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MY POST OFFICE

Well, it really isn’t my post office. It is only the post office that is located in my neighborhood. The postal service in Israel has allegedly been recently privatized but in my post office there are, to my expert eyes, no recognizable differences from the time when it was government operated.

Over the last ten years I visit the post office at least once a week. My mail delivery person decides arbitrarily which mail is too burdensome to place in my mailbox. Instead he or she (postpeople sightings are quite rare here in Jerusalem) deposits a notice in my mail box inviting me to come to the post office to pick up my mail which I foolishly thought was somehow the job of the post office to deliver to my mailbox at my home.

Be that as it may, I find myself at the post office quite often and regularly. The post office also serves as a bank and one can pay one’s utility bills, governmental obligations and conduct other sundry monetary transactions there.

All of the above guarantees that there is always – and I mean always – a long line of people waiting to be served. The people who service the counters are hard-working and usually courteous and helpful but the place is seriously undermanned and the five service counters are never in operation at the same time. So a visit to the post office invariably means a wait in line that can sometimes stretch from ten to twenty minutes or even longer.

There are therefore important life lessons that are omnipresent in a visit to the post office. The most obvious one and perhaps the most important one is the virtue of patience. Eventually, one’s turn at the counter will arrive.

Nevertheless the scenes of impatience at the post office are common. And the cardinal sin there is somehow letting someone go before you no matter how necessary and reasonable that situation warrants it. There are always complaints against people taking too much time at the counter from those who are still waiting in line. However, I do not notice that those very same complainers conduct their business at the counter when they reach it with any greater alacrity than those about whom they have complained.

Waiting in line brings out the best in people and the worst in people. It only depends on which side of one’s personality one wishes to exhibit publicly. I have noticed that patience can also induce an attitude of tolerance towards others and their human foibles. Remaining calm and even good-natured while waiting in line is excellent training for life in general. One can meet interesting people and conduct stimulating conversation while waiting in line.

There is a Jewish expression that what intelligence and planning often cannot accomplish can nevertheless be achieved through the passage of time and patience. Jews, especially here in Israel, are not particularly known for their patience. The post office is a good place to practice incorporating this virtue within ourselves.

While standing in line at the post office I have the opportunity to view the posters advertising the latest series of postage stamps printed by the postal authority. As a child, I was once a stamp collector, but long ago gave up the hobby. However I have never really lost my fascination for stamps. I especially enjoy gazing on the Holiday stamp series that always has a beautiful graphic display of traditional Jewish themes and Jewish history.

Just as the street names of Jerusalem teach us a great deal about the Jewish faith and past, so too do the stamps that one can purchase at the post office. I remember that as a child I was vividly impressed by my father’s expression of joy at receiving a letter from then British mandatory Palestine that had a stamp that bore Hebrew lettering on it.

The stamp also had a picture of the Mosque of Omar and English and Arabic lettering on it as well but that was all irrelevant to my father who was the quintessential believing Eastern European Jewish scholar. To him, the only thing that mattered on that stamp was its Hebrew lettering. To such Jews, a Jewish postal service in a sovereign Jewish state in the Land of Israel was a piece of fulfillment of Biblical prophecy.

While once waiting in line with me at the post office my father noticed my impatience at the slow progress of the line. He gently said to me: “We waited two thousand years to have a Jewish post office. We can wait another ten minutes to use its services.” And so we can.

Shabat shalom.

Berel Wein