This time, Shabbat B'yachad wasn't mandatory. Those who wanted to sign up could attend any or all parts of the program: the trip to the JBO (previous post), Shabbat services, Shabbat dinner, oneg, games, Shabbat lunch, learning/Torah discussion, Havdallah (the separation ceremony between Shabbat and the rest of the week), and Israeli dancing. Needless to say, I participated in EVERYTHING! Not only did I participate in everything, but I helped to organize the dinner in a fairly substantial way. I helped to organize our group attending a minyan (group) for Shabbat evening services (at Bnei IKAR, a group that uses drumming and community leaders to pray), and helped arrange the meal itself and the room setup and decoration. I had no problem doing it; in fact I enjoyed it! I am on the Shabbat meals committee so we threw around some emails with some ideas ahead of time. We decided to do a dairy meal with lots of healthy vegetarian options, so everyone had to think of what they wanted to bring. I decided to make a vegetarian chicken parmesean. Knowing it was going to be comparably more expensive than some other items people would be bringing, I snatched some money from Yonit who gladly pitched in financially and let me do the work of cooking it, which was so much fun! It ended up coming out looking and tasting absolutely delicious, and I'm really glad I kept some extras for myself. I also made a salad of chopped cucumber, red and yellow peppers, and carrots, tossed with olive oil, salt, and pepper. So much yummy food! Can you say...leftovers???
Before the meal, the Shabbat rituals committee explained many of the rituals and customs we perform on Shabbat, in the theme of "Shabbat 101" so we could all learn some basics about the traditions. Danit, Rachelle, and Josh each led or instructed at various times throughout the pre-meal and during-meal festivities, and a lot was learned by all. The meal itself was fantastic and was followed by oneg/dessert and then we went outside to play some games. Yonit is good at coming up with games to play. This one was more of an activity than a game, you could say, but it was very interesting, very fun, and very telling about us as a group. Each of us took one word from a baggie filled with words on paper, had to look at the word, and give it to another person in the circle to whom it was appropriate. Some people may get more than one word; others may not get any. After everyone has given their words, we each say which words we received and from which person, who then explains to all of us why the word was chosen.
All in all, it was very telling about how well we have gotten to know each other. I got all the hippie/environmental words, as well as HOCKEY because a little birdy in a tree (Josh) told our fairly new and special guest who doesn't really know anyone too well (Nimo) I am what you could call, a little obsessed. I also got "kids" from Rachelle because she knows I want to have kids someday and I love looking at cute kids around Israel all the time. I gave "walking" to Isaac because he always makes a point to walk around Jerusalem, even if his destination is over an hour away; he just plans his time in advance. I also gave "blanket" to Josh because a few weeks ago on our siyur, he let me lean on him during the bus ride, and we snuggled together to try and take a nap. It just reminded me of a blanket, so there ya go. Word association and memories and personality traits and cool characteristics. Was so fun we played a few rounds before wanting to head back to our own places.
The next morning, ahem, afternoon, I woke up, and went to the home of our Judaic teacher (Rachel Goldberg) for lunch. So I had lunch for breakfast - not too shabby. She had originally wanted to have as may WUJS partcipants as possible, sign up for a lunch, and she would match us somewhere in the neighborhood with warm welcoming open families. Only 9 of us signed up, which one could argue is too much for one household, but we are for the most part, her loyal students, and she couldn't say no. So she and her husband and her 3 beautiful children hosted us for a great meal of food, company, and conversation. It was a privilege to be in her home, to dine at her table, and be in the company of such a great family! I think we all had a great time. In fact, we had such a great time there, we barely had an hour to spend on our own before our activities resumed once again.
At 4:30, we met in "The Mo" short for moadon/lounge in our building, for a short learning/study session about Shabbat. Going along with the Shabbat 101 theme, some readings had been prepared ahead of time, and others were invited to share thoughts about what it means to make Shabbat or separate it from the rest of the week. One of the best things about this Shabbat B'yachad was that Mike Mitchell, our program's executive director, was in Jerusalem with us for the entire program. He and his wife Molly live in Be'er Sheva now, as she is attending medical school there, so it was a treat and a privilege to have dined with them the night before, and share in a learning with Mike this afternoon. Immediately after the learning was over, we went to the roof to perform the Havdallah ceremony, which separates the holiness of the Sabbath day from the mundaneness of the rest of the week. It's a short ceremony that involves grape juice or wine (because we're Jews, what ceremony doesn't involve the fruit of the vine?), the smell of spices (as we take in the last nice sweet smells of the Sabbath that we are sad to see leave) and a multiple wick candle, to represent multiple types of Jews in our world as well as to fulfill the blessing of illuminating lights, as in plural, not just one. It is a beautiful ceremony and a short one, and is done after 3 stars can be seen in the sky, indicating that the Shabbat is gone and the new day, the first one of the rest of the week, has arrived, and we usher that in. We extinguish the candle in the grape juice (after we have taken a sip of course, not before), wish all a good week, and then we're off!
Rachelle and Danit lead us in some fun Israeli dancing on the mirpeset/patio area of our building. Of course anyone is welcome to join and the music is fairly loud so our crowd of dancers changes from song to song. Some of us worked up quite a sweat! Israeli dancing involves lots of jumping. Well that's it for Shabbat B'yachad. I think it was nice to participate in all aspects of the program. I really had a nice time despite some of the stress I felt with the Shabbat time crunch and needing to be done cooking by a certain time prior to the sun going down, so that nothing extra was cooked on the Sabbath (against Jewish law) which is a custom some people in our building observe. Out of respect for them, I finished my meal early enough to squeeze in a shower and a nap before getting to services on time.
In the end, I was really pleased with how everything went, and thankful to be part of a community open to all kinds of people, all kinds of ideas, and all kinds of imitation chicken parmesean.
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