Posts Tagged ‘wedding’

 

A Tale of Two Pictures: Before and After an Iron Dome Alert

Posted on: July 18th, 2014 by Hayim Herring

 

(This post is about my recent 3 week visit to Israel, where I spent most of my time in Jerusalem.)

 

Words just don’t cut it when describing what it’s like to be caught outdoors when an incoming missile alert siren sounds. Especially the part that news reporters don’t record—the ten minutes after the siren goes silent. So here are two pictures: one showing an Iron Dome interceptor hitting four incoming rockets near my Jerusalem neighborhood when I was visiting, and the other showing two cars decorated for a wedding ten minutes later.

 

And here’s the connection…

 

Israel - Iron Dome and Wedding

 

It was about 5:45 pm a week ago this past Tuesday, and my wife, Terri, and I were taking a walk in our neighborhood. We were on a very popular path, and it was crowded with families with young children, an elderly person being pushed in a wheel chair, joggers, and middle-aged couples like us. At about 5:55 pm, the siren sounded. We were nowhere within the approximately 30 seconds that we had to find a bomb shelter. Terri turned to me and said, “What do we do?” to which I said, “Run like everyone else around us and drop to the ground. And that’s what we did, along with an older woman near us, and a family with three young children under the age of five.

 

Then I looked up and saw the awesome power of the life-saving Iron Dome missile defense system. And Iron Dome does not just save Jewish lives. It saves the lives of all Israeli citizens: Muslims, Druze, Christians and Jews. And it also saves the lives of more Palestinians in Gaza, for without Iron Dome, Israel would have needed to undertake ground operations in Gaza many times to destroy its massive arsenal of missiles that are hidden under deep tunnels, sometimes near schools and hospitals.

 

(more…)

An Open Invitation to Chelsea and Marc

Posted on: August 8th, 2010 by Hayim Herring

I do not know Marc Mezvinsky, Chelsea Clinton or any members of their families. But I am puzzled by the vast amounts of digital deliberations in the Jewish blogosphere about their wedding, and the relative absence of attention to their ongoing relationship with the Jewish community now that they are married. If I did know them, here is what I would say:

Jessica Rinaldi/Reuters

Dear Marc and Chelsea,

Mazel tov…you are now legally married! While some are still obsessing about the details of your wedding, I am much more interested in what the future holds for you as a married couple… Both of you, in a public and proud way, drew upon the symbols of your respective faith traditions. I don’t presume to know what conversations you’ve had or decisions you’ve made about involvement in a religious community. But I hope that you will want to explore participation in some aspect of your local Jewish community and respectfully want to invite you to do so…

For the full text of this letter, visit the JTA website at www.jta.org (Op-Ed section) or click on this link: http://bit.ly/bnrmvs.

Rabbi Hayim Herring, Ph.D., is President and C.E.O. of Herring Consulting Network, a firm which specializes in “preparing today’s leaders for tomorrow’s organizations.™”

I wasn’t expecting to have to hear about the trauma of the trip over the phone.  Hearing Ruby’s distress over the phone was quite upsetting.  I was having a great time cleaning and stuff!  I knew it wasn’t going to be a cakewalk.  Charles was even hesitating a few days ago and I said maybe you shouldn’t go. He was thinking about the fact that his mom is so annoying and stupid and his sister cheated his mom, essentially, out of more than $100,000 by paying that much less for the house than it’s worth.
Another interesting thing (I know you’re fascinated,) when I wryly said it did kind of hurt my feelings a little bit that they really didn’t want me to come, he started saying again how Fitz could ride in the back and stuff, like we could change our plans and I could come.   As if!  Grady is afraid of Fitz, it would be awful for them both.  It’s already awful for Grady, probably, and Fitz was pretty concerned when they were hauling out duffel bags and things.  He knew something was up.  We’ve been bonding a lot lately, though, because I do his grooming and he enjoys it.  I do too, he’s really such a great dog.  I never said I wasn’t fond of him, you know, it’s just that we didn’t have the time and energy and ability to take care of him properly.
Which reminds me, Grady asked who’s going to take care of the dog, like I couldn’t handle it.