Marriage Proposal on the Ramparts (not mine)

Yesterday, one of the other interns--a student at Hebrew U--came over to where Leah and I sit to chat. This is normal. On the days she's in (the Israeli academic system is a bit out of whack, and their exam period extends into July for everyone, and through October for many), she always comes over for a while. After talking for a few minutes, I realized that something was different. So I interrupted and said, "Did you just get engaged?!" (Cue mazal tovs and appropriately excessive aw-ing, and of course, The Proposal Story)

I won't bore anyone with the details of someone else's proposal, but I'll just relate a few anecdotes and some commentary for your reading pleasure, for which we'll need to take a step back to a few days ago. On our way back from our Old City shopping excursion, Leah and I walked through the Jewish Quarter, which leads to the Armenian Quarter. This is the section of the Old City where the "Ramparts War" is, essentially allowing you to walk on top of the walls of the Old City. I've never done it, but would love to sometime. In any case, it was sunset, and as I looked up I saw that walking atop the ramparts as we walked below was none other than Solomon, a friend from school. The sunset was beautiful, the warm glow of the sun reflecting of the ancient stones gorgeous, and the weather was perfect.

I turned to Leah and said, "Wow, that would be a great place to get engaged." ……..Fast forward to The Proposal Story this morning. Us: "Where did he propose? How did he do it?" Her: "Well, it was on top of the walls of the Old City, you know where the Ramparts Walk takes you? …"

Perfect….

The second is that she is in a very interesting position: her "boyfriend—er, fiancé, gosh that sounds weird—Dan" is still in the army. He's just beginning officer training, a special course that means that he voluntarily signed on for more than the required three years of service. It also means that for the next 3.5+months, he'll be home maybe once every three-four weeks. It also means that he's younger than her (by two years), which is neither good nor bad, but certainly interesting, and definitely unusual. Finally, it means that they are very limited as to when they can actually get married—the next time he'll be able to be at home for more than a Shabbat is in four months, and even with that, he'll only be allowed 11 days off for wedding preparations+wedding+post-wedding wind-down. It's a lot to plan a wedding when the other person involved is never available…

But she seems really happy, and that's really all that you can ask for.