Saturday, June 28, 2008

Lights!

About 5:30 this afternoon we got a lesson in a different meaning of "L'Yehudim hoisah Orah" when a lightening storm hit full force. The thunder was booming, the rain was gushing and then the electricity went off. We looked out the window and saw no lights anywhere in any of the houses. Oh joy.

The men went off to shul and we womenfolk settled down by the windows to read and talk. And then it started getting darker. No way to call and find out if the outage was only a small local one or a much larger one. No way to light a candle or use a flashlight. No way of knowing how long the outage would last. And then around 8:40 the electricity came back on.

A little while later when my husband was making Havdalah there was surely a different appreciation when we got to "L'Yehudim." We'd tried dark; light was better. Surely a lesson in there somewhere.

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

I can sympathize. Our blackout was yesterday morning. Ever eaten lukewarm cholent and cold kugel for lunch? The hotwater never came back on and so there was no coffee either.

Jameel @ The Muqata said...

Ah...I miss summer thunderstorms.

Anonymous said...

Jameel the midwest has been storming and flooding for two weeks now. I'd be really happy to pack up all those storms and mail them to you. I'll even pay the postage. I'd really really like a chance to miss those thunderstorms too. Seems unfair that only you get to miss them.

Jameel @ The Muqata said...

Adena: Well, considering we're facing one of the worst water shortages in Israel's history, we'd appreciate whatever you could send!

(And we'd be happy to reciprocate by sending some of our hot, sunny weather)

Orthonomics said...

Our lights started flickering around havdalah time. All I could think about was the meat and soups in my freezer. Fortunately, we never lost power.

ProfK said...

The key in an outage SL is to leave the freezer shut tight. It can stay just fine for at least 6 hours, especially if it's full.

Anonymous said...

Read this post, felt sorry for your few hours of darkness and didn't think about it again. This morning at 6:11 the transformer in our area blew. All the kids are off from school. Day camp was supposed to start today but the shul is in our transformer area and also has no electricity so no camp. They hope we will have power by about 4 tonight. How did you stand it? At least we can light a candle to use the bathroom. Even so, I'm slowly going nuts. Only thing working is my laptop cause it has a battery in it.