Rosh Hashana

This was the first year that Rina and I spent Rosh Hashana without visiting either one of our parental pairings, and we went into it hopeful of experiencing something new and different that would serve as an exciting beginning to our year in Israel.

We started off on Wednesday night at Yakar, where were bumped into our friend Arielle Berger and her family. We walked with them toward our hostess for dinner. Unfortunately, because we were so engrossed in conversation, we didn't realize until we were already on the hostess' street that neither of us knew where she lived. We each took one guess, at opposite sides of the street, and once we proved them wrong I ran home to check on the exact building number. Of course, the building was at the intersection we had arrived at initially. By the time we arrived, we were an hour later than expected. The assembled were nice enough to wait for us, and we settled in for an enjoyable family meal with all of the standbyes - gefilte fish, apples and honey, chicken soup with matza balls, multiple meats (including tongue - hurray!) and so on. We were hoping to see a crazy tradition, such as sheep heads or their equivalent in weirdness, but sadly there were none. What there were plenty of, instead, were characters to entertain us. Other guests at the the dinner included Leora, a non-Jewish Chinese student who will be returning to Beijing after Sukkot to complete her Master's Degree in Jewish Thought; the hostess' non-religious daughter and family, including their aethiest son; and a 17-year-old who recently graduated high school, who spent last summer in Israel with one of my own recently graduated students. The chief entertainer of the evening was an Aunt, who arrived 90 minutes later than we because she had gone to the wrong building (next door) and had to be escorted over by the police. Once settled in, she complimented the hostess on her choice of wine, having forgotten that it was she (the Aunt) who had brought it. There are many other examples of the hilarity she provided, but I think these suffice to demonstrate the fun we had that evening.

The next day we prayed at a synagogue named "Nafka Mina", which exists only for three days each year (Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur) in the dilapidated Bnei Akiva main office. Even though the building was crumbling around us and the air conditioned attempted to evolve into a refrigerator, the singing was beautiful and you hardly noticed (hardly) that the service took 5.5 hours. For lunch we went to my cousins, who live nearby, and had a very enjoyable afternoon. The evening was spent with the aforementioned Bergers, and the enjoyability continued.

After shul Friday we finally got to see a weird tradition when we joined our friends the Cremas and their family for lunch. Apparently, the pagan Jews of Italy plant wheat on the first day of Rosh Hashana on a plate in the center of the table. If the wheat sprouts within a certain amount of time, they are destined to a good year. If not, they with no doubt be plundered by cossacks or something similar. The lunch was dairy, which was a nice break, and of course concluded with ice cream (in cones!) and rice pudding (real, not from a jello packet!). The rice pudding is only an "of course" moment if you know that Sima is British. Which you do. Now.

Shabbat was spent quietly, just the two of us, in celebration of the massive amount of calories we'd taken in and Rina's birthday. This evening, before Shabbat ended, we went over to the Goldstein's (Caren is in my program at Hebrew U, while Ben is studying at Pardes with Rina) for Seuda Shlishit, and will soon depart to celebrate Rina's birthday in a less Sabbatical fashion. Overall, it was a great weekend, appropriately spiritual, comedic, and pagan, as all Jewish holidays should be.