The Barber

"Zilzalta ba'se'ar shelcha."

So said the barber to me. You've disregarded your hair.

I've always enjoyed getting a haircut. I find it very relaxing to close my eyes while the barber does his thing. I also think barbers are some of the more interesting people out there. Seriously, if you want to have an interesting conversation with someone from a given profession, a barber would be one of the better choices.

Speaking of that, before I get to the actual story, I'm going to go off on a long tangent. Bear with me. Just for fun, here's a list of some of the most interesting and least interesting people by profession to just shmooze with. I'm only including people from mainstream professions that regular people have easy access to; I'm sure clowns, astronauts, leaders of countries, and drug lords would all be interesting people to shmooze with, for example, but let's keep this real.

This is also not meant to be an exhaustive list, and is obviously going to be based on generalizations, so if that is likely to offend you feel free to scroll down to the story below, or read it anyway and be offended. Just don't tell me about it.

People who are likely to be interesting:

1) Barbers

Barbers come into personal contact with a wide range of people in a setting that lends itself to conversation. Having a good personality and being a good conversationalist are actually vital to this profession, though it's not something one immediately realizes. You'd think you just want someone who can give you the right "do" and not accidentally slice your neck, but haircutting can be pretty sensitive and personal, and intuition here can be vital. Barbers are therefore often extremely talented and intelligent people, even though no Jewish mother brags about her son, the barber.

Barbers also tend to eke out a meager living doing something they have a flair for that is underrated and often not all that pleasant. I certainly respect that.

2) Taxi and bus drivers

They also come into contact with a wide range of people, their work may take them near and far, and they also possess unnoticed talents that far transcend the job description. There's a lot more to it than just driving, and someone who does this kind of work long-term is very likely to have an interesting personality. Anyone who works hard at an under-appreciated job that requires a range of skills probably does.

3) Bartenders

Not that I would know.

4) Waiters / Restaurant Servers

This is far from a sure thing, but worth mentioning. It might be a sullen college kid looking to make a few bucks. But it can also be a really cool person who loves a lousy job and makes the whole experience more fun for everyone.


People who are not likely to be interesting:

1) Lawyers and others in the legal profession

These people must be masters at finding creative ways to show that they are right and other people are wrong, and must be successful at that a high percentage of the time. They're wired this way, and can't leave that personality at the office. Great if you need legal help, not great at the dinner table. They are also generally obsessed with their jobs, and thus have little to discuss besides their cases. So their stories might be interesting, but as people they aren't.

2) Wall Street Corporate Types

Consumed by their jobs and driven to get ahead, make it, impress the man, ultimately be the man, and ultimately be able to hang out with high society instead of with you. They have strange ideas about why some people succeed and others don't and have few opinions or morals that they would not readily discard to climb the next rung on the ladder. These guys aren't called empty suits for nothing. Everyone is just an angle for them, and since they may always be trying to sell you something now or soften you up for a sale down the road, you can never fully trust that they are being real with you.

3) Web Designers

Generally think they are smarter than everyone else, and generally get fixated on very small things. Great if you have a bug with your program, not great to hang out with.

4) Life Coaches

I wasn't born too long ago, but there weren't any life coaches back then. It seems more people have messed up lives than before, and their lives are messed up in more ways than before, so now we have a cottage industry of professionally messed up people to coach you on how to not be like them. Or something like that. These people are always marketing themselves -- always. They habitually use words like "empowerment" and other fashionable buzzwords that thankfully escape me to push a fancy-sounding ideology that isn't really all that sophisticated.

Life coaches also tend to be very young, which makes me wonder why, if this is a real profession, the real life coaches aren't people who, you know, have successfully made it through most of life. Do you really want some young new-age slick-talker coaching you, or a grizzled veteran of this world whose best years are behind him and really knows what it's all about? In other words, your barber is probably a better life coach, and he won't charge anything extra for the advice.

Which brings me back to my story. I've been meaning to get a haircut for a couple of weeks, but pushed it off some days, and other times the usual places I like to go near the shuk were closed. (Yes, I tend to be drawn to little barber shops that no Jewish mother would be caught dead in.) I was outside the Old City today late in the afternoon and was wavering between going to town and getting that haircut and just going home and pushing it off yet again until next week.

Suddenly I noticed a little barbershop right next to me on the corner across the street from the Old City walls. It really was a dingy little place that was very easy to miss despite being passed by countless people every day. The outside of the shop was not prominently marked, the lights weren't turned on, and everything about the place was as ancient as the walls across the street, including the lone barber and the customer in one of three chairs. I squeezed my way past them and sat down, grateful to have found such an appealing barber shop right when I wanted one. Everything should be this easy.

The barber was an old man with a very genial personality, and I wondered about him. Here he was in prime real estate running an ancient, decrepit barber shop, probably servicing only a handful of equally old men from who-knows-where. In the back of the shop behind a partition I spotted a bed with blankets on it, and I wondered if the guy made his home there as well. He can't possibly make much, and could probably sell the place to a real estate developer for a princely sum, but he probably lives to cut people's hair and run the little shop. I find this fascinating.

He carried on a steady conversation with the other customer, but when it was my turn there was little exchange, largely because I'm not confident enough with my Hebrew to make simple conversation. A pity, because I really got my money's worth anyway.

"Zilzalta ba'se'ar shelcha." You've disregarded your hair. Out of the blue, most of the way through the haircut. I opened my eyes and looked into the mirror.

And then he gently let me have it. No quotation marks, since this isn't verbatim, but this is what he said: If you want a plant to grow well you have to cut it regularly. Same thing with hair. Some of your hair has fallen out in the front because you haven't cut your hair in 2 or 3 months. Chaval. I've been cutting hair for 60 years. You have good hair. Your hair in the side and in the back is very good hair, will last you until 120.

It was true. I'd gotten my last haircut right before the 3 weeks, about two months ago. My hair in the front had thinned some time before that, but the last few years I'd started to get haircuts every eight weeks or so instead of every four. I thought I didn't need to get haircuts more often, and that it didn't grow back as fast as it used to anyway. What did I know about plants?

I asked him how often I should get my hair cut. Every month?

Initially he thought I asked something else (maybe my Hebrew was unclear) and he started to tell me about how he took over the shop from his brother. That probably would have been interesting, but I was a desperate man and I interrupted to ask the question again.

Every forty days or fifty days, he said.

I asked with feeble hope if there was any way the hair that had fallen out would grow back. No luck. But he said what I still have (which is a lot!) will remain. I believe him, too.

He resumed the haircut and I closed my eyes again, grateful for the knowledge. At one point he quietly sang "If I forget you, Jerusalem" for a few seconds.

All that for only 35 shekels. I look forward to going back. In forty days.