Is the sun really shining?

"Is the sun really shining?"

That's what I just asked my neighbor as he jogged past my merpesset, terrace or balcony in Hebrew.

Just a few minutes before I had carefully checked the view through my small western kitchen window. That's where rain clouds gather and warn me of impending storms. All I saw was blue, lovely sky blue, called, "techelet," in Hebrew. So I closed the clothes dryer door, buttoned my bathrobe, put the wet laundry into a basket and went out the door to the merpesset. Boy, was I surprised at the wetness of it, like the rain had been falling until just a second before. The floor and chairs were dripping. So, too, were the tree branches.

Which signs should I be trusting? The cloudless sky to the west or the clouds on the east or the dripping wet surfaces all around?

I decided to take the risk and hang out the wash.

Yesterday, the electrician was over for a few minor repairs after a major one on Friday. Actually, I had asked him to do the minor ones before Friday's emergency. As usual I told him to use the best stuff, whenever there's a choice, and as usual we talked politics. I asked him if, taking into account the politicians' predictions that we'll be "disengaged" from our homes, should I have him use shoddy products that will cost me less and won't last as long.

Olmert's "We are tired of fighting, we are tired of being courageous, we are tired of winning, we are tired of defeating our enemies." policy is bad news for the Jewish People and the State of Israel.

Listening to Olmert is like following the grey-black clouds in the sky, when I have laundry to dry. We have to remember that the sun is actually in its proper place, shining brightly, even when the black clouds are accompanied by thunder and lightening. If G-d sends rain on my laundry, I have to perceive it as free "laundry softener." Today, during our Israeli winter, the 9th of the Hebrew month of Tevet, it should be raining. And the rain is a bracha, a blessing.

Ehud Olmert may be the Prime Minister, call him "acting," "temporary," "lame duck" or whatever. He also may get the position after the results of the March 28th elections. But neither he, nor any other politician, is G-d.

It's G-d who put the sun and the clouds and the moon and the stars in the sky. It's G-d who causes the rain to fall and the flowers to whither from drought.

And it's to G-d, whom we must answer when we leave this world.

And yes. The sun is really shining, even if my laundry gets wetter outside, hanging on the clothesline.