The ma-bul for ants has come to an end

When it rains in Israel, it usually rains in biblical proportions. I guess that should be expected. It may not rain for long and it surely doesn't rain enough, but when it rains, the skies just open up and dump every last drop they can find. It's like someone filling a really large balloon to supersaturation ... and then popping it.

This total dump might not be such a big deal (well, yes it would) if there were proper sewers in Israel ... which there aren't. Therefore, most of the rain just runs down the streets with wild abandon, gathering up every loose piece of garbage and sediment it can grab.

It's very dramatic and it's fun to be out in the rain, if you have a good pair of rain boots -- which I do. As a total aside, mine are black irridescent, with a furry rim.

One day, a few years ago, Yael and I were walking in the heavy rain in our rain boots, when Yael said: "The ants must have done something very bad because God is sending them a mabul (a flood of Noahide, biblical proportion). At the time that struck me as very funny but also as remarkably accurate. No ant could have survived that wet, wet day although strangely enough I have seen several million since then, so obviously some did live to crawl another day.

I was thinking about the ma-bul for ants yesterday as, once again, the skies opened up and just poured down rain (not enough to rescue Israel from its drought crisis, but more than enough for me). However, as I stood out there on the corner watching the flooding, all I could think was that this was not a ma-bul for ants, but rather, a ma-bul for cats (with the ants as innocent victims, suffering for whatever the cats must have done).

Technically you are not allowed to say anything bad about rain in Israel. We spend at least half of the year praying for it and most people see it as a miracle when it finally arrives. Some years it doesn't arrive and I know I will go straight to hell for saying this, but last year was almost rain free and I had no personal complaints. Of course, my garden had many complaints. It now resembles a deserted street in an ghost town in the Old West. Tumbleweeds and all. My fruit trees were less than amused as well. My mango and pomela harvest was pathetic this year.

And I have already written about the water abusers in my neighbourhood. This is a particularly sensitive point so I won't go into that again. Suffice it to say that for now, whether I like it or not, what we really need is a ma-bul for cows.