When we heard how miserable the kids were in isolation after they’d made such elaborate sukkot plans with their class trips, we decided to try to alleviate their misery with a tepanyaki. It may seem completely ridiculous, but our hopelessness is in so many directions that anything is a diversion.  

For example, friends write me constantly about how bad the Palestinian situation is, and even those who are physically endangering themselves to protect Palestinians and to work for an independent Palestine register their sense of the impossibility of their situation – unless of course, they manage to destroy us totally.  

And we’ve been trying to get hold of a tepanyaki for months.  Also unsuccessfully.