The first rain of the year comes early in Israel

Before I ever had to say kaddish as a mourner, I was entranced by its music.

In 1934 the British writer Dorothy Sayers published The Nine Tailors, a fairly unconvincing mystery that provided a framework for a pastoral idyll. The book centered around bell-ringers who climbed up a church tower to pull the massive ropes attached to the brass behemoths that hung there. They were ringing the changes, following mathematical formulas that permitted subtle variations, playing the huge bells with paradoxical delicacy.

Street signs in Jerusalem. From "Jerusalem: Step by Step"

I take little for granted when I walk the streets of Jerusalem. Despite frequent visits in years past, the opportunity I shared with my wife and three children a few years back had me regularly taking to the city's famed streets and alleyways. On those many occasions when I crossed the town by foot, I was easily taken in by my surroundings. I could easily find fault in the degree of debris and the sense of discard and wasteful abandon that the public visits upon the capital city's poor pavement. Writ large in the daily dust and dirt is a lack of concern given to environmental care and esthetic issues. Still, I would find a sea of new sights and delights that I navigated and explored with my children en route to their schools each day.

Getting pregnant was the easy part. Giving birth was simple, too, compared with the onerous task of choosing a name for my yet-to-be-born son.

Like many women, I had picked out my children’s names long before I even met the man I would marry. According to my plan I would have two children: Gabriel, a name I chose because nearly every Gabe I knew was attractive, and Neshama, which means “spirit” or “soul” in Hebrew, because I thought it was beautiful.

Tel Aviv is at first glance a city similar to many other metropolitan cities. It is a center for finance and business, a focus of fashion and youth. It has urban poverty in its south and affluent neighborhoods in the north. Yet it has neither the ancient, historical roots of neighboring Yafo/Jaffa or the holiness and mystique of Yerushalayim / Jerusalem. And yet still it has a certain something….

Tel Aviv can trace its roots to April 11, 1909. A housing association, Achuzat Bayit, had been formed in 1906 in order to realize the idea of building a “Jewish garden city” outside the noisy and crowded city of Yafo. Akiva Arieh Weiss was elected chairman of the association and he arranged a lottery with white and grey seashells in order to fairly allocate lots in the new city. The 60 original families met during Pesach 5669 for the shell lottery and the first houses were completed by the end of the year.

I stare through the window as the taxi tumbles on, swallowing the deserted highways whole, bringing me inches from parting. I stare at the unfolding sky, brighter-than-life stars, not-quite-green trees, whispering to myself, “Remember. Don’t you dare let these images wash away.”

After ten months of study in Israel, I prepare to leave, not knowing when I’ll be back again. As the plane hurtles into the sky, I will these final glimpses of Israel to imprint onto my heart and tide me over until my return to Israel, and ultimately, to Jerusalem.

I set off for Israel in August, accompanied by a year’s supply of toothpaste, American peanut butter, and three-pronged loose-leaf paper. “Are you sure there isn’t anything you can leave behind?” I nodded solemnly at the airport personnel while opening my wallet to pay the three-figure overweight charge.

At Tisha B’Av this year, think of fasting as a tzedakah stimulus plan. By observing this day of mourning, by not eating, our hunger can stimulate us to look beyond our own tables. Coming in the middle of summer, amid barbecues, picnics, and trips to the ballpark, the day dedicated each year to the historic loss of Jerusalem and other Jewish calamities can be one of spiritual recovery.

You just need a little change.

For the last couple of years I have partially fasted, not noshing from sundown until noon the next day, skipping breakfast as a kind of warm-up for Yom Kippur, convincing myself it’s the thought that counts.