Chapter 13: HA YARKON PARK
God's Little Drop of Water
If you’ve just discovered this (Hi!), begin with Chapter 1 HERE.
New chapters every Saturday morning @ 9:09 a.m. EST. Yay!
Ha Yarkon park was full of families enjoying the warm weather, barbecuing, and spending time together. Shabbat began at sunset on Friday (Shishi) and concluded at sunset on Saturday (Shabbat). Nearly all the stores and business in the entire country closed, and everything became very still. Taliya enjoyed this sensation very much.
What she did not enjoy, however, was the large amount of smoke coming from the barbecue on which Abba was busy cooking many dozens of skewers impaled with hunks of raw chicken.
Sabba Avi and Savta Nona were sitting in folding chairs at the table with Ima and Ima’s brothers and sisters. Taliya’s many cousins were playing soccer and laughing, waiting for lunch to be ready. Taliya did her best to stay away from the white smoke. Yair and Yaroni both helped Abba prepare the skewers, rotating them on the grill and removing the ones which had finished cooking so that new skewers could be added. Yaroni was also secretly nibbling on one of the finished ones.
Taliya adored spending time with Sabba and Savta. Sabba was impeccably dressed, even on a warm day such as this.
When lunch was ready, Abba prepared a plate for Taliya and handed it to her. On her plate was a skewer of smoked, blackened chicken pieces, tomato-and-cucumber salad, and hummus. Taliya immediately found a nearby tree behind which she could dispose of the skewer of cooked meat.
Abba offered her a second skewer of meat.
But Taliya said she didn’t want any, that she couldn’t eat it.
“Here,” Abba said, “try this, it’s softer.”
“No, Abba. How can anyone eat a little animal that had eyes? Eyes are the window to the soul. How can anyone eat something that had a soul?”
“Eat your salad and hummus then, metukah.”
Taliya dared to hope that Abba was beginning to accept the fact that she did not want to eat meat any longer.
Read next chapter:
Or become a Founding Member to read the rest of the book now:
![[VIP] Chapter 14: THE HIGH HOLIDAYS](https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!uvKQ!,w_140,h_140,c_fill,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep,g_auto/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fca1b9383-5a85-4e9c-a44a-d0407ccac835_2424x3635.jpeg)