The Ride to Tveria

I'm getting a little out of chronological order here, but I just have to tell you about the ride to Tveria from Tel Aviv. At the bus station, there were a number of sheruts around looking for passengers. A sherut is a shared taxi that looks like a mini bus. It has a destination, but not a schedule. It waits until it has 10 passengers, and then it leaves. You pay once you are underway. So, when I got to the bus station, with my big bag, the sherut drivers knew I was going somewhere, so they piped up. "Jerusalem!" "Haifa!" "Tveria!" "Tveria!" I shouted back. It was like marco polo. "Put your bag in the back and wait here,"said the driver in Hebrew. Soon, we had 10 passengers, and the driver got in. But when he turned the key, the sherut wouldn't start. A wild and scragly looking hasid came over, said something quickly in Hebrew to the driver, and the driver told us to get out and go with this other guy. We all got our bags and shlepped to the other sherut. "Kol hazayin," I found the opportunity to say. Wild hasid driver pulled out as soon as we were all loaded, but he didn't get out of the parking lot before a third driver ran up to the driver's window, furious about something. I don't know what unwritten rules the drivers keep for determining who gets to collect passengers and whose turn it is, but I gathered that wild hasid driver had broken them. I didn't catch most of what was said, but I did catch the parting salvo: "You will pay for this! (spits on the ground)" We started moving again but were soon stopped again by a fatter, angrier driver. This one berated wild hasid for breaking the rules and said, "You should be ashamed of yourself for doing this, and you are a man who wears a kippah!"

"Yes," wild hasid replied, eyes gleaming, "and I have to finish my shift before shabbat."

With that, we drove away. Nothing else very interesting happened on the way to Tveria, except that one passenger heard the call of nature and asked the driver to pull off the highway so he could urinate. The passenger seemed to feel no embarassment at making this request, and the driver obliged without protest.