Sorry it has been a while since our last blog post-we have been rather busy lately, exploring and having fun! I will do a few separate posts right now, to aid the reader in following along throughout our travels as well as to make it easier for me to write :)
Words to describe our first Shabbat here in Israel are: relaxing, leisurely, shluffy, cozy, and other pleasant words of this sort. I cooked dinner, as you saw in our last post, as Rafi tidied and swept the apartment. When Shabbat came, I lit the Shabbat candles. We decided to only leave the bathroom light on throughout Shabbat so the Shabbat candles were important for us to see our food as we ate. We recited kiddush over King David wine (really tasty and sweet wine), and hamotzi over our challah that we brought home from our nearby supermarket. Dinner was scrumptious! The chicken I grilled was succulent and moist with a red seasoning spice mix that we got at the Carmel market in Tel Aviv. We had a plethora of food and were able to save some for the next day! We noticed that the challah we had was not the best in the world-it was hard to chew and just all around not our favorite. We will try a new one next Shabbat.
A word about our level of shomer Shabbatedness. First of all, for those interested-being shomer Shabbat means "keeping" or "guarding" the Shabbat. Traditionally, keeping Shabbat consists of following a bunch of proscriptions and prohibitions from the beginning of Shabbat at sundown on Friday to the end of Shabbat an hour after sundown on Saturday. These rules include lighting Shabbat candles to usher in the Sabbath, reciting kiddush, washing hands, hamotzi over the challah, as well as a whole list of things you can not do. The prohibitions cover everything from not lighting fire (after the Shabbat candles are lit)-which in modern day is extrapolated to not driving or operating anything electrical to cause a flame to spark during Shabbat, to not writing, not watering plants, not scrubbing, not doing needlework, etc... All of these things are a form of creation. Since Shabbat echoes the original creation story of the world and on the original Shabbat Hashem stopped "Creation" on the seventh day, we mirror this by ceasing our works of creation and all work that indicates human dominance over the Earth. The one "thing" that Hashem created on Shabbat was rest because in ceasing his work, he was still creating the concept of rest itself. So, on Shabbat we rest from all creative work (except, interestingly enough, for the creative work of creating another life in the form of a baby-which is considered a double mitzvah to do on Shabbat).
While we are in Israel, I really wanted to experiment and try to keep Shabbat as best as I can. I want to see first of all, what and how it will enhance my Shabbat observance as well as the rest of my week. I also want to use this time to figure out which practices I would like to take back to the States to continue using. Rafi was on board with me when I initially asked him about the possibility of doing this. We have had to make a few tweaks as we get adjusted to it. For Shabbat, we clean house, bathe, and cook and prepare our meals for the entire 25 hours. We figure out which shul to go to in the morning. We turn off the computer for the entire duration of Shabbat. We do not write, or take pictures. Lights were a tricky thing for us because we did not want to waste electricity and harm our planet by keeping lights on all Shabbat. We also did not want to turn lights on and off unneccessarily for Shabbat. We decided that we would only keep the bathroom light on, and we would allow ourselves to turn on one lamp in our bedroom to read by when it was dark. During the day, we can open the blinds in the windows and the apartment is adequately illuminated. A funny note about books-We had planned to read quite a bit here, especially as our main Shabbat activity. I decided to buy the electronic Nook and download all my books onto it. So when Shabbat came around, I made the decision to use my Nook to read on Shabbat even though turning it on creates an electrical spark of fire.
On Shabbat morning, we put on our Shabbas clothes and walked the few blocks to a synagogue that we passed by multiple times before. We had no idea what to expect. It ended up being an Orthodox shul so Rafi went in the main entrance and I went around the side to the much smaller women's balcony. Services were already well under way when we arrived at around 9:10am. There were only four other women in the women's section. I could see over the balcony only when I stood up. I was so lost in the siddur (prayer book) and had such a difficult time trying to navigate my way through it. I don't think I ever actually found out where we were. This was for a variety of reasons-The services were very fast-paced and they spoke Hebrew quickly, the siddur was completely in Hebrew, the siddur layout did not seem very well put together like our Siddur Sim Shalom, and there was no page keeper before the congregation. Rafi told me later that he also had a difficult time with the siddur. All of the men wore a white button down dress shirt with dark slacks. It was funny because Rafi had chosen to wear his white button down dress shirt with dark slacks that same day. Torah service was great to listen to because the reader used Yemenite trope that sounded very ancient and interesting. All of a sudden, I looked down to where Rafi was sitting, but he wasn't there! I was searching all over in the general direction of where I had last seen him but could not find him anywhere. Then I expanded my search and found him on the Bimah dressing the Torah with a cute, slightly embarrassed smile on his lips. It was so cool!
After services ended, a woman said Shabbat Shalom to me and we made small talk for a couple of minutes. Rafi and I went back to our apartment and basically read, slept, ate, and talked all day long. We did Havdalah to mark the end of Shabbat, but we didn't have any wine because we forgot to save some! We will be better equipped for next Shabbat. All in all, I would say that it was a good day.
I looked online, but could not find a Conservative or "Masorti" synagogue anywhere close to where we are living. We still do not know what we will do for Rosh Hashanah services. We have been searching online for options, but the closest Conservative shul is abut an hour walk, and in the heat of Tel Aviv in chag (holiday) clothes, that just does not sound appealing to us. We shall see what transpires...
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