Rosh Hashanah at the Moshav

The month of October is full of Jewish holidays: Rosh Hashanah (the Jewish New Year), Yom Kippur (Day of Atonement), and Sukkot (Feast of Tabernacles) all fall within a few weeks of each other, which means a lot of celebrating (and a lot of days without public transportation--the downside of living in a country that shuts down every week on Shabbat and on all the religious holidays!). And for the past several years I have been dying to celebrate these holidays in Jerusalem, ever since I heard about the shofar-blowing and palm frond-waving and everything else.

Lucky me, this year I got my wish!

My graduate program paired students up with families who wanted to host foreigners for the high holy holidays, and I was lucky enough to be paired up with a family in Tal Shahar, a small farming community halfway between Jerusalem and Tel Aviv.

I'm going to have to apologize right now for the quality and lack of pictures--since Rosh Hashanah is a high holy holiday, observant Jews don't use electricity, drive, or use cameras. And although, as a Christian, I am not expected to follow any of those rules (as will later be apparent), I wanted to be respectful and as non-awkward as possible. So I just took my pocket-sized digital camera and took pictures discreetly. (The fact that the batteries in my camera were almost dead made it easier to resist taking many pictures!)

The house I stayed in was adorable and reminded me of childhood memories of going to stay at my Grandma Campbell's 100-year-old house in Idaho (minus the creepy basement). 

My host, Vered, told me that her parents built this house "with their own hands" more than 30 years ago when they first moved out here. She and her mother apologized several times for the state of the house (and one of Vered's brothers spent a few hours taking pictures of the cracks in the walls to submit to the TV show "Extreme Makeover" to see if they could get a spot on the show), but I told them they had more than 50 years to go before their home could rival my grandma's house (which surprisingly has held together quite well)!

This was my room. Isn't it cute? Vered said they call it the "giraffe room."


The view from the 2nd floor at sunset.

Their house had some serious character. Each room was a different size, and there were surprises everywhere. Like this airplane room.

My favorite part was this landing right at the top of the stairs. I love the camel.

Tal Shahar itself is a cute little farming community of about 50-60 families, just off the main highway between Jerusalem and Tel Aviv. It has an elementary school, a synagogue, and a gas station. If you need anything else, the next closest city is only about 15 minutes away.

Each of the houses has one of these little name plates out front, identifying the family that lives there. This is for the synagogue.

And this is the synagogue. I love it. When I told Vered that I wanted to take a picture of it, she looked at me strangely. "It's so cute!" I said. "No," she said, "It's kind of falling apart." "It's picturesque and quaint," I told her. But seriously. It is picturesque and quaint!

And who couldn't love a town with this little beauty? (courtesy of Vered's yard)

Before you become too enamored with the pictures of this adorable little moshav (the Hebrew word for these small little communities), let me share with you a few of the highlights from the trip:

1. I went to synagogue twice with Vered, and the first time they blew the shofar 100 times throughout the service. They only blow the shofar on Rosh Hashanah (100 times each service, I think) and on Yom Kippur (just once, to signal the end of the fast), so this was especially thrilling to me. 

2. Wednesday night we went to Vered's mother's house (Vered, a graduate student at Hebrew University, is currently the only one living in the family home) for dinner. Vered, three of her siblings, and her mom and mom's boyfriend were all there, and they certainly made for a lively bunch! After dinner and more than an hour of them bantering back and forth in Hebrew, Vered's mother asked me how long I had been studying Hebrew. "One month," I answered. "That's all?" she asked. "You should have said something and we would have spoken in English. You missed half the jokes!"

"No," I answered, laughing. "I missed all the jokes!" [If you don't find this funny, go and study another language for a month and then sit in on someone's conversation and see how much you can understand. For me, it was very little...and I certainly wasn't catching any of their puns!]

3. Thursday morning I went to synagogue with Vered, where I met the rabbi briefly. Vered had told him that I was coming to visit and that I was Christian. (I told her that I'm Christian as soon as she emailed me with the invitation to spend the holiday with her, in case she wondered why I don't drink wine and why I am so unfamiliar with Jewish practices!) That night, as I was sitting outside chatting with Vered and her family, two of the rabbi's daughters (about 11 and 9) walked up, looking very solemn and scared, and started to talk to Vered. She called me over and said, "There's been some sort of emergency...and the rabbi needs you to drive his son to the hospital! Can you do that?"

I knew, of course, that as an observant Jew he couldn't drive on the holiday, but I was slightly confused as to why they asked me, as Vered's entire family (except Vered herself) are secular Jews and were about to drive home. I quickly realized, however, that observant Jews can only ask non-Jews to break Shabbat and holiday rules for them (such as driving and turning on lights), and as the only Christian in the moshav, I was the only one they could ask!

Naturally I said yes and ran with the sisters back to the rabbi's house, fearing the worst. The girls knew enough English to tell me that their brother had cut his head open and he was covered with blood, and I was worried that I would have to drive an unconscious boy to the hospital in the middle of the night! Thankfully, though, when I got there the boy was quite conscious, the blood had all been cleaned up, and his father told me that the kids had been playing and someone had thrown a chair ("you know how kids are") and it had hit him in the head. "He was covered with blood," the rabbi said, "and you can see his brain through the opening in his head!" Sick.

Even in this state of emergency, I was surprised to see that the rabbi was still so strict in keeping the Shabbat rules. He gave me the keys to the car and then said, "And I'm sorry, but I'll need you to open the doors for us." I did so and then got in the driver's seat. I reached out to close my door, but before I could shut it the rabbi shouted "WAIT! We need to close our doors first."

I let them close their doors and then closed mine, still totally surprised that even in this state of emergency the rabbi was concerned about turning off lights (which happens when the last person closes their door!).

The trip to the hospital was pretty uneventful...a few hours of waiting around, they glued the cut closed and gave the boy a tetanus...etc, etc. As we were waiting, I tried my hardest to make friends with the boy, Ephraim. I kept trying to speak to him in Hebrew to see if he would smile...but nothing. His dad finally told me, "He speaks English!" so I tried that too. Still nothing.

Finally, while he was waiting for the tetanus shot, I told him, "I think you're very brave" in Hebrew. And finally! He smiled! He even laughed a little bit.

Later, when I told Vered what I had said, she said, "No! You didn't tell him he was brave...you said he was very angry!"

No wonder he was laughing!

When we got back to the moshav late that night, Vered asked the rabbi the same question I'm sure all of you are wondering--"Rabbi, the Torah says that life is more important than a holiday, than Shabbat--why didn't you take him to the hospital yourself, since it was an issue of life?"

The rabbi told her that yes, he could have taken him to the hospital--but once he was stitched up and it was no longer an issue of life, he wouldn't be able to drive him home and he would be stuck at the hospital for two days! And then there would be no one to conduct synagogue services, and everyone in the town would remember the time when the rabbi was stuck at the hospital for two days!

3. While I was at the moshav Vered told me that she needed to help an old woman feed her animals Friday morning. She told me I didn't have to help, but I told her that I know how to feed animals and I would be more than happy to go with her! Still, she expressed doubts the whole morning--wondering if it would be faster if she just went herself, since she thought it would take more time to have to explain everything to me! I chose not to be offended, realizing that when she lived in America, she lived in a rich Jewish community and the children were all spoiled. And I was certainly taught how to work as a child! Even though we never had animals, my parents would hang their heads in shame if I didn't know how to feed the chickens!

Vered, naturally, was shocked that we got done in half the time. (She had chickens and rabbits and other birds and an emu and goats and lots of other animals--probably 2-300.) Elisa, the old woman whose animals we fed, told me that I was a "natural" and "absolutely perfect!" Others in the moshav, however, were also worried about my experience with the animals--and the rabbi later asked if I experienced any trauma from feeding them! Nope, not me...I'm Utah bred! :) And while this picture proves nothing about me feeding the chickens, I thought I would include it because A-it shows off the awesome cowboy hat (I need one of those!) and Beatles shirt that Vered lent me, B-this is the outfit I wore to feed the animals, and C-I thought the composition and color scheme was pretty awesome.

4. The rabbi was so thankful that I drove his son to the hospital that he invited me and Vered over for lunch on Friday (after we fed the animals). On holidays and Shabbat, religious Jews perform a kiddush before eating, which is a blessing over bread and wine. They bless the wine and everyone drinks some, and then they bless the bless the bread and everyone eats a piece. I had told Vered several times I don't drink wine, but I still had several awkward kiddish moments where I just left the wine sitting in my cup (it's only a swallow) and didn't drink anything for the rest of the evening, thinking that that was perhaps the least awkward solution.

Anyway, at the rabbi's house naturally some wine was poured in my cup, and naturally I didn't drink it. After the kiddush was over and everyone started eating, I whispered to Vered and asked if she wanted to drink my wine. "Oh yeah," she said, and then told the rabbi, "Breanne's a Mormon and doesn't drink wine." "Not even just a little?" the rabbi's wife asked, and I said no, not even just a little. "She doesn't drink coffee or tea, either," volunteered Vered.

"No coffee!" exclaimed the rabbi's wife. "Alcohol I can understand, but coffee?! You don't know what you're missing out on!"

I laughed to myself that an observant Jew would be surprised that I abstained from drinking something. And I had enough tact to NOT say what I was thinking: "You've never had a bacon cheeseburger? You don't know what you're missing!" (Observant Jews, of course, don't eat pork and don't eat meat and milk products together, so this would be a double whammy.)

5. Vered and I didn't attend synagogue service Friday night because her family came in for dinner. But later we were informed that the rabbi told everyone in the service about what had happened to his son and how I drove him to the hospital, etc...and then he told everyone that I'm Mormon, and Mormons don't drink alcohol, and they are a lot like Jewish people! (I'm assuming he was referring to my large family and modest clothing.) Although I am not affiliated with BYU I respect their non-proselyting rules (which helps keep the BYU Center open in Jerusalem) so I don't tell people about the beliefs of Latter-day Saints, but here was a rabbi in synagogue doing it for me! :)

6. After Saturday morning synagogue service (they sure do attend a lot of synagogue services on Shabbat and holidays!), the rabbi waited until everyone left and then asked if I would like to go up to the front and see the Torah scroll--which is a great honor! Naturally, I was thrilled, and he opened up the scroll and asked me if I could read it. My 4 years of training served me well, and the rabbi was astounded that I could read the Torah. "You're amazing," he kept saying...especially after he learned that I know Chinese and Arabic as well! (It really wasn't that impressive, though, because the Hebrew said something like, "And the Lord said to Moses...." which you learn in the first semester of Biblical Hebrew!)

Well, friends, I think my trip to the moshav was a success. It was so great, actually, that I am going back to celebrate the end of Sukkot with Vered! Who knows what adventures await me...