Tourist from Brooklyn

Taking buses in Jerusalem nowadays demands a lot of patience with the construction that is tearing up Jerusalem's downtown streets. So with great zen-like patience, thinking to myself, "this minute I am ok, this minute I am ok" I board the buses after a 20 minute - 1/2 hour wait and breathe deeply. Very deeply.

While breathing and after speaking to my husband who was worried I wouldn't get home in time to make dinner before he crashes, a woman sitting next to me started a conversation.

"You mentioned 'Maaleh Adumim'. Is that a nice place to live?"

"Yes, it's really beautiful. A beautiful suburb!"

I didn't want to ruin her day by telling her that the buses now take twice as long to get to and back to Jerusalem and it will be this way for two more years (at least).

"Are you new here?" I asked.

"I'm a tourist. I live in Brooklyn, and I really want to live here, but my husband doesn't," she said to me sadly and continued looking at the people coming onto the bus.

"Everyone here is so gorgeous. So beautiful. Like models. Everyone can be models here. Look at this one," she pointed to a beautiful Ethiopian soldier standing in front of us, "it's like God chiseled her features. So perfect!"

She just was in total awe of the human beauty surrounding us. Sure enough, I noticed too that everyone on the bus was attractive - beautiful.

"Back home, the people are so different. It's not the same. They're so materialistic there. It's all about how much you make, the money. Here, everything seems so relaxed, so much more spiritual. Jerusalem is also the intellectual capital of the world. I would never say anything bad about this country. Like the spies did (during the time of Moses). If it's terribly hot, I just go with it. I tell myself, it's ok. I won't ever say anything bad." She got more and more animated into the conversation, gushing over the people, the spirituality of the place, the beauty...

"It's like the whole world seems compacted into this country. You've got a little bit of everything here."

I looked at her incredulously. She was a mirror image of myself 14 years ago.

I told her, "In 1989,when I came for a visit, I said everything you just said to me now. I cried and begged every beggar I gave money to in Jerusalem to please pray for me so that one day I might have the privilege of living here. And you know something, it worked. My husband, who didn't want to go at first, finally relented."

I advised her to consistently badger her husband about it, until he gives in. Talk about nothing else. Tell him how this food reminds you of Israel, how that person reminds you of an Israeli, how the diesel fumes reminds you of the buses in Israel, how the Catskill mountains reminds you of the hills outside Jerusalem..."

She blessed me as she got off the bus. I looked at her, knowing the pain she will suffer going back to her home in Brooklyn. Probably, like me, she will cry all the way back on the flight back to the Diaspora, her soul wanting to be here so badly.

And the slow and tedious bus ride became more bearable as her words to me rang so true...