the tire

After the starting school ceremony, the girls got together in their classrooms for a meet the teachers. My speech was cut down from what I wrote to a skeleton of it by my friend who told me that a lot of people would be insulted by what I had planned to say because I didn't understand the bad history in the school. Also I had forgotten that this was a welcome for first grade and didn't include anything about the darling new students. I also didn't throw in any sefardic phrases like yehi ratzon... and kapara alecha or chamsaa. So it was rewritten, but the new version didn't have a dvar torah, so he told me that the rav bet sefer was going to talk torah and I didn't need to. The subject of my dvar torah was taken out also so I couldn't use the same thing I had. Which left me with the opportunity to say what was on the top of my head which may have been appropriate for first graders "Look, I have put before you a blessing and a curse" but may not have been taken well, so I left out the Torah.

When we left it was already dark and as we were walking towards the car my wife, GBH, noticed someone changing a tire and suggested I go and help him. So I went over there and asked if he needed help and he said no, but it was a guy I knew and I assumed he really did need help so I sent the wife and kids home without me and stayed to help him change his tire. Something looked weird about the jack, so I asked him if he put it in the right place and he said yes, he knows how to change a tire. At one point the car slipped a little bit and I actually looked at the jack. What I found was that he really didn't know how to jack up a car and he had put the jack on upside down. The bottom of the jack is a flat panel that rests on the ground. The top of the jack is a little square piece with a ridge where the piece of metal sticking down from the car is supposed to fit into. Well he had the bottom braced on the bottom of the car against the door and it was balanced on the little square on top. When the car had shifted it was because he had dented the door of the car. It's a good thing that I went to help him or he might not be with us anymore. God works in wonderful ways.

As I was helping him change the tire, we were talking about his ethiopian project. He is an ethioipian himself (a kolel boy) and is now running a program that is trying to bring their teenagers off the street in Karmiel. They seem to be having a lotof what we would term "at-risk"kids. He needs money for the program and they are opening a non-profit org in the US so they can collect money. If any of my readers is interested in donating to a good cause that helps normalize ethiopian jews and teach them a bit of torah in the process, please let me know in the comment section and I will get you contact information.

I told him to send me the flyers he has in English and I will post them here as well.