Turning spilled milk into sour wine

Wine experts pour wine into the proper glass, hold it by the stem, swirl it around a bit, smell it, close their eyes, take another whiff, then taste. Again they close their eyes, never forgetting to adorn their faces with the kind of expression that says they really understand things. Then they say something that includes the word "bouquet."

But there is one, and only one, alcoholic drink that the rules of drinking it stipulate that it be sipped out of a plastic cup, the older and more beaten up the better. There are those that go as far as to insist that the cracks in the cup be a little brown.

It is the "spritz" -- the national drink of immigrants from Romania. There is nothing like it.

The "spritz" is made up of a quarter to a third of a glass of the cheapest and least sophisticated kind of white wine you can find. My late grandfather would use a cheap brand that I don't think exists anymore. In today's terms, it cost about eight or nine shekels (about $2.25) per bottle, and grandpa felt that he was fudging because the rules of the drink require an even cheaper and more tasteless wine than that.

I don't want to mention the name of that wine, for libel reasons. I will only say that there is no proof that the ingredients that made up that wine had ever come into any kind of contact with grapes.

Over that quarter or third of a glass of wine, another two thirds of a glass of club soda is poured directly from the syphon seltzer bottle. The Romanian immigrants, who were not very wealthy, viewed the "spritz" as a kind of champagne, and when they drank it, their faces would wear an expression of pure joy.

All this was just a preface for the following story: There is a town in Israel that was founded by immigrants from Romania, among others. I purposely don't want to mention any identifying characteristics of this place because if the man upstairs should will it, maybe one day this paper will print an article about it. The grandchildren of the founders, a third generation of residents of this town, built a small winery in one of the sheds several years ago. Since then, they have been conducting extensive experiments in efforts to recreate the precise flavor of that "spritz."

The critical part, obviously, is to produce wine that will taste as cheap as possible. As far as I have been notified, they have yet to recreate the exact drink as they remember it because they have yet to produce the right flavor of cheap white wine. I think that the reason for their failure is that they inexplicably insist on making the wine out of grapes, of all things.

Which reminds me of a short story that appears in the second volume of the writings of Alter Druyanov, about a Jew who made wine:

When the month of Nissan began, a winemaker declared that he would sell three different types of wine for Passover.

The teacher asked him: "I wonder how one could sell three different types of wine from one barrel-"

The winemaker replied: "You wonder how one could sell three different types of wine from one barrel, but I am a merchant and I don't wonder at all, since from the same barrel I also sell vinegar."

* * *

And back to the present day. The grandchildren of the original immigrants from Romania are conducting experiments in a small winery in a shed at the edge of a back yard in an old town, trying to make wine for "spritz" and recreate that flavor that their grandfathers loved so much. Every time the wine comes out a little tasty, they make every effort to improve it, or, in other words, to make it taste worse.

So we can conclude that Israel (and I suppose the world as well) now has the first winery whose purpose is to produce the worst possible wine.

* * *

Though everything mentioned above about the winery that tries to improve wine by making it worse is absolute truth, it is not just about the events taking place somewhere out there in a back yard winery. It is an analogy for other events, and even for ourselves because often, when we make mistakes, as grave as they may be, we insist on repeating them.

If we sign an agreement with murderers and instead of peace we get exploding buses, we will insist on negotiating with those same murderers again. And if the government threw out the residents of the Gush Katif settlement bloc (in the Gaza Strip) and handed the land over to the Palestinians, and instead of peace we got Hamas and Qassam rockets, there will be plenty of people who will want to repeat this calamity in other territories. Because just like that winery, when the wine comes out bad, it is imperative to make it worse.

Take for example the conduct of the current American administration, which, despite having no genetic link to the glorious Jewish Romanian drink makers, insists on honoring this Judeo-Romanian tradition nonetheless. Like that back yard winery somewhere out there, every time U.S. President Barack Obama breaks a record in being a diplomatic fool, he insists on executing an even more embarrassing fiasco.

There was the Cairo speech, and there was that bow to the Saudi king. Then there was Libya, where, after terrorists killed the American ambassador, the White House responded in wonderment over how it could have happened. Why did they do it after we helped them then-U.S. Secretary of State asked. Then he distanced himself from deposed Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak after decades of loyalty, to help the very symbols of enlightenment: The Muslim Brotherhood. There is also Syria, with Obama's red line, which has turned into a metaphor for the collapse of the United States. Yes, just like the winery built by the descendants of the Romanian immigrants, the Obama administration is making every effort to turn every bad outcome into pure crap.

Which brings us to an incident from the days when the Ceaușescu regime in Romania tried to "Romanize" occupied Transylvania. They brought Romanian "settlers" into those regions. Obviously, the Transylvanians didn't like the attempt to erase their heritage.

One day, in the city of Targu Mures, a Romanian and a Transylvanian sat at a caf across from Bolyai Farkas high school.

"You know that here in town it is common knowledge that the Romanians are stupid," the Transylvanian said.

"How can you say such a thing-" demanded the Romanian.

"Come. Let me prove it to you," the Transylvanian replied.

The Transylvanian took the Romanian to a shop owned by another Romanian and asked the sales clerk: "Can I buy a box of matches-"

The clerk handed the two a box of matches. The Transylvanian opened the box and said to the clerk: "I want matches that have the tip on the other side."

"I only have these," said the Romanian sales clerk.

As they exited the store, the Transylvanian said to the Romanian: "You see-"

"Maybe he really doesn't have matches with the tips on the other side," the Romanian answered.

The two continued walking and they saw a store owned by a Transylvanian. "Let's check in here," the Romanian said.

The two entered the store. This time, the Romanian asked for matches, and when the clerk brought him a box, asked: "Do you have matches with the tips on the other side-"

"Yes," said the Transylvanian clerk, "but they cost double."

Changing the system

Suddenly everything is alright. They changed the system of calculating the national debt and all at once, the problem was solved. But still, this leaves us with one small problem: Where do we direct Finance Minister Yair Lapid's crying and whining over the terrible debt he inherited from his predecessor-

Until we overcome that problem, something must be said to the minister's credit, because his party, Yesh Atid, is very consistent in this approach of solving problems without working too hard, just by changing the method of calculation. The students don't like to study? No problem. The education minister pushes up the "Mikud" (the list of test topics) to the beginning of the year, thus whittling down the topics they will have to learn throughout the year. The results of the standardized tests are not good? No problem, the education minister does away with the test.

Which brings us to a similar incident having to do with changing the calculation method, as told by Alter Druyanov:

A man bought a horse from a horse breeder, but the horse he got was lame. After an hour, the man returned and started yelling at the breeder: "Liar! Cheater! You took my money and you gave me a three-legged horse."

"You are getting angry for no reason," the breeder said to the man. "I only charged you for the three legs."

The unlearned lesson

On Yom Kippur afternoon, the Book of Jonah will be read at every synagogue. The old Ashkenazi synagogues call this custom "maftir Yonah" (referring to the haftarah which includes the entire book of Jonah). Back in the day, people used to fight over the privilege of reading the Book of Jonah in public.

That same Jonah the prophet, who was swallowed by a fish, is the hero of the end of the holiday. There are a lot of things that can be learned from this short story, but it seems to me that the most important lesson is one that we keep missing year after year.

Every year, before the end of the Yom Kippur fast, we learn that Jonah the prophet heard the prophecy about the coming destruction of the city on Nineveh. He warned about it, saying, "Yet 40 days, and Nineveh shall be overthrown." (Jonah 3:4). And indeed, the residents of the city repented and prayed to God to take mercy upon them.

God accepted their repentance, but Jonah got upset. It seems that he didn't believe that it was earnest. The impression is that this righteous man didn't see repentance under threat as a reflection of a real state of mind. It is understandable, but God told him that for him it was enough, and as the one who "raised" the people of the city, he felt mercy in his heart for them.

This is an important lesson for those who feel that some of us are not Jewish enough. Rabbis who don't want to marry new immigrants, and those school principals who reject students who don't observe the kind of laws that they observe, if they have a television set at home, for example.

They have plenty of justification. After all, that is exactly what Jonah thought. But God, how shall I put it delicately, makes it clear on Yom Kippur, moments before the Neila service, that he holds a different view. He loves all those people who are not recognized as Jews by various rabbis. He loves those people who the rabbis don't want to marry, or reject from their schools.

Which reminds me of a story about one of those rabbis who demanded to see the grandmother's birth certificate before agreeing to marry a couple (this is not an exaggeration, it is a real demand. Though I doubt any of those rabbis could find their own grandmothers' birth certificates).

Well, that rabbi was sitting with his friend one morning over a cup of coffee. After taking one sip, he said: "Oh! I feel wonderful. I married three couples yesterday and it really made my day to make seven hearts so happy."

"I suppose you mean six hearts," the second rabbi said, after sipping from his own cup.

The first rabbi said: "No, I meant seven hearts."

"But three couples have six hearts," the second rabbi explained.

"What about my heart-" the first rabbi asked. "You think I did it for free-"

In honor of the fast

Just the facts:

A. The Education Ministry has decided to cut the funding allocated to the war on obesity.

B. The education minister is Shai Piron.

טעינו? נתקן! אם מצאתם טעות בכתבה, נשמח שתשתפו אותנו