“sAbBaTh sHaLoM” – a rEsTiNg dAy

I went with Emma to visit an Orthodox Jewish family and spend the Sabbath with them…It was an interesting experience…
The father of the family is a Rabi from Iraque, the mom is a Jew from Iran (interesting combination by itself) and they both met in Jerusalem… She’s quiet a funny woman and we enjoyed a lot listening to her stories…
I don’t have many pictures because they are not allowed to use cameras and we wanted to respect the “rules” as much as possible ( we took this ones when the Sabbath was over)…
I have to confess that I did break the rules… I ripped my own toilet paper :-) … they are also not allowed to do that, so they have a bag of toilet paper already ripped in small pieces for the whole day… I thought that was too much for me :-)…
they cannot turn on and off the light, so they leave the toilet light on all the time as well… the kitchen light was always on too, coz that ‘s what we do on a Sabbath, we eat and sleep… at some time some of them also read some scriptures, and that’s it… It’s a family day which is nice… they prepare all the food before hand… they also have big containers with hot water for tea coz they cannot boil it…

So everything started when the sun set… me and Emma had to get a taxi coz the buses stop running after 5.30… actually most of the city literally stops… the streets become desert and most of the shops and business close…
The family knew we were not religious so they were explaining what to do and introducing us to their tradition…
The mom lit the little candles floating in a pot with oil and say some prayer, in Hebrew of course… then we go to wash our hands in a particular way… we start with the right hand, we fill a little pot and drop water in our hands for 3 times… then we go to dry our hands and say another prayer…
We all went to the table and at this time everyone was already anxious to start eating…
But before that, the father came and walked 2 times around the table giving the blessing for the Sabbath…after that they picked the bread and blessed it with another prayer…we all ate from that bread… Then he picked the wine and did the same … For me that was like taking communion, and I would actually like to have those prayers in English because I guess I will understand better what Jesus meant by saying He is the bread and the wine…
Well, after that was just eating, speaking, eating, laughing, eating… and what else?! Oh yah, eating :-) …and finally sleeping…
The next day we woke up and we kept the rhythm…eating, sleeping, eating, speaking, eating, playing, sleeping, eating… It’s not much more than that :-)…
Emma was actually really sick with a cold, so she took her Sabbath really seriously, she hardly left the room and I took her some food when she was awake…
Actually I broke another rule coz I made some carrot syrup for her sore throat… In Sabbath we’re not allowed to create anything… Of course they didn’t even told me anything coz they knew I was not religious, but they couldn’t do it… Emma even wondered what would that family do if she really needed a doctor or something :-)…

But I had great fun…I really enjoyed the family and the fellowship and I believe a resting day in the week is really necessary… I would just skip the extremes… but I believe it’s an healthy discipline we should all practice…

As the sun set on Saturday, they made the ending prayer and everything was allowed again… computer was on… one of the sons pulled out a cigarette… lights were switched on and off… we could take pictures…toilet paper was ripped… etc…
Well I was blessed …

Sabbath Shalom !!!