Daylight Savings Time- Winter’s Coming

As a little girl I learned in grade school how you change the clocks: “fall back, spring forward.” I used to be excited to get that extra hour of sleep, but this year I finally realized that changing the clocks meant that winter…and darkness…are just around the corner.
True, the winter in Israel is NOTHING compared to Boston, or Connecticut, but the darkness is the same and in Israel this phenomenon happens almost a month before the States. Israel changes to Daylight Savings time the Sunday before Yom Kippur. I am still unclear as to exactly why, but I have been told that it has to do with Yom Kippur ending earlier. True, it was nice that Yom Kippur ended by 6 pm, but that means that it started at 5 pm the previous day. It is hard to sit down to “dinner” at 4:00pm and prepare for the fast. Then, at my first day back after the change, I left work to a setting sun and signs of impending darkness. And while the weather is starting to cool off, there are still some days that as I step out of my air-conditioned building, I am hit with a wave of humidity as the sun goes down.
It has not been so long that I have forgotten the New England foliage around this time of year. I must admit that I do miss the trees changing colors, hot apple cider and the smell of bond fires and fire places. But since I’m here, I think Ariel and I will go to the Dead Sea next weekend. . .