With my first havruta, still learning after all these years

Today, I rode Bus 70 from Tel Aviv to Givat Shmuel, home to Israeli basketball team Maccabi Givat Shmuel. Besides claiming this dubious honor (the team is... uh... floundering), here is where my friend Shimon eats and sleeps — two activities he allows himself in his crammed life as a doctoral student in psychology at Bar Ilan University. "I am fulfilling all the requirements of my department while adding my own curriculum in my major and beyond," explains my havruta, learning partner, of seven years ago in the Atlanta Torah MiTzion program.

Visiting with Shimon is always a gift of precious time with inestimable value. Though we are separated in age by decades, have widely different life experiences, and usually hold opposing religious beliefs and practices, our friendship celebrates the differences. We engage in much humor while trading ideas and references, from book titles to podcast subscriptions, and from updates on mutual friends and the upsides and downsides of living in both democracies where I vote and where Shimon has lived.

"Read Saʻarat nefesh [Burning Soul] by Yoram Yovel, one of my professors," Shimon replies to a question on mental illness and therapies in Israel. "Download a podcast of Avivah Gottlieb Zornberg from Speaking of Faith and Values," I instruct him as our free-wheeling discussion veers toward narratives, storytelling, and... blogs. (Later, just before I catch the last bus back before Shabbat, we cram in a session on his laptop where I subscribe him to this free downloadable weekly radio program featuring conversations with theologians, scientists, ethicists, and other thoughtful voices on religion, meaning, ethics, and ideas.)

Imagine my astonished delight while snacking on Shimon's treat — a chocolate-chip sweet (to share) and herbal tea (for him) and cappuccino (for me) — in the lobby cafe of a residential skyscraper, when he drew from his briefcase two surprises: a card and an aloe-vera-olive-oil-infused gift set (shown in the photo at the top of this post)! The card, a photo taken four years ago when we toured Nobel Prize winner Shmuel Yosef Agnon's Jerusalem home, shows Shimon and me gazing at the glass-encased 1966 Prize in Literature gold medal and diploma. The back of the photo reads, as follows:

בס"ד [Aramaic abbreviation for "with Heaven's help"]

Tamar,
It has been almost 7 years since I first met you. Oh, and
it's also your birthday...
I guess we both deserve congratulations...
Happy birthday!
Shimon

Thank you, dear Shimon: havruta, guide, humorist, role model, friend, teacher, comforter. May you continue going from strength to strength.

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Update. Learn about Wrestling with texts and observing shoes in my havruta with Felegosh.