Being Used by God

How a nasty fall turned into a blessing

Did you ever feel you were being used as a tool by God? Last Thursday morning it happened to me.

Background

During the war in Lebanon I was part of a local group preparing kosher Shabbat meals for soldiers stationed along the border. The army provides prepared meals, but they are not appetizing. What started as a one-time Sabbath meal for a son’s platoon quickly morphed into a huge effort as other platoons asked if they might also get a home-cooked Sabbath meal. By the ceasefire we were preparing around 1200 Shabbat meals a week.

With the ceasefire and demobilization of most Israeli troops along the borderit became unnecessary—or so we thought.

A Last-Minute Request

Wednesday at 9:30 pm our leader received a call that one hundred soldiers would be arriving Friday. Could we provide them the Sabbath dinner? Of course our leader said yes. I saw the text at 5:30 AM the next morning, signed up, and immediately put my fail-proof rice in the oven. But by 9:00 there still weren’t enough sign-ups, so I checked off vegetables as well. I took my shopping cart and started to the nearest supermarket, less than a half-mile away (straight up the mountain). I picked up two bags of frozen mixed vegetables, planning to cook them with a simple but tasty recipe. (Some of you readers like recipes, so I’ll include mine at the end of this.) But the best-laid plans…

The path beside the city hall, the lovely-looking stone sidewalk, is lethally slippery when covered in leaves or rain. I have almost fallen on it several times, so I almost always walk on opposite side of the street.

Photo by author. Sidewalk in front of City Hall.

Remember, we’ve just ended (hopefully) a nasty war during which we were frequently attacked by missiles and rockets. The government put temporary shelters along main roads in the target areas. Across from the city hall, which is next to a major health center, the shelter (yellow rectangle in center left) takes up a good portion of a parking lot, which means cars block the sidewalk. Pedestrians have to maneuver around them, including around a tree with a broken brick surround.

A Tool of God

You guessed it: I tripped on the broken pavement and did a face plant.

My glasses flew off my face and my lower face met the pavement, as did my left hand and knee. Almost immediately a woman ran up on my left and tried to help me rise, but I was winded and told her to wait. A moment later a man came up on my right and asked if I was okay. I knew my nose, and possibly my mouth, was bleeding; someone handed me a bunch of tissues and somehow I got my glasses, miraculously undamaged, back on my face. Meanwhile the man was speaking, but the only word I understood was t’munot, pictures. I heard some other men run up and again heard them speaking of pictures.

In a few moments the man and woman helped me up and took me across the street to the health center.

Here’s where the story gets interesting.

That helpful man works for the city. He had just met with the mayor, trying to convince him that repairing broken sidewalks was a critically important issue. The mayor responded with the Hebrew version of yada-yada-yada. The man left, stopped to look out a window to compose himself, and saw me fall.

He rushed down, calling a couple of the men he works with to come and video the incident. When he left me in the care of the health center nurse, he told me he was taking the videos back to the mayor to use them as proof of what he had unsuccessfully argued just a half-hour earlier. I will also speak with the mayor, and will recommend that, additionally, the city either rough up the stone sidewalk in front of City Hall, or attach a handrail such as the one in the bottom right photo above.

This accident could not have been pure chance. In the middle of doing an act of chesed (helping someone else, the soldiers) I became the unwitting face of the need for decent sidewalks in a town with a large population of senior citizens. If the mayor agrees to fix the sidewalks, it will be partly due to my fall.

This picture looks alarming, but I was very, very lucky. Nothing was broken, no stitches were needed. The big dressings were temporaries which I quickly replaced with smaller ones. My face looked pretty bad for a couple of days but is already just about normal, the hand scabbed over quickly, and the knee and leg are healing, although they are still keeping me fairly immobile. My body’s work at healing has left me a little foggy mentally, although I am much clearer than a few days ago. I thank God that the damage was so mild.

Photo by the author

I could have been seriously hurt. My mother, at just my age, slipped on ice, shattering her wrist and requiring both orthopedic and neurosurgery. Nancy Pelosi, just a few years older than me, fell the other day and broke her hip. Me? A couple of days of taking it easy and I’ll be fine. I didn’t even need to take my glasses to have the frame straightened.

The Blessing of Good Neighbors

Chesed--doing kind acts—is an important part of my town’s culture, and I believe of the larger Israeli society as well. A neighbor, who was coming over so I could help her prepare for an exam, instead helped me prepare the vegetables for the soldiers. Thursday afternoon the food committee reported the soldiers included 6 celiacs; I happened to have in my freezer enough gluten-free challah rolls for them, plus gf oatmeal cookies. Since I was unable to walk, a stranger came to my door to collect the food I’d prepared.

Another friend and her husband brought burgers from the best hamburger joint around and ate dinner with me. The next day two friends brought me food—soup, meat, and vegetables. The egg lady brought my eggs to my door; usually I go down to the street; but it is 44 steps plus about 100 yards to walk, each way.

Photo by author. At bottom of the 44 steps is the crosswalk on the street.

They say things happen for a reason, but we are rarely given a glimpse at the reason. This time, I think I understand.

Note: Someone commented privately to me that I must think I am very special if God chose me. I fell and hurt myself—my doctor told me that the knee will take weeks to heal. God could have just put into the mayor’s mind the idea to fix the sidewalks. But Judaism teaches that God can make someone a tool and at the same time punish them for something they did nor did not do. That is what I suspect happened to me: falling and injuring myself because for some reason I deserved punishment (maybe for getting angry, which I know is a big problem), in order to become that tool.

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Upcoming Essays

Meanwhile, Hanukkah approaches, commemorating the cultural/religious war between the Maccabees and the Syrian Greeks. The researched article comparing Hellenistic, American, and Jewish culture that I intended to publish this week as part of my Hanukkah content is sitting half-done, waiting for me to be able to sit at my desk where my two large monitors make researching easy. Within a few days I’m sure I will have regained the mental clarity that will come when I am not using so much energy healing, so you can look forward to that article in a week.

I am hoping to complete my new Hanukkah story for children for the following week; I will try to publish it at the beginning of that week so that kids can enjoy it during the middle of the holiday and not at the very end.

After Hanukkah, I will be writing about teaching children about antisemitism, something that has concerned me since the 80’s. As a storyteller back then, I discovered that many Jewish children were so sheltered that they thought antisemitism had died with the Holocaust. At the same time, many children told me that they had faced unexplainable negative events for which they had blamed themselves, but which they now thought, when considered in the context in which they had occurred, were related to their Jewishness. Hopefully my ideas and insights will prove helpful not only to Jewish parents and children, but to others as well.

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Beginning next week, I am moving my publication date and time from Tuesday at 8 AM EST to Wednesday at the same time. I hope this is not inconvenient for anyone.

Until then, three recipes: two for this article and one to try before Hanukkah. Next week I’ll give you a couple of my exotic latke recipes to try.

Easy Frozen Mixed Vegetables, adapted from a recipe found on Phillyjaycooking.com

• 1 lb. frozen mixed vegetables

• 1 cup of broth

• 2 tsp. chicken-flavored soup powder

• 1 tsp. minced dried garlic or ½ clove fresh garlic, minced

• 1 tsp. onion powder

• ¼ tsp. dill weed

• ¼ tsp. black pepper

Put the broth and soup powder in a large saucepan. On high heat, bring to a boil, then reduce the heat to medium. Add the frozen mixed vegetables, butter or oil, and seasonings. Stir well. Cook for 8 to 10 minutes, stirring periodically.

If making a large quantity, preheat the oven to 375 deg. Bring the broth to a boil along with the butter and soup powder. In a large pan (a 9 x 13 x 3 pan can hold about three times this recipe), add the remaining ingredients. Pour in the liquid, stiring well. Cover tightly and bake for 20-25 minutes. Open and stir again.

Easy Gluten-Free Oatmeal Raisin Cookies, recipe from Bob’s Red Mill.

• 2 cups of gluten-free all-purpose flour

• 1 tsp. baking soda

• ¼ tsp. salt

• 1 cup unsalted butter or other oil

• ¾ cup packed light brown sugar

• ¾ cup granulated sugar

• 3 eggs

• 1 Tbsp. vanilla

• 1 tsp. ground cinnamon

• 3 cups gluten-free rolled oats

• 2 cups raisins

Preheat oven to 350 deg.

If the raisins are dry, cover with boiling water and set aside.

Mix flour, baking soda, and salt. Set aside.

In a large bowl, beat the butter and sugar until light. Add eggs, 1 at a time, to the butter and sugar mixture. When combined, add the vanilla.

Then add the dry ingredients in two or three batches. If using a mixer, scrape down the sides of the bowl several times. Add the cinnamon and mix well.

If you soaked the raisins, drain them well, squeezing out excess water by pressing them with the back of a spoon. Fold them into the dough along with the rolled oats.

Line a cookie sheet with parchment paper. Put spoonfuls of dough on the sheet; they will not spread a lot. Bake for 16 minutes or until the edges are lightly browned. They are best when the centers are slightly soft, but they are also good baked slightly longer and crispy.

Cool before serving. Can be frozen.

Traditional Potato Latkes, recipe from The Israeli Cookbook, Molly Lyons Bar-David, Crown Publishers, 1964.

• 6 medium potatoes

• 1/2 tsp. baking soda

• 2 onions, chopped

• Dash of ginger or nutmeg, optional

• ½ cup of flour

• Salt and pepper to taste

• Oil for frying

Peel the potatoes and grate very fine. (You can grate them with the food processor, but do not chop; the texture is not as nice and they don’t seem to cook as well.—hbg)

Sprinkle with the soda and squeeze out the excess liquid. Mix with all the other ingredients. Drop the batter by spoonfuls into hot fat and fry until crisp on the outside. Drain on paper and serve hot with applesauce or sour cream. They rewarm well.

Serves 6-8.

Wishing you all happy holidays!