Shabbat with Family

Part One of The Shabbat Series

My memory of last Friday and the weekend that followed is frustratingly sparse for the small amount of time that has passed since its occurrence. I find that I must write nearly every day to avoid losing precious moments into forgetfulness. Unfortunately, when so much is taking place, internet, not to mention motivation, is a rarity to be savored. As it is, I remember waking up the morning after the shloshim to Daniel quietly saying my name. To my relief, I did not take much coaxing (as far as my own memory goes) and was relatively easy to get up. There was a moment of confusion when I looked around at my all but completely unfamiliar surroundings and tried to puzzle out where I was, then I remembered and quickly climbed out of the bunk above my sleeping third cousin Eliav.

The morning was still grey, the sun not quite illuminating the stretch of road between the home of the Zahavi-Asa's and their shul so early in the day. I put on one of Daniels kippah's, a large style in conservative brown that slid back on my head when I moved began the short walk up the hill to the shul, where Daniel was bringing me to join his morning minion.

I struggled to follow the words in the Hebrew prayer book. Daniel had thoughtfully brought me one with an English translation, but seemed to forget that a translation wouldn't help me chant along any better than full Hebrew script. As the leader mumbled along at top speed through prayers, many of which were completely unfamiliar to me, the congregation of twenty or so men stood and bowed in unison without being prompted. I awkwardly followed their lead, enduring the stares from men around the room, all aware and silently critical of the stranger among them wearing a t-shirt,shorts and neither a tallis nor T'fillen like the rest. At least my Hebrew had been improving enough to say the bare bones of the service along with them.

The service finally came to an end and Daniel led me out to his car to go buy groceries. On the way, Aviva called him and we circled back to give a ride to Eliav and his friends. It was as commonplace to give rides to your own kids as it was to give to friends and even strangers. We stopped for a few hitchhikers after dropping off the boys. It was peculiar at first, especially in light of the recent kidnapping, but mostly they sat quietly in the back and didn't interrupt. We drove past the round about where the boys had been taken several times that weekend.

From there we drove to the "Peace Market", where jews and Arabs could shop side by side. Daniel intended it to be a revelation to me I'm sure, but raised apart from conflict as I was, it would've been far stranger to see a segregated market. That being said, there were very few arabs there. Tensions, it seems, were to high to mingle. Daniel told me that if I saw anything I wated I should grab it. I wasn't hungry, barely thirsty, and honestly just wanted to stay quiet and unobtrusive.
"Humor me" he said, laying on the Jewish guilt. I clumsily grabbed some chips, a flavor we don't have in America, figuring that if he asked it must be the polite thing to do. We went to the bakery, the health food store, bouncing all over the market, each time Daniel encouraging me to get more and more. I eventually got more comfortable but wound up with more food than I could eat all weekend. Later it would become clear that I was expected to eat everything before Shabbat and there was a definite air of disappointment when I couldn't. Daniel kept telling his family to ask me if they could eat "my" food that he had told me to gather and had paid for. How was I supposed to be polite?

We returned to their home and began to cook, that's when the conversation turned to politics. Daniel, a self proclaimed right wing fanatic and humorously attested fascist, seemed to be the incarnation of every old-white-republican caricature that the left wing news sources that I had been raised on had taught me to scoff at. He thinks Obama is weak, that the democratic party is full of naïve optimists who sing kumbaya (actual words), that government supported birth control is nonsense, and that Rachel Maddow is insane. We kept running into the issue of evil and what is to be done about it. He would cite the Talmud that "we must purge evil from our midst with fire" and I would question his definition of evil, why he thought himelf qualified to judge, and why the destruction of humanity, evil or not, should not in itself be considered evil. I was immensely grateful to my course for teaching me biblical history of the nation, because fresh in my mind were my own Talmud based rebutles and counter arguments. Over and over again we would return to the core issue, he could not imagine any reason why the Palestinians would do what they do. He said that they want Jews dead and that was that. He looked at no cause and effect, no exchange of cruelty, he was only a victim.
"They took our sons" he would say "that is all the proof of evil I need"

Our argument went most of the day and into the next to both of our satisfaction. We're Jews, we joked, argument is in our blood. Its fun. WE settled down on Friday a little before it got dark and got ready for Shabbat. When the rest of the family returned home, they got dressed in their nice clothing and got ready for services. Feeling underdressed, I borrowed one of Daniels white shirts that fit me about as well as a large tablecloth. To avoid the shirt falling to my knees, I tucked it into my shorts. Looking like a disproportional schoolkid, We walked back to the shul.

The environment had been rewritten to an unbelievable degree. We arrived to a room full of men bent over their books just the same, but instead of mumbling quiet incantations, they were now working full volume. The chorus filled out the room with out-of-sync harmonic minor gravitas. Each person sang soulfully and with passion. they each broke off into harmonies and supporting lines with absolute ease from years of practice and familiarity that I had never experienced in reform. The words resonated inside every person, their meanings were clear, not abstract as to someone who doesn't speak the language. They all knew exactly what they were saying and agreed with it full heartedly and still there was more.

I had never heard these melodies before. Many of the prayers, if I had ever heard them, I didn't recognize. Yet, in that musical little room, cramped with passionate daveners, I was able to follow along with ease. The words came, assisted by my neighbors and the scrawling text on the page, quickly and fluently. I sang the melodies when I could, improvised harmony when I had to, and fell right into the flow. When the services came to a close, we walked back down the hill to their home and had a truly amazing Shabbat dinner. I ate as much as I could but when I finished Aviva still asked
"do you want any more? No? Not a big eater huh?"
I hope as hard as I can that she didn't notice me openly gape at her. I was stuffed.

We said the Birkat HaMazon to close the meal and went to bed.