Beautiful day here…around 70 degrees and Sunny. Our first full Shabbat guests in Israel (ie: sleeping here and eating all meals here) are coming in an hour…who also happen to be my parents and sister…so things are a little bit hectic great (food is mostly cooked, chulent up, dishes clean and floor kind of sponge’ad).

An hour ago, two of the children who live downstairs came up to ask if we wanted to buy any letters in a Sefer Torah that was being written. A bargain at 1 shekel per letter. (Quite a change of pace from having people knocking on your door to try and sell you Girl Scout cookies). We also found out that our downstairs neighbor (their father) is, in addition to being father, Rav of a private Talmud Torah for boys and our Landlord, is also a sofer. Pretty cool.

I also got to throw a softball around for a few minutes this morning – in preparation for tryouts for the NBN softball team next week (first game in two weeks). Still a little bit stiff. But a beautiful day. My throwing partner pointed out to me the background of the area where we were throwing: over there is Michmash, now an Arab village, which once upon a time was army headquarters for Yehuda haMaccabi. And a little farther on is Adam, also known as Geva Binyamin which was the site of Pilegesh b’Giv’a. Right in my backyard.