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Hi there. I wanted to write to you and give you an account of the Bris. But first, let's backtrack to the birth as I haven't as yet written to you about that... It began at about 4.30am when Leah woke me up. She said that "It's time". I asked "for what". She said, "It's time" At that moment I knew that she didn't mean that it was time for shule. I quickly got up and got dressed. I made a great effort not to wake anyone up and in doing so, woke up both in-laws. The kids remained asleep. We had programmed into our phone the number of the Shabbos Goy who has an ambulance service for the Sabbath observant. He didn't answer. Probably because Saturdays is his day off (???). So we called the regular ambulance. The ambulance guy lives around the corner, just opposite the Makolet and he was here in no time. We requested that he arrive without the sirens - why wake up all our neighbours at that time on a Shabbbos morning? I slid into the back with Leah and the ambulance guy drove. Heaven help me if something needed to be done - I was alone, in the back of an ambulance, on a Shabbos, with a very very pregnant woman, in an emergency situation. Gulp. But that wasn't the scariest thing. There was nothing to hold on to and I was sitting on a dark red vinyl-covered bench sliding from one end to the other. Leah was OK - she held on to the strap that held the fire extinguisher in place. All I had were stuffed toys - don't ask, but the ambulance was full of stuffed toys. Probably for the real emergencies when a kid's toy cat gets stuck up a tree.... There were perhaps 4 cars on the Yerushalayim-Tel-Aviv highway. Funny, though, it didn't feel like we were travelling any faster than normal. Maybe that's because cars normally drive as if there is nobody else on the road. As soon as we arrived at Shaarei Tzedek, they whisked Leah off to the labour ward. I found myself in a waiting room with a few other guys. One was a Chassid with payos down to his ankles and the other two were Kollel-niks. I found it amusing that all of us had taken a similar Shabbos morning ride in an ambulance. As usual, there were seforim on the bookshelves for the men to learn from as their wives are being attended to. But most of us either paced, said tehillim, or both. While we were waiting, another anxious man was abandoned by his wife as she went into the labour ward and he ended up pacing the floor of the waiting room like the rest of us. The white chairs remained un-touched. I could see the sun rise slowly over the apartment buildings next door and all of us had half an eye on our watches. The question was - who, out of our group - if any - would make it to the 7.00am Shachris. As the minutes ticked by, I realised that I had not brought my tallis with me. With all that was going on at home at 4.30 on a Shabbos morning, I wasn't really thinking about a tallis - but I did bring a siddur, which was good thinking on my part. At about 6.45 I was ushered in to the labour ward. The nurse stopped me about two steps into the ward. When she told me that she had something to tell me, I started to get a bit worried and knew that something was afoot. The nurse told me that Leah was going to have a caesarean. It knocked me for a 6. She had never had a caesar before and it came as a surprise. I also knew that childbirth at the best of times is nerve-wracking (among other things) and that this would not be pleasing information for Leah. I approached the bed and was able to offer some comforting words before they came to take her to surgery. I was told to wait on the red chair, which I thought was an ominous sign. About half an hour later (about 7.40 or so) a nurse brought my son to me, all wrapped up and brand new. I was able to hold him for only a few minutes before they took him to the nursery to be tagged and microchipped (just kidding about the microchip...or am I???!) I was then told to exit the room and take a seat on the blue chair. I was glad that it was blue. I just wondered how many other coloured chairs I would have to sit on until I got to see Leah, who I was told was fine. After an interminable time on the blue chair, I was approached by yet another nurse who told me the baby's weight and that he looked healthy. I was told to go down to the second floor where Leah would be in recovery for about an hour and then to go back up to the 9th floor to the maternity ward. There are Shabbos lifts, but I wasn't too keen on them so I took the stairs. I arrived at the recovery ward waiting room to wait. The chairs were a sickly lime green colour. I found a corner, took out my siddur and davened Shacharis and Mussaf. It was funny, but nobody looked at me twice and took it for granted that there would be someone davening in the halls of Shaarei Tzedek on any given Shabbos morning. After davening, I figured that nobody was coming to collect me and that they had forgotten about me (they probably forgot which colour chair they told me to sit on and were frantically trying to work out which chair in the sequence of chairs I was supposed to be on at that time). I made my way up to the 9th floor and, just as I got there they wheeled Leah past. I managed to give her a wink and a smile before she zoomed out of sight. I followed the bed into the maternity ward and was told to wait outside her room. There was no chair. Nurses went in and nurses came out. I don't know if they did anything, but they did a lot of coming and going. Finally I was allowed in and promptly seated myself on the yellow chair. Leah was okay but not in the mood for dancing, so we just talked. I managed to make Kiddush and Hamoitze on two rolls. The baby was in the nursery but we managed to have him close by for a good while. A kind nurse told me that lunch is served for free at Shaarei Tzedek on Shabbos for visitors so I left the room at about midday to decend to the third floor for lunch. The third floor is like the second-and-a-half floor. Low ceilings, badly concreted tile-less floors and dim lighting. When I opened the door to the dining room I was pleasantly surprised at the brightness of the hall, not the dungeon-like room I was expecting. I took a tray and cutlery and moved along the queue, helping myself to food along the way. It was set-up like the mess-hall in MASH where they slop the food on your tray for you. But the food was nice. I had gefilte fish with chrain, chicken, cholent, rice and potatoes. There were more shtreimels eating lunch than doctors. And the shtreimels were nearly outnumbered by the asians who gathered in a corner for a nice lunch of rice and cholent. I found my friends from the first waiting room and joined them for lunch. None of their wives had given birth yet. The chairs were orange. I returned to Leah and dozed, talked or read most of the afternoon. I went down to daven mincha. The shule is very nicely fitted out. It looks well used and has many seforim lining the walls. The chairs were wooden. To my delight, I was asked to be the Chazzan. There was an old sefardi man there who wanted to take all of the honours for himself. He did pesicha, had an aliya and would have done hagbe as well, but the Torah was too heavy for him. It was quite amusing. What was also quite amusing was that I was the only Ashkenaz in the shule. I davened an Ashkenaz nusach from the amud and nobody said a word about it. I returned to the shule for Maariv. I managed to get hold of another two rolls in the maternity ward for seudat shlishit but, to my amazement, I could have joined in with the others for the meal in the shule. A Rav with a very big shtreimel gave a shiur in Hebrew and we davened Maariv. There was not a [wooden] seat left in the shule and it was overflowing with people - patients, doctors and visitors alike (the asian contingent was cospicuously absent). The Rav then made Havdallah (I managed to get a whif of the sprig of mint that was doing the rounds of the shule for besamim) and we went outside for kiddush levanah. I returned to the ward, only to find out that we had been locked out. Apparently they lock the doors at a certain time and the ladies can enter or leave as they please, but their visiting husbands have to wait outside. I tried telling the guard that my wife just had an op and couldn't walk and she promised to send a message to her letting her know where I was - out in the cold. Finally we got it sorted out and I was allowed back in the ward once they realised that Leah really couldn't walk. Leah borrowed some money for me from a nurse to return to RBS, I made a few reverse-charges phone calls and then stood at a bus stop (I couldn't sit because it only had one long cold metal seat). I waited for half an hour in the freezing cold before deciding to catch a cab (the seats in the cab had brown seat covers...) From my speech you know what happened in the cab - or if not, stay tuned for the next installment... The Bris will have to wait for the next letter...
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