Hubris, Humility and Hashem

So here we go again. I’m so stressed. The extensive security check at the Israeli Consulate. This time in Munich. We must explain who we are, how we’re connected, and why we came. No! We didn’t come with anybody, and no, we didn’t accept anything from anyone to bring.

Our appearance is also cross-checked against today’s appointment book. I imagine that at the same time our faces are being run through some Shin Bet (Israeli internal security service) facial-recognition software. Yet this is just at the entrance off the street, before we even pass any of the bollards placed there to prevent vehicle rammings.

We’re allowed to proceed to the next gate, closer to the building. Through the doorbell-camera interface, we are told to wait for a colleague to come out. There is a sign here that confirms face-recognition technology is indeed being used. No surprise there. Posting the sign to alert us was probably required by German law (Datenschutz). Ever since the Stasi days, Germans have had a deep mistrust of the collection and recording of personal data.

The guard opens the gate. He looks at our passports and again it’s the same list of questions. How are you related? We’re married.

He seems pleasantly surprised. “Mazel Tov” is practically on the tip of his tongue. He only asks because we don’t share the same last name. Did I miss a step somewhere here in the gay marriage rule book? When we married, were we supposed to take each other’s names and hyphenate them?

We’re allowed to enter the security office foyer. I notice a lovely mezuzah on the outside of the door. Only one of us can go into the screening room at a time. So, I bite the bullet. I want to be first, just to get the ordeal over with. I explain that I have a metal hip replacement. And no, Canadian doctors do not give you a letter for travel and security screening. He seems surprised.

I consider saying what would be the point? Such a letter could easily be forged. Is he going to know who Dr. A. from North York General is? How exactly would he verify the authenticity of the document? At least here, this time, I don’t have to open my shorts and delicately reveal my scar without exposing too much of my pubic area, as I had to do at the Embassy in Mexico City.

Of course the buzzer goes off as I walk through the metal detector. He reaches for the security wand. I know the drill. Legs apart. Arms outstretched at three and nine o’clock. The wand moves very closely and occasionally touches my body. At the same time, he pats me down. He feels my waist and asks whether I have something there. I say no. It’s just fat. I’m no longer ashamed of my growing bicycle tire.

I’m told to wait outside the door leading to the interior of the consulate while Simon is processed. Then we proceed up two flights of stairs past oversized murals of Israel. Sweet memories from our first trip in 2022 as tourists.  We didn’t get to see much in 2025 as there were so many rocket and missile alerts. We had to stay close to the mamad, our master bedroom was also our bomb shelter.

Now we are faced with three more locked doors. We hear a low buzzing. Is it Door Number Three? Yes, it’s definitely coming from Door Number Three. We pull the handle and enter. Straight ahead of us is the wonderful clerk — a slight woman with a face no older than thirty years old — Sarah. She is sitting behind bulletproof glass. Her first word to us is “Shalom.” And we answer, “Shalom.”

As the honorary non-Jewish Jew in the room, I can’t help but take note of the irony. All this security to get into the place and the first word you hear is “Peace” in Hebrew. Yes, that’s what shalom means, aside from being a regular greeting.

I think it’s sad that there must be this level of security simply to enter a consulate. But we all know why that is. I haven’t even mentioned the Bavarian police car stationed outside on the street. Even though Munich is relatively safe, it does have a difficult history. Let’s not forget the 1972 Olympics. An utter tragedy for Israel and a deep shame for Germany, since once again Jews were killed on German soil for being Jews.

And why are we here? Not that we haven’t already explained it in the email and at every checkpoint since. I lost my Teudat Zehut, my Israeli ID card. A moment of pure hubris got the better of me.

A few weeks earlier I went to Shiur, the Rabbi’s lesson before services and the new security detachment at the Synagogue gave me a hard time. They didn’t recognize me. Indignantly, I spat back that I didn’t recognize them either. This was a new team that hadn’t worked the Friday evening services yet during the six months we had been attending.

I was appalled. I pulled my driver’s license from my wallet, which I keep in my trusty messenger bag. Of course, they checked my bag too. They kept my driver’s license until the end of services and gave me a Visitor’s Pass. The young man, who had to obey his supervisor standing beside him and ignore my kvetching, apologized and said I didn’t actually have to wear the identifying lanyard around my neck.

No. I wanted to make a scene. I was going to wear it and parade around. I was going to show all my friends and acquaintances how I had been singled out. That a regular should be made to wear a Visitor’s Pass.

So the following week, buoyed by the weight of my smugness, I decided to play a little game of one-upmanship. No bag. No wallet. I took only my driver’s license and my Teudat Zehut with me to Shiur. Fortunately, the same security team was on duty that week. I wanted to show the young man and his supervisor the Teudat Zehut that I had earned. That I was an Israeli! He smiled cordially and said there was no need to show any credentials. He remembered me well from the previous week. After all, I had made quite the spectacle of myself.

The horror struck as I arrived home and emptied my pockets. Keys from one pocket. From the other, my phone and then my driver’s licence. That was it. With a flash of picture-perfect memory, I remembered removing my phone from my pocket outside the synagogue. I had repeatedly pulled it out to check for messages while walking home.

Our route home. Arno-Hamburger-Straße. Nordostbahnhof U-Bahn station. The U2 line. Hauptbahnhof. The U1 line to Maffeiplatz. Already fatigued, I knew I would be utterly exhausted once I retraced my steps all the way back to the Synagogue and then returned home again, head down and eyes scanning the pavement for any trace of the card.

My hubris crushed me. It exposed me. I was desperate. I even asked the Synagogue security team whether someone turned in the card had perhaps left it with them. No. Figuratively beating my chest with grief, I returned home scanning once more the ground, knowing that it could well I couldn’t inspect every subway car on the U1 line. So futrile.

Though I know Hashem always has a reason and that things happen as they are meant to happen, I was still crushed. Humbled. Perhaps that was Hashem’s lesson all along. A lesson in humility. The path to redemption was painful.

I thought it would end when I reported the loss to the Nürnberg police and obtained the official report. Instead, we learned that I had to appear in person at the consulate in Munich to report the loss of my all-too-precious Israeli identity card.

My plan to impress — no, to flaunt, to grandstand, perhaps even to boast — had backfired. Now I had to bear my shame. I was so proud of that card. We had worked so hard to get it. When we landed in Israel, on a holiday no less, the Nefesh B’Nefesh staff weren’t there to greet us because naturally it was a holiday. They are the staff who facilitate and finalize immigration for North American Jews. Who travels to Israel on a Jewish holiday? Apparently secular Simon and I.

We had to jump through hoops afterward to secure those citizenship cards. And that doesn’t even take into account all the paperwork and bureaucratic gymnastics we went through in Canada and Mexico beforehand.  They weren’t simply identity cards. Well at least not for me.  They were the coveted Teudat Zehut that proved we were finally Israelis. Our number one ambition since November 2023.

In Munich, I slowly discover that it isn’t nearly as bad as I feared. Just because I lost my ID card doesn’t mean I have been kicked out of the club. I fill out a form and sign it. Of course, it is entirely in Hebrew, so I put my faith in Simon’s Hebrew abilities and Sarah’s guidance.

Then Simon asks the question that had already appeared in our email. What do we do for travel documents if we wish to return to Israel? Sarah perks up. “Oh! We can get you a passport.”

Wait. We’ve never had an Israeli passport. This isn’t a replacement. Sarah counters that we could get a laissez-passer instead — a non-passport passport, a travel document.

No problem. We simply have to go to the nearest DM, a drugstore of sorts that sells everything from beauty products to household cleaners. All of them have photo labs. We get the pictures and return to the consulate by 12:30 p.m. when they close.

No problem, right? One hour. Start the clock.

It turns out the nearest DM is about a kilometre away. I march with conviction toward the pin on Google Maps. We find the photo kiosk clerk immediately. DM has a surprisingly sophisticated but unassuming system.

The tiny clerk, with a thick Bavarian accent and a deep gravelly voice, uses a DM cellphone to take our pictures, which are then transmitted directly to the machine. Little do we realize that they are using a sophisticated biometric app that instantly assesses whether the photograph meets e-pass requirements.

Seriously, after twenty attempts, the camera finally accepts the photograph. For every previous attempt, the word FAILED appears stamped across my face in flashing red letters.

Just days earlier we had done this for another set of biometric photos required for our residence permits. No issues whatsoever. So what is happening now? I joke that perhaps I’m simply too ugly.

Could the problem be the country selected in the drop-down menu? We had to substitute India for Israel since both require the same photograph size, and yet Israel was not a country listed on the app.  Antisemitic app! The clerk assures us that choice of country isn’t the issue.  That it’s actually about image size.

We decide it must be my striped shirt. Again she tells us that clothing has nothing to do with it, but the moment her back is turned we discreetly exchange T-shirts in the middle of the store. The other shoppers seem completely unfazed. She was right. Not the shirt. Though she does add that yellow is definitely my colour.

Finally, success.  The picture is printed. We pay using the self-checkout. We storm back to the consulate and go through the entire security process all over again.

Street entrance. Front gate. Screening room. Metal detector. Two flights of stairs. And then: “Shalom!”

Another application form, but this time it is bilingual. But of course there is one more hurdle. They want me to write my name not only in English but also in Hebrew. Oy!

But I manage. I confirm the spelling using our Teudat Olim or Immigration Certificate. I am deliberate. I concentrate as I carefully trace each Hebrew letter. I’m convinced that anyone who reads this form in the future will immediately recognize my shaky, childlike effort. I don’t care.

We pay cash. And then, minutes later, they hand me the shiny red booklet. Relief. Oh, so nice and shiny.

The strange thing is that losing the card taught me something I hadn’t expected. The card mattered less than I thought it did. Nobody questioned whether I belonged. Not the synagogue. Not the consulate. Not Israel. No blame game.

Still, the shiny red booklet was awfully nice. And inside, under nationality, it says: Israeli and I beam.