3 Deaths and a Trial

Wow, what a week.

Even for someone used to crazy ups and downs.

It’s birthday season in our family, which is awesome.

All three kids got new bikes.

More on the great deal I created from nothing, later on.

First, on more a somber note, three big notables passed away on the same day toward the end of last week.

First, Dr. Daniel Kahneman, the G.O.A.T. of Behavioral Economics, a Nobel Laureate, Princeton Professor and a delightful human being.

I came to his work quite late, admittedly, strangely enough after writing most of my last book, which deals in great detail with Behavioral Economics.

I’m not an academic, clearly, but I’d read lots of articles and shorter works about his research, but never his actual books.

Then, I dove headfirst into Noise and Thinking Fast and Slow.

Truly elegant, impressively simple and (for me) intuitive findings about the various ways in which humans are anything but rational, much of the time, when it comes to decision-making, understanding themselves and understanding the motivations of others.

From his work sprang the Freakonomics work, Dan Ariely and a slew of other behavioral economists (both actual academics and others, like myself, who are deep afficionados).

Kahneman, as the godfather of the field with which I’ve most closely identified my own work and thinking, has loomed large, but in the very best sense.

May his memory be always for a blessing. His legacy will live on for a very long time, as many believe we’ve only scratched the surface into this discipline.

Second, there was Senator Joe Lieberman, who passed from an unfortunate fall.

I didn’t meet him at any point or have any connections to boast of with him.

Yet, he represented a Jew who was fundamentally proud of his Judaism and espoused it at every turn, unlike many assimilated Jews who hide and obscure who they are, trying to blend in.

Uncle Joe was a huge proponent of Shabbat, which has come to define my life in the last two decades as a “public, visible” Jew.

It’s really the organizing principle for the entire week, and in turn, the months and years.

Family scheduling and programming revolves around it. So much else in our lives does, as well.

Joe Lieberman was most well-known for his run as Al Gore’s would-be-VP, but his long record of service with decency and intelligence really stands out, even among his greatest Senate contemporaries.

He and everything he represents - arguably the Golden Age of American Jewry - will be sorely missed. [We’re long since down the slope in decline, I’m afraid.]

Thirdly, Richard Serra. I wasn’t aware that he was Jewish, but that isn’t the point.

I knew him from the incredible steel installations he made at the MOMA and a couple other museums.

Something about his uncanny ability to modulate space in a way at once very heavy and incredibly light.

Certainly thought-provoking and inspiring. Few people can think in large magnitudes and yet with weightless elegance.

Our times feel anything but elegant and weightless.

We’ve reached peak complexity, in some ways, and appalling oversimplification, at the same time.

Don’t blame AI, it’s just the nail in the coffin or perhaps the Zombie juice we all never knew we needed.

And so, we have 3 giants, suddenly gone.

We’ve lost the father of behavioral economics, which seems to pop up everywhere, all the time, in my life.

We’ve lost the symbolic peak Orthodox American Jewry.

And we’ve lost a monumental visionary.

I’m not for sweeping statements, but it feels auspicious, in all the wrong ways.

—

To add to the somber tone, we’ve been battling some nasty neighbor issues.

Everyone complains about neighbors here.

There’s all sorts of vicious dumbf*ckery we’ve dealt with in our almost 3 years here.

Being chased out (or at least attempts at chasing us out) of our apartment without proper notice, with basically gangster tactics by the ultra-orthodox father of 5 kids, after being screwed over by our landlord.

Here, we have the daughter and son-in-law of our 90+-year-old neighbor upstairs trying desperately to stop us from building a safe room we’re automatically permitted to build by law, plus a balcony we’ve also been permitted to build.

What does it gain them to F with us? Literally nothing, they’re just jealous.

They don’t even live here, but are basically (sadly) just waiting for her mother to pass, so they can take over the place.

Two weeks ago, she and her husband stormed into our backyard and started yelling at my wife and our builder, a 60+-year-old Grandpa (distant family), threatening and kicking rebar.

What a couple of stupid clowns. We have a camera on our property specifically because of them.

When we first moved in, they demonstrably walked their dog into the shared yard behind our place and had the dog shit on the grass. Also caught on camera.

Then, they got a lawyer and apparently filed a claim against us in the Ministry of Justice to stop building.

We are just waiting for a final signature from some Haifa bureaucrat who’s leaving his job today, given the mayor’s administration starting tomorrow.

Anyways, we decided to take matters into our own hands, sick of these threats and f*ckhead behavior.

We filed for a temporary restraining order in court.

A couple days later, we were in court to rebuff their defense against the order.

Strange as it is for someone with a legal education, it was my second time in a courthouse and first in the actual proceedings of a trial.

We had breakfast early, then got into the courthouse and walked over to the courtroom.

Here were the brazen-faced couple and their brazen-faced, miserable-looking lawyer.

We sat down. The judge walks in.

The lawyer starts rattling off all sorts of things in Hebrew.

We protest that we need a translator.

He tries to say he’ll translate. We say, no thanks.

The judge tries.

It quickly turns into a shitshow of yelling and recriminations against us.

Denial of their bad behavior.

We show the video to shut them up.

The lawyer does his shtick to interrupt and yell.

We yell and interrupt right back, getting our point across.

Apparently, the husband has his work license to lose if the order is issued in the fullest form. Much to lose, clearly.

Something woke up in me, even though my Hebrew isn’t great.

I turned to the couple and very sternly told them, if they ever come close to my wife again, they will have real problems.

I impressed on the judge that this threatening behavior is unacceptable in any country, in any legal system.

In the end, she granted most of what we wanted. She asked us to speak only through the lawyer.

We gladly obliged, pressing that if they show their faces anywhere near us again, we call the police and they get arrested.

Although we were a bit shaken with this experience, as if covered in a slime of shit, with more to come (as I’m writing, we got served), we still did pretty well for new immigrants without even a lawyer to help us.

After this saga was over, our attention turned to kids’ birthday gifts.

They wanted bikes.

I took them late night to a store to determine the right sizes.

Friday morning, before the party on Saturday night, I dropped off our son and scrambled to figure out how to get the bikes at a decent price, without buying cheap crap and without paying insane prices for new ones.

Searched on Facebook marketplace, not much selection, no responses to my messages.

Searched for bike stores in town.

Finally found one, a Trek store, an American brand.

Drove over.

Saw used bikes outside, one for each of our bigger girls.

The biggest bike was the cheapest, somehow.

The one for a 4 year-old, the smallest one, was somehow the most expensive, same as the one for the middle kid.

I mulled around, asked the guy to give me a good price for the three bikes.

He took his time, asked for permissions, and gave me a great price.

Instead of 1300 for the 3 bikes, as is, he gave me 1200 for the three, threw in a new seat for one, training wheels for the little one, plus a new water bottle holder, a free tune-up and clean/polish.

It’s not the numbers that matter, as much.

Why were they amenable to making a good deal, unlike in a non-specialty sports store, for example?

Why would this better than buying cheaper on Facebook marketplace?

The Trek store are bike specialists.

They’re also clearly bike lovers themselves.

They want people to experience bikes in the best way possible, like themselves.

They also buy in bulk, so the prices are smaller, unlike non-specialty stores.

They want to build a long-term relationship with customers.

They are co-owners, rather than some sales associates who don’t give a shit beyond maybe a commission.

In short, a much better experience and result, overall.

He’ll also keep a lookout for a good used bike for me.

That’s the anatomy of a good deal, my friends.

It’s not just about the biggest discount (but this also helps), but also the seamless pleasant experience, the long-term experience, the correct, well-aligned incentives.

We’re back to our behavioral economics, in other words.

So where you have it.

Weather’s turned to summer suddenly.

The air’s heavy with all sorts of flower perfumes and allergic sneezes.

The pigs and jackals perform their nightly rituals.

We keep building. The neighbors keep trying to f*ck with us.

A Kabbalist predicted war would start today.

The day’s ending, but of course we’re hoping against it.

Lastly, a bizarre story.

So my publisher sent me books almost 2 years (!!) ago to Haifa.

The package came, was sent back, then sent back to Israel.

Due to shipping and supply chain crises, the f-ing Houthis, the war, plus undoubtedly some bold-faced ineptitude on the part of the Israeli Post Service, I received a slip to pick up a package about a month ago.

I made an appointment to get it (yes, that’s a thing here), went to get it, but they said, we have no package to give you.

I appealed to the manager, who said she would call me when she finds the package.

Sure enough, I heard nothing for 2 weeks.

Yesterday, I got a new slip for the same package.

Today, after a comedy of errors at the post office, I was shocked to actually…

Ya know, get the damned package.

With my books inside.

Huzzah!

And this, my friends, is why I’m an optimist about Israel and life, despite everything.

Have a great week ahead, my friends!