Making ‘After the Chagim’ Meaningful
At last we’ve arrived at the annual period lovingly referred to in Israel as “after the chagim.” As the various components of the succah get dismantled and stored away, a collective sigh of relief can be heard throughout the county as the micromanaging required for preparing holiday menus, securing accommodations for visitors, and figuring out ways to keep the kids occupied are, for another year, finally behind us. Now that all the holidays are over, routines can be reestablished, schedules can be recalibrated, and excuses for not taking care of mundane matters need to be reinvented.
This period, moreover, coincides with autumn, and while it will be some weeks before heavy sweaters and flannel pajamas will be removed from the storage bins, signs of the changing season are hard to miss. Crembos – the gooey, cream-infused confectionary that most adults are too embarrassed to admit they love – are back on the shelf after completing its six-month hibernation, summer produce such as peaches and plums are slowly making room for wintery, cold weather tangerines and persimmons, and advertisements for efficient, cost-saving heating systems have begun to appear here and there. So, while Israel may not have vast woodlands of dazzling changing colors that can be found elsewhere, the fall season in this country is nothing short of glorious.
More importantly, perhaps, in a few weeks the hour of sleep that was violently taken from us last March will be given back and our bodies will return to the rhythm that was carefully engineered by nature. And it’s not at all unlikely that in some places this year’s return to winter time/standard time may very well be the last time the clocks get changed. It’s impossible not to notice that with each passing year additional countries have decided to opt out of the seasonal change to summer time/daylight saving time (DST) and are legislating standard time to be, well, the permanent standard. High time Israel does so as well.
Although I had – and still have – reservations about Donald Trump as president of the United States, I was indeed heartened when, about a month before his inauguration, he publicly admitted to disliking DST – calling it “very costly” – and indicated a readiness to endorse bringing the annual jump forward to an end. His position on the matter, unfortunately, softened somewhat, and has recently indicated that there is now a “50-50” chance of eliminating the annual jump forward. To be sure, he is most assuredly not alone with reservations about the advantages of that artificially-manipulated extra hour of daylight.
At one point not that long ago, some 130 countries throughout the world pushed their clocks and watches an hour ahead during the spring and summer months. Currently, that number has dwindled down to around 70. No country in Asia, for example, disrupts its citizens’ sleep pattern, and very few in Africa make the change. Over the past 10 years, Azerbaijan, Iran, Jordan, Namibia, Russia, Samoa, Syria, Turkey, Uruguay and most of Mexico have all ended the practice. And while most of Europe still stubbornly clings to the annual change, it’s only a matter of time until the European Council ends its support for summer time and the European Union’s stated preference to end the practice will be implemented.
None of this should be in any way surprising. The so-called benefits of an extra hour of daylight in the summer have proven to be exaggerated if not altogether misleading and unproven. Physicians and health specialists, moreover, have for years warned of the dangers caused by stressing the body with these twice-yearly time adjustments, and have repeatedly urged that the practice be brought to an end. And as the autumn days start getting naturally shorter, children wind up going to school while it is still dark for a period of six or seven weeks, a danger that we in Israel can most certainly do without.
Even in the United States, the sensibility governing the bi-annual move forward and back is being questioned. For a number of years the idea of making DST permanent has been the subject of much discussion and debate, yet no definitive action was ever taken or even submitted for legislative action.
The reluctance is understandable. As recently as January of this year the highly respected Gallup polling organization concluded that more than half of the US population is ready to put an end to this practice. The pollsters, to avoid any bias from the way the question was phrased, asked, separately, which of the following three options was preferred: making standard time permanent, making daylight saving time permanent, maintaining the current practice of switching between the two. 48% indicated that making standard time permanent while only 25% would like to make DST permanent. The growing trend to do away with DST – in the United States as well as in most of the world – is obvious.
I’m not by any means a numbers cruncher and have never been convinced that statistics alone should be used to determine policy, but they do provide an important perspective. It would be grossly neglectful if our current government did not at least give some consideration to making the change back to winter time on October 26 the last time we’ll have to remember “spring forward/fall back”.
Oh, and do enjoy this “after the chagim” period. It does not, unfortunately, last very long. Soon, bakeries and supermarkets will start displaying sufganiyot (donuts), a reminder that Chanukah is a “mere” two months away. And once again we’ll be stressed by the planning of festive, latke-themed dinners, the risky scheduling of family get-togethers during Israel’s rainy season, and deciding on which holiday shows the kids would most enjoy.
Life in Israel is indeed beautiful. And let’s indeed be thankfulk that the hostages are home and with their families in time to enjoy this wonderful time of the year.