Friday, January 20, 2012

Israel: Checking It Out

    There’s a restaurant chain in the U.S. that declares, when you’re with us, you’re family.  That’s the way it is throughout Israel, and I can prove it.  How?  By taking you to any cash register check-out counter.
     How do we check-out in Canada?  Take Walmart for example: You stand in line with a huge shopping cart that separates you from anyone else, except maybe the person who’s at your side as the line doubles back on itself, and you hear a machine voice say, “Veuillez passer à la caisse trois.”  You greet caissier #3, who snaps your goods through the laser light, you pay your bill, and you’re on your way.  It’s fast; it’s efficient; it’s impersonal.
    Not so in Israel.  In Israel, standing at the cash is part of your human experience.
    Buying wine for Shabbat at the corner grocery, the cashier corrects the Hebrew of the customer.  Basic message: here we speak Hebrew. I should help you speak it correctly.
    Checking out at a major grocery chain, Supersol, the line crawls forward.  What’s happening?  An elderly man is bobbling the coins from the change purse that took him a good minute to open in the first place.  He has paid all but 32 cents of his bill.  The last 32 cents is taking 5 minutes.  The woman at the register waits patiently, chatting him up in kindly fashion until all the coins are assembled.
    The next customer is living on coupons similar to food stamps.  Customer and cashier converse while the special currency is counted out.  There must be requirements about how the coupons are used.  Paying with them takes more time than with cash or credit, and management approval is required for something.  The cashier steps away from her slot and scurries to the office.  Another 3 minutes are lost.  We wait.
    Arrayed next to the cashier are bargain items, 3 different products in multiples.  In Israel, you don’t just operate a cash.  You sell.  “Only 20 shekels this week” she says to each client of the store, lifting up some avocado oil.  “Or maybe you’d prefer a deal on napkins?”  “How do you use the avocado oil,” asks one, and the employee is happy to suggest several ways.  A few more minutes lost.  All this waiting, I think, for my chocolate bar and milk.  But it’s entertaining, and it’s human, and more often than not, the cashier is demonstrating a magnificent Jewish value, total respect for the elderly.
    Loren went shopping at Mega with our sister-in-law, Dorit Biran Deckelbaum.  The store is as large and well-stocked as any grocery in Montreal, but believe me, the check-out experience is different.  Both women chose magnificent strawberries featured upon entry, but notably, with no price attached.  At check-out, the woman at Loren's register commented, "The price of these strawberries is too high.  Do you really want to buy them?"  When my wife heard how much they were, she demurred.  Dorit, in her line, did not receive the same friendly advice and paid the high price.  She felt her clerk should have been as forthcoming as Loren's and was disappointed, not only because she actually knew her, but because she expects clerks to offer advice when price or quality should be questioned.
    One time there was a young visitor from North America in front of us.  She didn’t know anything about Israeli currency.  The cashier stopped the line and took the time to show her, coin by coin, how to identify the value of each part of a shekel, in itself worth about 30 Canadian cents.
    At Office Depot, we thought we could check out quickly, but we had to wait until the cashier put down her cell phone – family emergency, I’m sure, to help another customer whose teen-aged daughter was crying, weeping, sobbing bitterly that whatever her mother was buying her, it wasn’t what she wanted.  This time the cashier held her tongue, but neither did she say a word about others waiting to be served.  After a five minute temper tantrum, it was our turn.
    Try getting on the bus in Montreal without correct change.  You might as well get off at the next stop, or be thrown off.  Not in Israel.  The driver makes change, answers questions about local directions, helps people get transfer receipts into their hands, converses with them as they get on, all part of the reason why a 12 minute car ride to Hebrew University became a 40 minute bus ride through the very same streets. 
    Once I was paying for several people to ride the bus.  I didn’t have perfect change, but close, and more than enough.  I didn’t wait for change.  So the driver patiently made the 1 shekel and twenty grush change and gave it to another member of our party to give to me.
    I don’t wait in lines very patiently, but I’ve taken to observing the human theatre unfolding before me at Israel’s check-out counters, as well as seeing derekh eretz, Jewishly well-mannered behaviour, in action before my eyes. The Israeli check-out counter comes from another world, one where everyone knows each other, even if they don’t.  In Israel, with us, you’re family.
Rabbi Leigh Lerner

1 comment:

  1. Ahahah nice! :) I hope I'll have the opportunity to visit Israel in the coming years... I miss your humour on Saturday mornings, when are you coming back? Is there any chance you'll lead another service at temple before officially retiring?

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