October 10-17

Last week I wrote a little about how it was fun and refreshing to be in a place where life buzzed with the spirit of the Chagim. It is pretty easy to be moved by the Yamim Noraim, Rosh Hasashana and Yom Kippur. No matter who you are, these tend to stir you. Sukkoth is a whole different ball game. To have the opportunity to buy a Sukkah next to where you pick up the news paper is one thing. To see a city alive with Sukkoth and really feel like there is something special going on is really quite an eye opener.

We had a superb Shabbat last week, having Elan and Nomi stay over with Shoshana for the first time. I think everyone had fun, perhaps for different reasons. Elan and Nomi caught up on sleep and Barbara and I caught up on smiles and giggles (not to mention an few whimpers…). Shoshana just embodies cuteness. We also were looking forward to Sukkoth in Modiin where we would be spending the first 2 days with Nomi’s family. Ariel and a frind of his from Toronto Noam Gryssman also joined us. We had a great time, but unfortunately Robert was not there, having returned to Toronto to be wit his parents who had been in a car accident. All is OK, they are home, but he really is able to better assess the situation in Toronto than from afar. We definitely missed his presence in the Sukkah.

So here we are in Modiin, a very Israeli town, and we are keeping 2 days of Yom Tov. Why you ask, why not when in Rome (or Israel) do as the locals do? Well, its very complicated, and I could go into a long discourse on the various customs and manipulations thereof that “Hutznikkim” (People who live out of Israel or Hutz La-aretez) go through, but I won’t. Suffice it to say that a prevailing rabbinic concept is that if you are definitely returning home (we are) you keep your own custom from home. So we were a few souls keeping 2 days amongst a sea of Israelis who only had one day of holiday. Pretty weird to have our hostess ask if she could drive us to shul….Anyway the second day of Yom tov, there was a minyan for the non-Israelis; about 16 people came, including Lionel Rabinovitch from Montreal, who was visiting his daughter Emily. Now, if Roanne is sitting, he told me that he will be a great grandfather soon; Debbie’s eldest daughter is expecting! Exciting news. The weather in Modiin was hot and himid on Tuesday and then overnight it rained quite a bit. Not enough to wreck our sukkah partying, and we enjoyed a cooler day 2 in the Sukkah.

Back to Jerusalem on Wednesday night Barbara and I saw the world premier of Against the Tide, a Simon Wiesenthal production about the stonewalling by the US government during WWII when the word of the Nazi’s annihilation of the Jews came out. This was aided and abetted by the World Jewish Congress, especially its’ President Rabbi Stephen Wise. It was a very sobering movie, with some very uplifting messages about several activist groups that were able to fight the madness and get some political action.

On Thursday was the piece de resistance. As you know, the biblical term for the three major holidays, Pesach, Shavuot and Sukkoth (who said Chanukka?) are the “shalosh regalim” ; the three ascents (regel is literally foot) when all of Israel marched to Jerusalem to serve God in the Temple. Today, we got just a small taste of that. During each Pesach and Sukkoth, there is a mass, communal Priestly blessing performed at the Kotel. Today thousands of people converged in the morning to be part of this. We were able to participate, away from the crowds, on the roof of Yeshivat Hakotel with a fair view. The numbers of people were huge. The Jewish quarter was alive all day with music, singing, plays and people were flocking to celebrate. Then in the afternoon, a historic event. Following the 7th year of the Shmita cycle, the people of Biblical Israel all were commanded to descend on Jerusalem, and hear passages of the Torah read by the king. This year completed a cycle of Shmita (more on that in the future, if anyone is interested!) and so a Hakhel (Literally, gather people) ceremony was held. I think 200,000 is a conservative number for the amount of people who descended on the western Wall Plaza for this. The current chief rabbis and recent chief rabbis were present, and there was music and dancing. Since there was no king available, and Shimon Peres does not read torah (the previous President, Katsav, did read torah 7 years ago; now he is being investigated for rape….) so the Torah reading was divided amongst high ranking rabbis. Just to be part of this gathering, to be linked with history and a gathering of people of this magnitude, and especially to feel as if we were part of the ascent to Jerusalem along with people from all over Israel, Europe, North and South America etc…the biblical commandment of descending on Jerusalem to celebrate the holiday is very much with us today as over 2000 years ago. We also had pretty tired raglayim (feet) from the walking we did today!

We are preparing for Shabbat in Ranana, and Shmini Atzerert and Simchat Torah to come….