Jesus Christ

Hubby and I have begun to work out together in the neighborhood gym. It's swank and spanking new and the guys there surely can give the men in Jerusalem's YMCA a run for their money. If you want to see muscles - MY gym is the place. Good thing Hubby accompanies me there so I must behave.

My Good Daughter even told us that working out in the gym helps depression. But it doesn't help hard-of-hearing because when I told Hubby that I am a certain way because I am menopausal, he had this wonderful senior moment. "You're in a puzzle?"
No, darling I'm not. I love when you don't hear because then I can say things like "I transferred all your money from your bank account to mine." And you will think I'm saying something else.

Tonight we actually celebrated American Thanksgiving at our new friends who are messianic Jews. Jews who, unlike Orthodox Jews who believe in an eventual Messiah, believe that Jesus is the one. Hubby was having a hard time deciding if he wanted to go or not and subject himself to conversations about Christ. Especially on the holy Sabbath. But I, feeling very "Eve-like" persuaded him to go. "It'll be fun." I told him.

"What if they spike the food?" he wanted to know.

"With what? Crumbs from the New Testament?"

There were 3 other couples there besides us, all Americans. Some brought their teenage kids, who were well-behaved, and there was one, like mine, who showed some teen attitude.

"How did you cope with 5 kids?" asked the mother of the kids. She had twins. Lucky you are, lady. I told her God wanted to torture me one at a time.

Everyone there I assumed "knew" we were non-believers. We spoke with one man about our experience as Lubavitcher Chassidim.

He asked - "And they believe that their Rebbe will come back as the Messiah, yet they're not ostracised as being heretics!"

I added - "Sure, it'll be fun to see who comes back first."

The man asked "The Rebbe or who?"

AH - the prompt. They probably do not mention the "J" word to non-believers unless we mention it first.

"Why Jesus of course" I smiled. He knew who the "Who" was. He just wanted me to say his name.

Ding Ding Ding! I felt the green light come on.

Hubby insisted on being seated near the door. He didn't say so, but I thought perhaps it would make it easy for him to make a quick getaway, should he feel totally uncomfortable. They began their Friday night shabbat meal, similar to the way, all traditional Jews do it, singing the same hymns etc. The only time I heard a "Jesus" mention was when the father of household blessed his daughters the traditional prayer of becoming like Sarah, Rivka, Rachel and Leah and Miriam and he added something to the effect like "they should be a light unto the nations so they should know Jesus". Then we dug into the meal, which was an American culinary delight and for a moment I forgot I was in Jerusalem.

I asked about their families. Did their families mind their beliefs? Many of them already came from families who believed as they did. So no one there was excommunicated. What about Jesus' lineage. The traditional Jewish belief was that the messiah must be from the tribe of Judah, which is only determined by patriarchal lineage - and if Jesus' father was God then there's a problem with that. But I didn't press further. I don't care what their beliefs are. I was a new guest in their home and didn't want to make anyone feel uncomfortable. And after about 5 hours, way past our bedtime, we said our goodbyes.

Instead of falling asleep, we were wide awake and watched music shows on TV.

"Why aren't we tired - it's nearly 1:00 am" Hubby asked.

I answered - "Oh, don't worry, it's called Sleep Deprivation. That's what they did to us, so that in time, we'll become believers." feeding into Hubby's paranoia of spiked food and drink.

We both laughed and eventually did fall asleep.