Oh, my, yes, like a lion. In addition to all the lovely snow and blessed rain, Jerusalem looked for a while like an umbrella graveyard. Yesterday, Ramot Shlomo- including "770"- was completely invisible, in the fog, from Har Hotzvim.
Har Hotzvim is basically just across the road from Ramot, and yesterday I took a bus to Givat Shaul after work. Maybe a quarter of an hour, all told, and that wasn't even the most direct route. Beforehand, my spouse pointed out to me that I was following the end of this past Shabbat's haftarah- Shmuel goes home to Ramot, and Shaul goes home to Givat Shaul. It's struck me previously that the text presents this as quite a distance- as if (as it seems to have turned out), they were never going to see each other again. Now? A short trip.
(It is true that modern place names don't always match- but then, what was "Givat Shaul" back then was possibly even closer to Ramot than today's.)
Today, I got one of those "loving living here" moments as I walked into the office building. Hanging from the rafters were balloons of all sorts of characters- Winnie the Pooh, Mickey and Minnie, and others. Various offices are decorated for Purim, and I (and the woman following me) had a huge smile as I ascended the stairs. Happy Purim!
3 comments:
How's the rain situation, Nachum? Give it to me in nomral terms, I dont undertand thes centimeters and millimeters and red lines and blue lines.
DF
Rainfall was much higher this year than the last few years, although the Kinneret is still far lower than the ideal. It's higher now than it's been in about five years, and will probably keep growing due to runoff for the next couple of months. A report today said, though, that runoff has been lower than usual for the last twenty or so years compared to the previous twenty or so. So, short version, good, but could be better.
By the way, the red lines aren't hard:
There's an upper red line above which the water level would be dangerous (Tiberias would be flooded), so when it hits that, they open the dams to the Jordan. They haven't touched that in almost ten years , and they're not really close now.
The lower red line is the point below which it's dangerous to pump. They've dropped below that every summer for the last few years, so now there's a "black line," below which not only the lake but the water quality would suffer. They've touched that a couple of times in the last few years.
See http://www.water.gov.il/Hebrew/WaterResources/Kinneret-Basin/Pages/default.aspx and http://www.savethekinneret.com/
Post a Comment