Forget for a moment that today is a critical day in the political composition of the government.  My trials today are based on the problems of shopping for clothes in Israel.  

When I was in need of beautiful clothes, there were numerous local designers whose creations were suited to life in this country and for whom flexibility was imperative.  The sense was one of variety and availability.  The seamstress was part of the content of the shop.  She made the dress fit.  All this industry has disappeared and has been replaced by imported chain stores with limited styles, sizes and imagination.  

Until now I blamed the fact that I am picky and have a strange body and style.  Today I took my grandson to buy bar mitzvah clothes and discovered that he faced the same disappointment.  He is long and thin and had already endured two fruitless expeditions with his mother before I took the challenge.  Not that he is picky but that there is nothing in his size and no one to offer alternatives.  So Ezi and I went to the local high end shopping center to check out the possibilities last night.  We actually found some possibilities and were eager to get this chore behind us this morning.  In Tommy Hilfiger a very nice tattooed grey-haired salesman asked to help us.  I told him I was looking for some dressy clothes for a tall boy.  “Oh, Bar Mitzvah Boy!” he exclaimed, and directed us to some possible shops in the mall.  “Don’t forget!” he said, “You want him to look classy, but you don’t want to spend too much out of something he’ll grow out of in a year.”  

One of the places he recommended was Zara and we found a few items that really might work, so this morning I brought the boy to the shop.  His lanky body – perfect for modelling – was too thin for even the smallest size in the men’s department and too large for anything in the children’s department, and we went on.  After a few shops we got to the point when I just asked at the entrance if they had anything in his size.  And after we had gone through an entire mall without a single possible choice, we made the decision – over a pepperoni pizza – to go the Bnai Brak.  Surely the reisdents there wear elegant clothes every day and would have some trousers in his slim size. 

And indeed after much laboring, we came away with a pair of black trousers.  And in a mall not too far away we ever found an extra small shirt that suited him. 

But we also came home with two social lessons.

1.  While Omer tried on trousers, I was searching for alternatives when a story unfolded next to me.  A young man with sidelocks brought a heavy wooden bench next to me and set it down on the wooden floor with a loud bang.  I startled, said, “You frightened me!”  “Oh, dear, I beg your forgiveness! (Michila)”  More surprised by the strength of his apology than the noise itself, I began to keep an eye on him as I looked for clothing.  He seemed to be having a very hard time straightening things up.  “It isn’t Gemorra!”  the boss shouted at him as he struggled to arrange the dry goods.  “Listen, ” a fellow worker tried to explain to him, “All you have to do is pile the pants neatly in order of size.  The numbers are on the side of the pants.  It’s easy.”  No luck.  “You have to make a pyramid,” another worker said, trying to help.  But the boy drew a blank.  I looked at the boy more carefully.  Confused though he was, his eyes were intelligent.  What does this inability to make sense of simple forms and/or numbers mean?   To my mind he was not trained in anything to do with life.  The morality he injected into a chance encounter indicated his orientation in a rigid approach to life that cannot function in reality.  My heart was broken for this fine young man who cannot exist in a real world.
2. Later that day, after having been brushed off by at least twenty salespeople who made no effort to help us to solve our problem, I found a misshapen clerk in a local chain whose chest width matched my grandson’s, and asked for his help.  Within seconds the perfect shirt was laid before us on the counter.  The bar mitzvah boy is exceedingly beautiful, and the man who found the shirt that made him look perfect is so unpleasing to look at that he was kept in the storeroom and only chanced to be in the front room because he was bringing out stock.  He took one long look at the boy and evaluated his body exactly.  We who do not fit into standard shapes and sizes know how to measure what we see and not what the standard permutations tell us.