Did you ever wonder why people leave New York and head for parts of the world that are even hotter and more humid than wherever they started from?
Just a casual personal note. We left New York on Sunday morning when it was 68 degrees and landed three hours later in Palm Beach, where my car dashboard thermometer read a sweltering 92 degrees.
As you may or may not know, as I write these words on Sunday afternoon, there are parts of our great, big, beautiful world that are much cooler, even though we are heading into August.
About six weeks ago, we were in Jerusalem where it was quite hot during the day and especially at the height of the afternoon. But then, as if on some kind of cosmic timer (I’m sure you may have noticed this too), at about 5 p.m. the wind begins to blow from one direction or another and then by 7 or 8 p.m. it’s plainly cool outside, and if you’re venturing out you need to wear a sweater or a light jacket.
Three weeks ago, as I recounted how we headed for Big Sky Country in Montana, the ten-day forecast mechanism on my phone told me that it would be in the mid-80s during the day, dipping into the mid-40s by night.
I packed a jacket and several sweaters, even though unless you’re outside camping, you’re going to be spending the nights indoors in a temperature-controlled environment.
I’m not saying that I didn’t unpack my suitcase when we returned from Montana and before departing for Boynton Beach, but I did leave my suitcase on the floor in the room where it lay, untouched. It was just this last Sunday morning at 6 a.m. when I was taking three sweaters out of my suitcase and placing them neatly on my closet shelves that it dawned on me that I was not going to be needing those sweaters here in Florida.
I know some people who are on a ten-day safari tour in South Africa. It’s a long trip from New York, about 15 hours non-stop. As I write these words, it’s about noon on Sunday afternoon here in Florida and about 92 degrees. It’s six hours later in Johannesburg and about 58 degrees there.
It’s ten hours later in Melbourne, Australia, so right now it’s 2 a.m. and about 46 degrees Down Under. (Our summer is their winter.) So, if I was in Melbourne right now instead of the Sunshine State, I would certainly have use of those sweaters.
Driving to JFK airport on Sunday morning at around 6 a.m., there was a remarkable perfect, orange-shaped ball in the sky that didn’t look anything like Donald Trump, regardless of what the anti-Trump pundits have to say.
As long as we’re on the subject of JFK Airport, for those of you who fly regularly out of the tri-state’s busiest airport, I’m sure you’re aware of the construction nightmare that is currently going on, with no end in sight, leading to longer waits for terminal access due to massive road construction. The entire airport seems to be an endless airport-wide construction plan fueled by a massive $19 billion redevelopment plan that is one of the largest infrastructure projects in the country.
This is New York, the so-called greatest city in the world, and our premier airport is a traffic-laden, unnavigable, bumper-to-bumper traffic mess. If you live out here and travel our roadways with any regularity, you know that the highway leading out of JFK—namely, the Van Wyck Expressway—is also deeply under construction, with excavators, tractors, trucks, and construction tools strewn about, giving the impression that no one knows what’s really going on, and—like the airport situation—what the ultimate plan is.
So, we pulled into JFK at around 6 a.m. on Sunday morning, and even though we were moving along at a nice clip, all of a sudden everything came to a full stop, with no cars moving in any direction. And it’s not that the airport was so overwhelmingly busy at that time of day, it’s just that there were detours, lane closures, and lights flashing with officers directing cars into a traffic quagmire heading nowhere.
Luckily, we took off early (it’s always good to be on the first flight of the day), and we were off to PBI and made it in a brisk two hours and fifteen minutes.
But as soon as you step out of the airport you can feel the difference between New York and West Palm Beach. The heat hits you like a brick wall, and the humidity feels like steam from a shower.
It’s the so-called off season down here, but there is also a sense that even though it’s the beginning of August, people are down here either because they reside here or because this is their getaway place and that is what they are doing: getting away from some other aspect of their lives for a few days or weeks.
I’ll never forget how, some 300 days ago on Shemini Atzeres, I was walking to shul here in Boynton Beach at around 9 a.m. when I saw the Rabbi of the Chabad shul sitting outside on a bench. He informed me that overnight, there had been a horrific terror attack in Israel, and as far as the information he had from his shul’s security personnel, some 40 people had been killed just over the Gaza border. As we would find out after yom tov ended, over a thousand people had been killed and hundreds taken hostage back to Gaza, rachmana litzlan.
It was an unanticipated and unthinkable disaster. Since that day, as I’ve recounted here, I’ve been down in the south of Israel twice. The damage and destruction wrought by the invaders defies the imagination. Almost as puzzling is why it is taking Israel such a long time—300 days—to right this terrible wrong.
Since that day of shock and infamy, there has been a large sign in front of the Chabad shul here that updates us on the number of days since the murderous assault took place on October 7. When I walked into shul for Minchah last Sunday, the number was 296.
As I mentioned above, we arrived here in the super heat of Florida on day 296 as the Biden administration is trying to push Hamas and Israel to agree to at least a temporary cease-fire and hostage-release deal, but not for all the hostages. After all this time, that is nothing short of illogical. The other day I read that Israel wants to add 34 new items to whatever agreement they can patch together. And that is after six weeks of ceasefire, which you can rest assured Hamas will violate daily. Israel wants it in writing that the IDF has the right to return to war if such is the case.
We know the Israeli leaders are mostly fairly smart people. But Israel is fighting terrorists who violate any and every rule of war as agreed upon by the international community. Where do Israeli leaders come up with the idea that you need a signed document in order to go back to killing terrorists? In fact, if it was up to me (and I’ve written this in the past), I would agree to any agreement Hamas wants in order to free the hostages. But does that mean that Israel has to adhere to a so-called agreement when Hamas violates agreements daily? It’s preposterous.
So, I mentioned that we arrived down here in the super heat of South Florida on Day 296. If you read this essay over the coming weekend and the hostages have not been released yet, it will be Day 300 or 301. It’s an awful situation, and the thought that hundreds of thousands of people are marching and demonstrating in support of Hamas defies conventional human thinking.
As we go to press, Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh has been assassinated in Iran, and Hezbollah’s senior military commander, Fuad Shukr, was killed in an IDF air force strike near Beirut. You can read more about this in my Editorial.
There’s a young man down here named Yitzi Kolodny. His grandfather was one of my rebbes in Yeshiva quite a few decades ago. After October 7, he decided that he was not going to shave his beard until all the hostages are returned. I’ve included a photo of him. I haven’t been down here since before Pesach, so I haven’t seen him for three months. His beard is getting long. Very long.
With the elimination of two of the world’s most notorious terrorists, may we continue to hear only good news moving forward. n
Read more of Larry Gordon’s articles at 5TJT.com. Follow 5 Towns Jewish Times on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter for updates and live videos. Comments, questions, and suggestions are welcome at 5TJT.com and on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter.
