Independence and Leadership

Just so you know, they called that night from the grocery delivery to get our payment information.

I told my students today that independence is not valued in this culture and they should stop trying to do things on their own. They should only do something after asking someone how it is done here. Nothing works the same here as what they expect. A student went to open a checking account and was told he would have to put 3000 NIS on deposit in the bank in order to have an account on which he could write checks. So he did it although he actually needed that money to live on. The assumption from his past experience - they told me I have to do it so it must be true. My intervention got them down to 1000 NIS, because I don't know them. At the bank where I have connections, no deposit necessary. After 8 years, all this is obvious to me. Eight years ago, I had no idea. The city was on strike, is now off strike. I was trying to explain to the students why a strike is good, because you don't have to make any efforts to deal with bureaucracy if they are on strike. They looked at me like I had 3 heads.

Lay leadership - I've been a rabbi of a congregation and now I am the partner of a lay leader and I guess something of a lay leader myself and I can tell you, being a rabbi is way easier. A rabbi gets a paycheck and in a good situation, also kudos and respect. A lay leader puts in hours upon hours and gets to pay for the privilege. Kudos and respect are also optional it seems. I've always had a lot of respect for lay leaders, but it's growing every day.

Please comment on this blog. I like writing it, but I'd like it better knowing there were readers out there!