The other morning, I had to deliver my car to the Hyundai dealership in Jerusalem because my car battery was failing and having trouble starting the car after sitting around for a day or so on a weekend. I knew that as the weather got colder this problem would only get worse. In order to avoid the rush hour traffic, I waited until mid-morning to drive into the city, then sat with the very attentive technician and explained the problem. He took careful notes and promised that it was likely the car would be ready in the late afternoon. It seemed prudent to head back home rather than wait for the repair to be finished and so I asked for a lift to the Gilo intersection, a convenient place to hitchhike back to Neve Daniel or as we say in Hebrew "Take a Tremp". I told the technician that for various reasons I would likely not be back to pick up the car until Sunday morning. The dealership was very gracious about calling a prepaid taxi to take me where I needed to go, the Gilo intersection. I walked over to the bus stop, or Trempiada, heading south and stuck out a finger a the cars shooting by hoping I would not halve to wait to long until someone stopped to pick up passengers. Bus service to Gush Etzion in the middle of the day is fairly infrequent and hitchhiking was a vastly superior alternative to waiting for the bus. Luckily, my daugher-in-law's younger sister, Elisheva, turned the corner on her way home to Gush Etzion, spotted me almost immediately, and picked me up along with another young women who was also looking for a lift. Elisheva generously took me practically all the way home and thus, I managed the return trip easily and quickly. However that is not always the case.
A few days later, on Sunday morning, I needed to get back to Jerusalem to pick up the car. I walked up the hill to the synagogue around seven a.m. for prayers and afterwards headed to the Trempiada in Neve Daniel to look for a Tremp back into Yerushalayim to the car dealership located in an commercial neighborhood call Talpiot. Car after car drove by most of them stopping to pick up hitchhikers but somehow I had missed all of the commuters heading to Taptiot. Every car seemed to be headed to a different part of the city or to a more local destination. Five - ten - fifteen minutes went by and I was starting to get a bit frustrated. Finally, an ancient beat up up old jalopy pulled up and said he was going to Gilo, the very place where a few days earlier the taxi had dropped my off. It was about three quarters of the way to my destination and I would have to walk about a half hour, or else take a bus, or find another lift. I decided to jump in. Traffic was particularly terrible that Sunday morning, and my benefactor was not in the mood to talk except for a few deep sighs apparently due to the overwhelming volume of traffic, and perhaps the Sunday morning blues. So I read in silence as we drove, stop and go, to the edge of
Yerushalayim so I could get out at the Gilo intersection. About a 40 minutes later, I hopped out of the car and very quickly decided I was just going to walk because it was a bright pleasant day and I just needed to stretch my legs.
As I crossed the street, a strange car passed behind me with some kind of a baggage rack on the roof and unrecognizable lettering on the side of the car. It was outfitted with speakers blaring loud Jewish music in all directions. I noticed it but paid it little mind. As it happens, this stop called the Gilo intersection borders on a mostly self contained Arab village called Beit Safafa, which has been swallowed up by the growing neighborhood of Yerushalayim. Lining the sidewalks as I crossed the street were dozens of Arab men waiting for rides or buses to pick them off and carry them to work or wherever else they might be going. Like the kind gentleman who had given me a lift earlier, they also wore mostly frowns on their faces, Sunday morning frowns - getting back to work after too short a weekend frowns. Arabs you see, do not work on Friday because it is this Sabbath an they generally do not work on Saturday because it is the Jewish Sabbath. It was about 8:45 in the morning.
Then as I walked along the sidewalk I noticed that the colorfully decorated musical car had stopped right cross the street from me and parked illegally at the side of the road. The driver jumped out of the car and climbed onto what turned out to be a platform attached to the roof of the car and began an impromptu Hasidic dance to the the music that still blared out of the speakers. I stopped to stare and take a picture and felt a grin spread slowly across my face. Then I realized that everyone else was also staring and pulling out their smartphones and taking pictures as well. All the frowning faces I had passed whether they were Jewish or Arab were now smiling and clicking away trying to get a good picture of this crazy guy dancing on the roof of his car in the middle of a busy street. I imagine they wanted to send a picture to their spouse or child or friend and allow them to share in the lark of it all. As I looked more closely towards the car, I realized that I was now able to read the red lettering on the side of the vehicle. It said in Hebrew letters, Simcha - loosely translated as - happiness and joy. Indeed this crazy stranger had brought smiles, happiness, and joy, to the faces of dozens on this typical Sunday morning in Yerushalayim. I will leave the balance of the commentary to the reader.
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