Bahai Gardens myself as I attended my third guided tour of the Gardens this week in the span of one month. This visitor friend and I, however, went on the Hebrew tour - a first for me - which I found out is more-or-less exactly the same as the English tour. Each time I go on the tour, which involves walking down hundreds of steps, my calves hurt slightly less the next day. If this keeps up, I will soon have calves of steel.
This week also included an excursion with my tour-guide friend. This time we went to go check out a water-hike she will have to guide this summer with a group. The hike itself was fun and refreshing and also provided for good people watching, mostly an array of high school groups that included secular Jews, Druze, and Beis Yaakov girls, among others.
As we drove up to the hike and it came to be around lunch time, we decided to pull over into a gas station to grab some lunch. Gas stations do not generally provide gourmet food options, and we knew this going in, but we were hoping to just grab something quick to go and continue on our way. We were pleasantly surprised to find descent looking packaged sandwiches in the refrigerator section, that while clearly not so fresh, would do the job just fine. As we deliberated over which sandwiches to buy, it struck me that this was kind of an amazing moment. I am standing in a gas station convenient store off the side of the highway trying to decide if I want the labeled kosher dairy, parve or meat sandwich. Had we been in any other country in the world, I would be buying an apple and a bag of chips if I was lucky. A kosher sandwich would be no where in sight. It is easy to take the abundance of kosher options in this country for granted some times.
And it's not just kosher concerns, but Jewish observance in general that is made so easy by living here. You never have to request special days off and use up all your vacation days for Jewish holidays because everyone has off. You don't have to explain to your boss why you have to be home by a certain time on Friday afternoons (and why that time changes throughout the course of the year) because (if you even work on Fridays) everyone here knows that Shabbat is coming. You don't have to justify bringing little black boxes with leather straps on an airplane because the security people at the airport are familiar with tefillin. Your doctor will tell you not to worry since the medication she is prescribing you right before Passover is kosher for Passover, without even being prompted. And you can partake in all the wine and cheese at the Wine and Cheese Festival, since after asking the cheese vendor if his cheese was kosher, he replied "of course!" as if that was completely obvious.
I know as time passes we will become accustomed to these realities. It will become normal that we live in a Jewish country that is (more-or-less) in sync with our personal Jewish lives. But for now, I openly appreciate the convenience of Jewish observance and recognize how unique this place is.
Shabbat Shalom and have a great weekend,
Stef and Matt
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