Thank You Sderot Park Guy

I want to give a big thank you to the Sderot park guy, whoever you may be, who truly made my day, and ultimately my chag.

Tonight I was coming to Sderot to meet a friend from camp who moved to Israel to join the army. Due to the sporadic bus schedule from the Kibbutz, my bus ended up arriving in Sderot with ample time to walk around and explore the city. So, naturally, that’s what I decided to do.

While walking, I came across a nice park with a religious guy in the distance about to hop on his sukkah bike. Essentially, for those who haven’t seen it before, a sukkah bike is a tiny, kosher, sukkah that is attached to a bike. Religious Jews can often be seen riding these around to bring the Mitzvah of shaking the Lulav and Etrog to the people.

So far, and unfortunately so, despite being in Israel, I haven’t had to chance to shake the Lulav and Etrog yet. We haven’t been able to get a set ourselves, and the Kibbutz hasn‘t had one for our Garin as well.

So, I saw this guy in the distance, about to hop on his bike, and I went army mode. I ran up ahead, got his attention, and asked if I can shake the Lulav and Etrog in his portable Sukkah. He gave me a Kippah, a Lulav, and an Etrog; and I completed the Mitzvah with all the prayers.

We shook hands, said a hardy “חג שמח” and moved on. I guess only in Israel I‘d feel comfortable doing this, but also only in Israel is this a normal part of the culture.

A random woman, sitting on a park bench nearby, seeing the entire encounter take place, turns to us and says ״וואו מדהים״, “wow, amazing.” And that it truly was.