Week 7 Prompts

34. Check out Carolyn See Locator of Lost Persons --those short, very evocative, mysterious, and poetic grafts. Try a few of those!

My best friend Chava

We met in the elementary school; you were new but immediately became the class unchallenged queen. I felt honored to be your chosen friend. You resembled everything foreign and exciting coming from the USA.  When you left, at the end of the 6^th grade you promised to write but you never did. My mother told me, that she met you, years later, in Jerusalem, you were married and fat. It made me happy…

My next best friend, Naomi

I loved your dedication to whatever the cause was at the time. You influenced me to push myself and examine my limits and together we made a great team. With the years our worlds grew apart and you were left behind in the old neighborhood. I always wondered why you never got married, was it because of your first love to you know whom, who ended up married your other best friend?

Ariela (not me)

I hated you even more because we have the same name. It was really spiteful of you to say what you said that night before we finished officer course. But you were my superior, at the time, and I couldn’t say what I felt. I saw you years later in the street, I was an officer and you were a civilian. I could say anything I wanted but it felt pointless.

Shlomo,

I can’t believe, till this day that it worked so well. A religious man and a women officer, but it did for a whole year. Your dry sense of humor illuminated our strange office makeup, a natural ground that enabled us to meet as equals. I know you got married but that was the last I heard. You must have a big family by now, I wonder if you ever think of that year.

Penina (I don’t even remember your last name)

Were you really part of the Jerusalem’s aristocracy click, or just adopted into it. I am not sure. You certainly did behave like one at the time. Later we became good friends. I was there when you got married and when shortly after you got divorced. Then we lost track of each other. Did you remarry do you have kids? Where are you?

Albert, 

You taught me how to shoplift halva (we both loved this heavenly sticky stuff) in that small Rinky-Dink supermarket in Arad. It was your idea to open it and eat it on the spot. It shattered a bit of my goody two-shoes, Jerusalem kid behavior.  Haven’t heard from you in years till I ‘googgled’ you and there you were, a gay photography teacher and artist, using his own life as the raw material. I still smile every time I eat halva.

John (can’t remember your last name either)

You were a great teacher. You taught me so much about counseling but mostly how being able to joke about someone’s origin is a good base for friendship. It was my first close encounter with American humor and the notion that there should be no sacred cows. I learned from you how not to take myself too seriously.  Also how not making a decision, when the time is not right, is actually a decision too. I have used what you said plenty of times in the years to come.

Daniella

You were my supervisor and mentor for many years. You were there for me in many difficult professional crossways but by the end it turned out that you did it all out of cold calculations and maintaining your lines of command.  When I crossed you, for the first time ever, you turned against me. It was the best thing you ever did for me. We both know who won. I wonder what you up to today.

Sarah

You are the best friend someone can have. We were work colleagues and personal friends for a long time. I admire your sense of humor. Always caressing, never stabbing, and forever lightening every situation, no matter how harsh.  I hardly ever saw you bitter or vindictive though you had many reasons to. You are probably as close to being one of the ‘Lamed Vavs’, as anyone I ever met. Luckily I know exactly where you are.

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*Lamed Vav

The Lamed Vav are two letters in the Hebrew alphabet. Numerically, they represent 36. Legends tell that in this world, there always live thirty-six men who are also called Tzadikim Nistarim, or the Hidden Just Men. They are usually poor, unknown, obscure, and no one guesses that they are the ones who bear all the sorrows and sins of the world. It is for their sake that God does not destroy the world even when sin overwhelms mankind.

When one of the Lamed Vav dies, another is immediately chosen to take his place. Often, the Tzadik Nistar does not even know he is chosen for the task. As long as the Lamed Vav continue to serve humanity and God in this fashion, the world will go on. But if at some point God will not be able to find someone just and good enough to replace a dying Tzadik, the world will end immediately.