The Lord and the Flies

Though I didn’t feel quite right, I chalked it up to travel and spotty sleep so I worked out anyway early Sunday morning.  Shortly afterwards, I knew I was going to have problems.  We arrived at the Allensby Bridge checkpoint between Jordan and Israel and the line was long and there seemed like little movement.  We were instructed to stay on the bus, which we did for quite awhile.   From the bus we could see the long line of people with barely any movement.

After 45 or so minutes, the bus moved and we were all excited that we had been given permission to move to the empty tourist line, but all we did was make a circle and end up where we were.  Waiting even longer, we began to get very frustrated—though I expressed to some that people have to live with this daily.  With the bus door open, I tried speaking to one of the Israeli soldiers to determine the issue.  Finally, one came by. There were already mumblings on the bus why it was taking so long.  It turns out that the computers were down, but I was at least able to convince the guard Liad (all of 22) to escort 8 or so of us to the WC.  During our brief walk, I tried to schmooze my best—and whether it was the computers back on-line or the “nice rabbi with the Muslims”.

Getting through felt like another hour, especially when Plemon explained to the Passport control that a number of the Muslims on our trip need their passports stamped on a separate sheet of paper.  I finally stood behind with him my yarmulke and the other guard started to speak with me.  She was fascinated that I was a rabbi.  “Really?  Wearing cool sunglasses?”  She asked, “You do Bat Mitzvah for girls?  With talit and everything?  They read from the Torah?”  She giggled like the teenager she was and she grabbed the women next to her to repeat everything I had just said.  At the very least, we went through this part quickly.  The rest of the procedures took about half an hour but finally we made it through to our guide George and our new bus!

When we got on board, it was filled with flies.  Dozens of flies.  Jokes of biblical plagues were worn out quickly. George made some oblique explanation and suggested after ten minutes of having flies brush up against us and land on us that we open the window to let them out.  It did reduce the number, but at that point all I wanted to do was shower.  Not to mention, I was starting to burn up!

It was already mid afternoon and we off our schedule.