the protestant work ethic

Some of us Israeli "anglos" still live by the protestant work ethic. But you don't have to work when you're sick ! It's one of the most difficult things to get used to. Years ago, when I was first working here, teaching "creative dance" after school once a week, Neve Etzion, Bayit V'Gan, when my two eldest daughters were in the first and third grades. Yes, the school no longer exists, but back to the story.
It was this time of the year, just before Purim, and my mother was on her way for a visit... suddenly I had the flu, the real thing, not a cold. I was sick. But how could I miss a lesson? My mother landed the day before my teaching day, and I just sent her off, sans Hebrew, with a prepared cassette of music, some instructions and a daughter per class to translate. And, of course, my mother accepted it as normal.

Talking, or writing, about it a generation later, it sounds so rediculous, though then, it was so obvious to me that I had to be like the US Mail.

I don't think that a male would do it, certainly not a non-anglo Israeli. WE're allowed to be sick, rest up.

Shabbat Shalom