Today is Day 21 of 31 for 21.  This month is going so fast and I’m not managing to find the time to post about a number of things I thought I’d post on.  Well.  I get to let go of that perfection thing, once again.

Tomorrow are local elections, and since I live so close to a central shopping area where there’s been a huge focus on electioneering, I can practically sing the campaign songs by heart since I hear them playing over and over again for hours every Friday.

There are five of us in the family who are able to vote: me, dh, ds20, dd18 and dd17.  (You can start voting in municipal elections when you’re 17.)  A bus was arranged by the religious party to bring home kids of voting age who are studying in Jerusalem and they called us to ask about dd17 and ds20.  Dd18 is in the US so obviously no one is going to fly her in for her vote 🙂 and dd17 has to be there in the evenings for the elderly lady she works for so she can’t come.

I didn’t think ds could come home for this because it’s a three hour trip in each direction, so you can get here at 11 pm and hardly be home and vote and then head back – he doesn’t like to take time away from his learning so I was pretty sure this wouldn’t be compelling.  But the person arranging this asked for the number of his rosh yeshiva and then ds was told it was important he vote – I didn’t know he was coming until he was on the way home so it was a really nice surprise for me!

I don’t see enough of this marvelous young man (I could say this about all of my kids who aren’t living at home full time – I just can’t get enough of them!) and so it’s a treat for me to have him home even if it’s only for twelve hours.  The younger boys didn’t know about this before they went to sleep so they’re going to be very excited when they wake up and see who’s here!

Something nice about these elections, and I believe is unique to Karmiel, is that this year there is just one religious party.  Candidates from what were previously three parties have joined together on one ticket, and the name of the party is Yachad – Together.  Togetherness and unity is something this very polarized society could use a lot more of and I feel fortunate to live in a city where the leadership works toward this as a goal – not only during elections but in general.  If it weren’t something that was already an effort, it’s unlikely they could have pulled together the different factions just for political purposes.  As the chief rabbi of the city said, he doesn’t know how much they’ll gain during the elections, but in putting this party together they already gained something and it was worth it for the unity it engendered.

For me, I’m happy that the elections are bringing my little family a little more ‘together’, too.  🙂

Avivah