Shabbat Shalom, as in Peace
Last night we had dinner at Anna and Jamie's apartment. Jamie is a first-year cantorial student at Hebrew Union College and Anna has been our Hebrew study buddy since the summer. They recently kashered (an inappropriate past tense word which is Heb-rish [Hebrew-English] for "to make kosher") their apartment and thus now keep kosher so in honor of their apartment's new status, they held their first kosher Shabbat dinner. It was a wonderful dinner and a heck of a lot of fun.
Prior to dinner we went to Friday night services at Hebrew Union College. There is not a regular schedule of services at HUC but occasionally, the students plan and hold a service. It has been a while since we've been to a Reform service but we weren't as overwhelmed and shocked as one of our friends who was also there (having been also invited to dinner). For him, the siddur (prayerbook) he uses is inviolable and since last night's Reform service was a tad "different," I was worried he'd go into some sort of shock but, no, he held up like a trooper and made it through the whole thing without shouting "Heathens!" or anything like that.
So after services, which started at 5:30, we walked as a group to Anna & Jamie's and had a fantastic dinner and the theme of the night ended up being joke telling around the table. I've never been one who could remember a joke and even if I could, I'm not good at telling them because I usually tell the punch line before telling the joke. So, I sat back and enjoyed everything. Thinking about last night now, I don't think I can remember any of the jokes.
Yesterday was the first consistently rainy day and while it was fortunate that it didn't rain between HUC and their apartment, on the way home it was wet for a while and it was quite a walk.
On the way to their apartment and home, we passed by some normally very places on Shabbat for the first time since our arrival. Ben Yehuda Street and the Shuk are normally packed day and night throughout the week but on Friday night, they were completely empty except for others walking home from services or to a Shabbat dinner. It was eerily quiet and as I was reading Abraham Joshua Heschel's book The Sabbath today, I was struck by the following line...
A thought has blown the market place away.
For me, I was struck by how quiet the normal marketplaces of Jerusalem were, all because of Shabbat (the "thought"). This thought has created a wonderful day of incredible stillness and peace throughout Israel and especially throughout Jerusalem. Shabbat is an amazing concept and, when applied almost universally, it is an amazing experience for everyone. OK, that's as spiritual as I get.
I enjoy seeing bored non-Jewish tourists on Saturday, milling about with nothing really to do because the city is pretty much shut down.
OK, maybe a little more spirituality. This morning, walking back from services in a distant part of Jerusalem, it was really rainy. This week we read from the Torah the portion "Noah," which not surprisingly, is the story of Noah and his zoological arc. Some parts of Israel flooded due to the heavy rains today and when we were walking back from synagogue, the sun peeked through the clouds during the rain - Eve and I were really hoping for a rainbow - it would have made the day, one where we left synagogue after just having heard the story of Noah in the annual Torah reading cycle. There is also a blessing to say when one sees a rainbow, it acknowledges G-d's promise to Noah that the rainbow would be a sign that the earth would not be again destroyed by flood.
We searched and searched the sky but never found a rainbow. But, right before I arrived back at our apartment, I did hear thunder and got to pull out the siddur to say the blessing for hearing thunder.
Shavua Tov! (A Good Week!)
Prior to dinner we went to Friday night services at Hebrew Union College. There is not a regular schedule of services at HUC but occasionally, the students plan and hold a service. It has been a while since we've been to a Reform service but we weren't as overwhelmed and shocked as one of our friends who was also there (having been also invited to dinner). For him, the siddur (prayerbook) he uses is inviolable and since last night's Reform service was a tad "different," I was worried he'd go into some sort of shock but, no, he held up like a trooper and made it through the whole thing without shouting "Heathens!" or anything like that.
So after services, which started at 5:30, we walked as a group to Anna & Jamie's and had a fantastic dinner and the theme of the night ended up being joke telling around the table. I've never been one who could remember a joke and even if I could, I'm not good at telling them because I usually tell the punch line before telling the joke. So, I sat back and enjoyed everything. Thinking about last night now, I don't think I can remember any of the jokes.
Yesterday was the first consistently rainy day and while it was fortunate that it didn't rain between HUC and their apartment, on the way home it was wet for a while and it was quite a walk.
On the way to their apartment and home, we passed by some normally very places on Shabbat for the first time since our arrival. Ben Yehuda Street and the Shuk are normally packed day and night throughout the week but on Friday night, they were completely empty except for others walking home from services or to a Shabbat dinner. It was eerily quiet and as I was reading Abraham Joshua Heschel's book The Sabbath today, I was struck by the following line...
A thought has blown the market place away.
For me, I was struck by how quiet the normal marketplaces of Jerusalem were, all because of Shabbat (the "thought"). This thought has created a wonderful day of incredible stillness and peace throughout Israel and especially throughout Jerusalem. Shabbat is an amazing concept and, when applied almost universally, it is an amazing experience for everyone. OK, that's as spiritual as I get.
I enjoy seeing bored non-Jewish tourists on Saturday, milling about with nothing really to do because the city is pretty much shut down.
OK, maybe a little more spirituality. This morning, walking back from services in a distant part of Jerusalem, it was really rainy. This week we read from the Torah the portion "Noah," which not surprisingly, is the story of Noah and his zoological arc. Some parts of Israel flooded due to the heavy rains today and when we were walking back from synagogue, the sun peeked through the clouds during the rain - Eve and I were really hoping for a rainbow - it would have made the day, one where we left synagogue after just having heard the story of Noah in the annual Torah reading cycle. There is also a blessing to say when one sees a rainbow, it acknowledges G-d's promise to Noah that the rainbow would be a sign that the earth would not be again destroyed by flood.
We searched and searched the sky but never found a rainbow. But, right before I arrived back at our apartment, I did hear thunder and got to pull out the siddur to say the blessing for hearing thunder.
Shavua Tov! (A Good Week!)
posted by Matt | 10:29 AM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home