Strange Trip

All that I know is that I have the Bee-Gees CRANKING it out whilst I work a serious caffeine buzz here on my El Al flight to the US. For those that know what I am talking about, I am “…dancin’ yeah…….dancin yeah.” There is nothing like the Bee-Gees, let me tell you.

And NOW they are playing “Knock on Wood” – what is going on here!!! Holy late 1970’s Batman!!! Someone – quick – get me my rollerskates!!

I think that the Kadosh Baruch Hu is trying to be menachem on me for having to return, even for a few hours, to galut.

I actually hate to keep writing these stories, because I know how I sound. “Rich has lost his mind”, I know, I know. Gotta share this one though…….

Took a cab from Maale Adumim early in the AM to ben Gurion. Had to reserve it in advance…..anyway, my cab driver was something else.

From the start, it was apparent that he was a very special guy – very gentle, “adin” type. We get to talking, he wants to know what I do, (and why I am only going for 2 days to the US;-)). So I return the favor and we start talking about him. Turns out he too lives in Maale Adumim, a former “Yerushalmi” himself.

And what does he do? Part –time driving actually know, he is on pension from a civil service job. His job was??? He was the personal driver for, as he called them, “Golda, Begin, Shamir, Yitzchak, and Sharon” ( I did not hear him talk about Barak, but that may have been an oversight). For the record he said this not with any hint of trying to impress, but rather simply as a matter of fact.

So, you may think that when you drive the PM around there is some sort of sound barrier to the conversations or something. Not at all - he said – he heard “everything”, probably with a capitol “E”. Of course I did not go down that road, but fascinating. In case you were wondering how to define “chain smoker”, for the record, Golda takes the cake – 5 (I am talking about FIVE) packs of Chesterfields per day, washed down with impressive doses of coffee (I say this as a true caffeine addict). Eli would know – he bought them.

Probably comes as no surprise, but Ariel liked to eat. Falafel – tons of “charif” on top. Said Sharon simply could not get enough of the stuff…….

Yitzchak liked him so much that Eli went with him around the world, not even as a driver, but just to schlep stuff around with the PM .

His kindest words, probably as no surprise, went to Begin as a person.

Oddly enough, after I asked, he got a bit blackballed during Netanyahu’s tenure – his staff thought because he had been the driver for these Labor PM’s that he worked “for them”. Pretty unfair it would seem, but he stuck around.



The people here, despite my kvetching at times, are so, so special. There sometimes are a lot of layers that I, we, have to go through to get to that “specialness”. Sometimes it is readily apparent, as with Eli today.

The people, in the Land, according to our Torah. It is very apparent that, sadly, we are weak – because we have misled ourselves here. Most apparent is our People’s strength when we have, and when we shortly will, get past these stumbling blocks.

When we read of our victories, of generations thousands of years ago, all the way through today, we see our utter weakness when we stray from the patch – and our invincibility when doing what we should.

Very shortly, we will be tested again – I, personally, feel certain that we will once again rise to the occasion.