Sept 1996 - NOT and Isaacs Newsletter

This is not an Isaacs news letter. If it were, it would be an update of a newsletter sent three months previously, and it would be followed by a newsletter in three months time. Let’s not create expectations. Man must learnt to recognise, admit and correct (or live with) his limitations, especially during the month of Ellul, while preparing for the Awe-full days of Repentance and Atonement. Our limitation is not writing news letters. It is finding envelopes, addressing them, buying the right stamps, stamping them and posting. One day, when we’re all cyber-spacemen on the Net, we’ll define an e-mail distribution list and pump your hard disks full with more I-mail than you can store.
We can’t start this letter without mentioning that the last newsletter, which was never distributed, opened with the announcement of the diagnosis of Bernard’s cancer. Now, one and a half tough years later, the memorial ceremonies are behind us. On behalf of my brothers, and especially my mother, let me thank all of you for your condolences and offers of help, and for your support over the last year and a half. It is a source of great comfort to us that Ari, Elon and even Naftali, who was only two years old when “Grandpa” died, still talk about him and preserve vivid memories of Bernard. A few weeks before the diagnosis, Bernard and Dorothy spent a shabbat with us memorable because during the shabbat Bernard taught the children to stand on their heads, and also lost a pair of clip-on sunglasses. Just two weeks ago, Naftali found Elon’s clip-on sunglasses, and immediately exclaimed “those are Grandpa’s”. I hope that Naftali, with his astonishing gift of recall, as well as Ari and Elon, preserve many more memories of the one Grandfather whom they had the opportunity to meet.
Ari (8) is now entering class 3 and Eloni (6) is starting school - which means twice as much homework for Mummy and Daddy to do, I mean, oversee. School is not a subject of interest for either the children or their parents (or our readers), because now that our neighbourhood has developed, and we boast, pavements, greenery, plants, trees, a park with lawns, two climbing frames, swings, and most importantly a football pitch - life begins at 4 - 4pm when siesta time finishes and the neighbourhood game of football kicks off. During school, the game comes to a parent-enforced, premature close 3½ hours later, at 7.30pm, but during the hols, you could find up to 30 children playing late into the night. This, by the way, would have been another source of nachas for Grandpa, who started the family footballing tradition. Michael is undergoing a resurgence of his youth. After a brief spell as trainer/manager of the Elkana United under-11 squad, Michael has joined the rank and file. Any visitor to the Elkana football pitch will notice one player, 40 - 70 centimetres taller than all the others, muscling for the ball amidst the thick of the tackles and hustling.
Besides football, Ari’s interests have moved on from playing computer games, to programming them. With a few BASIC lessons from Judy, he has written, together with some friends, his first two programs. The first was an interactive Hanukah quiz, in which every correct answer lights a candle on a graphic hanukiya. The second was a target practice game. We’ve set up a job interview with Bill Gates for October 2006.
Elon is fortunate enough to find four of his best friends in Class 1 with him. The children’s move to school was so smooth, that on the pre-school introductory lesson, which only lasts an hour and a half, the teacher already split the friends up for talking too much.
At the tender age of 3, after easily winning the hearts of all the eligible ladies in the neighbourhood, Naftali’s latest conquest is riding his bicycle without stabilisers. For three months we resisted his pleas to remove his stabilisers, knowing, as only wise, omniscient “I-told-you-so” parents can know, the frustration a three year old suffering from failure in tasks which cannot be performed by children that age. Naftali knocked us flat and cut us down to size by his immediate control of his unstabilised bicycle. A hint for parents with small kids. Tricycles are for cissies. Buy your kids a tiny bicycle, with a low centre of gravity.
Orli, the long-awaited girl in the family, could perhaps be best described as a “Tom-girl”. She delights in hair bands and pretty dresses, as she is supposed to, but she also climbs like the boys and is equally fearless and naughty. She’s at that age where she tests our patience, totalling disobeying us while winning our hearts with a rascally smile. Come to think of it, Ari, Eloni and Naftali, are also still at that sage age.
Judy is a devoted mother as always, finding time for herself only after ten o’clock at night and once a week for a tennis match (at 9pm). Michael is working hard in his not-so-new job, as a marketing writer in a software company. Anyone who wants to understand what a “marketing writer” does, should speak to Michael personally, because no one else in the family really knows.
We’ll wrap it up here for this year time. Wishing you all a Happy and Healthy New Year

Michael, Judy, Ari, Eloni, Naftali and Orli