Dinner with a Twist.

Be Prepare Always to Give An Answer.

It was a work day in Jerusalem. Trying our best to spit the jet lag meal monster out and away from our taste buds, we headed for our favorite pizza-by-the-slice. It was time to eat on time.

Three small plastic tables sat street level. But the sun had already dipped below the horizon and so had the temperatures along Jaffa Street. An insistent breeze blew past the Armenian Cemetery and kept coming up the valley. Then bounced off the pale stones of the ancient citadel, following the light rail lines. It was too chilly to eat outside. A pair of bar stools made up the inside dining room. They looked over the glass counter under which the days remaining wedges lay - waiting for the last of Sunday’s onlookers.

“Two pesto mozzarellas please,” Mark ordered, pointing down towards the burgundy polka dots of sun dried tomatoes.

Dark hair and with a thick carpeted beard the server asked, “You guys want anything to drink with them?” We chose two canned Cokes and paid.

Our cook aka server voiced concern over his business, in fact, over all Israeli businesses. We spoke of war time economies and the misnomer that it stimulates.

“People just don’t have the spirit to even come out anymore,” he continued. “You know, Purim?” We did. “Normally everything during Purim is a party, a dinner, or family fun. But it’s like people cannot even celebrate any more, for any reason. No dinners out. No holidays. Our hearts are broken.”

Mark asked more details. And he gave freely.

“I lost one of my best friends on October 7th. We knew each other from kindergarten. My buddy was at the festival where so many were killed by Hamas.” That last acknowledgment forced our pizza guy to sit. He plonked his thirty year old relatively fit self down on a square wooden stool. It was as if the weight of the very sentence alone meant his legs couldn’t bare it any longer.

“Why didn’t you go to the rave?” Mark asked with a fatherly tenderness.

“Dude. I slept too late,” he replied and looked him straight in the eye from only four feet away. “For some reason I just kept on sleeping. It could have been me too.”

We said words, many more words. Hoping that they were born of authentic love and conveyed our concern but they seemed slightly pitiful.

The pizza was good but I cannot honestly recall the flavors. The discussion darkened the basic human pleasure of eating.

Assuring him that we’d see him around, we said our goodbyes.

Walking back up the slight incline that lead to King Agrippa and our home for the next eight weeks, we prayed for our brother. We asked our good Father to give him peace and rest.

I hope we speak to him again. Until then, will you pray?