שנה טובה ומתוקה--Shanah Tovah u'Metukah

Shanah Tovah u'Metukah to everyone!

This is Rosh Hashanah Gameplan, Version 5.7.67:

It all began a few weeks ago when the Klein-Katz family invited me to their open-house potluck lunch on Sunday, the second day of Chag. By accecpting this invitation, I narrowed me plans to a neighborhood. Or so I thought. It turns out that Flo lives approximately six buildings away from Yavin and his family in the Abu Tor neighborhood of southeast Jerusalem, and we arranged that I'd stay over at her house the first night and follow her to shul and wherever she was going for dinner. I still needed Saturday lunch, dinner, and bed. I looked at my map and tried to scale the distance between Abu Tor and Katamon, where I figured I might catch Rafi for some or all of these. I'm not one of those suburban kids: I'm perfectly used to walking around, and I'm especially willing to do it on Shabbat to see what I can see. Plans were floatable until almost the last minute when I was going to take Yavin or Rafi for Saturday night, whoever called back first. Turned out Rabbi Michael did, which was OK because then Rafi said he was probably going to stay at his yeshiva for chag anyway.

So it was settled, then. The plan: Flo's house, then Shirah Chadashah for Kabbalat Shabbat/Chag, then her dinner place, then back to her house. A random shul in the morning, then walk to eat with Cheryl and Josef and either meet the Klein-Katzes at their shul, Kol HaN'shama, or walk straight to their dinner place and back to their house to sleep. Another random shul in the morning, hang out in the afternoon for lunch, then maybe go back to Flo's for havdalah or wait to actually see Rafi. Something like that.

But it's Chag. So there wasn't just walking. There was a lot of walking. Let's start with Friday at 2:45 AM. I haven't written about our overnight Zionism trip Wednesday night, but there are a few (like two, maybe) pictures showing the highlight. It wasn't terribly fun until the night when we played a lot of shesh besh. But, to quote Meir Kahane's student: "That's not what I came to tell you about." It just sets up the background of not necessarily having had so much sleep.

So, Friday, 2:45 AM. Wake up to say a quick Selichot, which Ashkenazim traditionally say beginning the week before Rosh Hashanah and the Sephardim, maybe because of some guilt complex, start saying the month before (the same day the shofar starts and the day that Moses went back up Mount Sinai). It was pretty quick given that the last day of Selichot is the longest day. But we were going to take advantage of this length. In groups of 30 or so, we walked around the Nachlaot neighborhoods just off (west, I think of) Machane Yehuda and went into three synagogues, all of which, by chance, were from Sephardic places. (Nachlaot is a series of small, walled neighborhoods, each of which originally contained Jews from Diaspora communities who wanted to maintain that sort of home-y culture and therefore moved as groups to these neighborhoods.) One was the Greek synagogue, one the Halabi (Syrian), and one the "Synagogue Ades of the Glorious Aleppo Community" (also Syrian). We were lucky in that we managed to catch one particular refrain in all three synagogues and therefore got to hear how similar they all are. To prove that religion intersects with the mundane in Israel, our tour guide brought out his CD player and we listened to a #1 hit from a few years ago. There, under the vocals and the drums, was this same catching melody. I'll see if I can upload the 9-second clip I recorded at the Ades synagogue.

Once awake at this ugly--and cold!--hour of the morning, we walked through a totally-empty shuk (this is 4:22 AM) over to the Old City, specifically to the Kotel, for the Hashkamah (sunrise) minyan. We were too late, though that's hardly my fault because I was one of three people following on the heels of our guide as she led us through--oops--the Jaffa Gate and the empty Armenian Quarter. It was a little late for sunrise but we did the quickest Shacharit I've ever seen because the buses were almost ready to pick us up. There was the usual cup-rattling under the noses of people clearly talking to something more important. Also the usual treat for any group that goes through Nachlaot: Marzipan rugelach!

Any sane person would have gone to bed upon returning but I had to stay up to await the aforementioned phone calls to settle my plans for the weekend. Idiot. I did wind up sleeping for a little bit, though for about three hours instead of the six I really wanted. Then, after being confused by a topotogical impossibility with the #20 bus and the failure of the #12 to come, I split a taxi with Eli that took us both to within a few minutes of where we were going. Remember this: he's from the Madison area. And he was staying with the Kol HaN'shama Rabbi.

Well, it was great to see Flo Low again. She's got the top floor of a little place overlooking the Promenade and UN stuff to the South and the fence to the East. In winter, without the haze, she thinks she'll be able to see Jordan. We did a little quick readying, chatting, then moved off to shul. The great thing about Shirah Chadashah is that it's Carlebach but it's also slow enough to allow everyone to harmonize. I thought after the summer that I was going to adopt Yedidiah as "my" shul but I may switch allegiances. Bonus points that the first person to whom I wished a Shanah Tovah was Michael Oren who this time greeted me with, "I spoke with your uncle this afternoon." So maybe it's true what "they" say that you only remember someone after seeing him twice in two different situations.

Afterwards I met the family we'd be eating with, which Flo described as מעולה and נהדרת, both of which are slightly more excellently cool than מצוין. (Use Answers.com. And just wait for the coming allusion.) It's 17-year-old BGG triplets and their nearlytwelve brother, four years ago from Teaneck, NJ but since then slowly changing from "sabbatical in Israel" to making aliya. She's right, because the kids were a lot of fun to be with that night. Science, baseball, frisbee, funny jokes, etc. And then we played some Jewish geography, as in Rafi coached the kid and the male triplet played ball with Yoni. They're all (Yankees) fans and I really see a lot of myself from that age in the 12-year-old.

Flo and I went back a little after midnight and talked on her did-I-mention-the-view porch for a little while, some about national and other politics, some about social groups, but all of it waiting to be continued in the future because I may have mentioned that I woke up at 2:45 AM. Yes, this was all within 22 hours of waking up.

TBC...