There is a new insurance policy that is making the rounds. This insurance is to protect you from accidents of the road.

nothing new about that, is there?

Well, yes, there is. What is new about this insurance is that it works by donating money to the organization, then the org named Ashdod Mercaz Chinuch through it's program called "Protection on the road" will have its nearly 2000 young children students daven on your behalf, thus providing you with protection on the dangerous roads.

I've got no problem with people donating money to whatever they consider a worthy cause or organization. Just the opposite.

I also have no problem with a person donating money looking to obtain additional merits that will help him get through tough times, including through medical issues. There is nothing wrong with giving tzedaka and saying so and so should merit from it, for a refuah shleimah of so and so. No problem at all.

My only issue is that they call it insurance. It's one thing to talk about increasing one's merits with good deeds in the hope of averting danger. it's another thing to make promises and give guarantees. Not only do they have different lengths of policies (i.e. they will daven and protect you from road mishaps for a two month period, a 4 month period, etc. in exchange for specific donations), but they even have individual plans and the ability to pay a little more to buy a family plan. I guess the family plan means that they are davening for the entire family and nobody in the family will be injured in a car accident during that period of time...

This seems to be going a little overboard



------------------------------------------------------
Reach thousands of readers with your ad by advertising on Life in Israel
------------------------------------------------------

This story was reported this morning in the newspaper (I saw it in Yisrael Ha'Yom, maybe it was in others as well).

Some guy went to a mall in Rehovot to make some purchases. After driving around the parking lot and not finding any available parking spaces (my note: he probably did not find a spot within a certain range and did not want to walk from a more distant parking spot. There are almost always spots available) he decided to risk parking in a handicapped spot. He saw someone loading their car in a handicapped spot and waited for the driver to leave so he could park there.

When the driver finally pulled out, another car hurried to park there and got into the spot before the waiting car.

(let's call waiting car driver A and hurried car parker driver B)

A started screaming at B that he had been waiting for the spot. A verbal battle began. After some moments of screaming at each other B began to beat up on A. B hit A a few times until he knocked him to the ground. When A fell to the ground he began to kick him and hit him in a particularly cruel fashion (according to the witness).

At one point B's sandal fell off. He picked it up and began beating A (still lying on the floor) in the face with it.

The witnesses did not try to separate them and did not call the police or an ambulance. A security guard who noticed something happening at some point called the police.

A was sent to the hospital unconscious and badly bruised.

A and B, the two people fighting over a handicapped parking space, are both healthy men in their early thirties.

Looks like Driver A might even qualify now for a handicapped parkign space, after the beating he received.