Shabbat (The Sabbath) in Israel

Ask any Jewish immigrant to Israel what he likes best about life here, and unless he is a determined secularist, he's mostly to answer "Shabbat and holidays."

Friday evening in Jerusalem - no need for caution when
walking on tram tracks!

(By the way, the idea of a determined secularist 'making Aliyah' is not so outlandish as you might think.  Many Jews who move here specifically to escape persecution or insecurities in their countries of origin - for example, those arriving from Russia, Ukraine, France, South Africa - might not be religiously inclined at all.  My ulpan class is a good example; many of my classmates have little to no religious reference for moving, and living here.)

There is just something magical about the way that the country starts slowing down around mid-afternoon Friday, as Shabbat approaches.  As I write this, it is about 2.30PM Friday and I feel it.  No, things are not completely quiet.  Friday afternoon is a popular time for teenage boys to scream around the neighborhood on anything propelled by an internal combustion engine; right now, quad ATV's seem to be all the rage, and the more ineffective the muffler, the better.  So, it's not as if the air becomes more still.  In fact there's a bustle about Fridays as people who are Sabbath-observant rush around to make preparations.  Friday mornings are not a good time to have to do any shopping, because everybody seems to be in a rush and a crush to get things done.  But once the noon hour passes, you can feel the change.  Traffic on the streets, heavy on Friday mornings, starts to thin out.  The smells of cooking are everywhere.  Coming home from the bakery to buy my loaves of challah and a cake for Shabbat, I joyously breathed in the savory aromas of cooking that seemed to emanate from every apartment as I walked home. (My own included, as Clara was cooking up a storm.)  Any other time of the week, when concluding a transaction in a shop you might get a yom tov (good day) from the clerk or salesperson.  But on Fridays (really, it starts Thursdays, because the assumption is that they won't see you again before the Sabbath) you get a Shabbat shalom.  

Even in decidedly-secular Tel Aviv, one feels the
change as Shabbat falls.

As the afternoon starts fading into the twilight, you see the religious people starting to come out of their homes and walking to the many synagogues.  Israel is a casual country, and nobody will get any flack from the guy in the next row if they come into the synagogue in everyday clothes (although a woman might get stares if she comes in with bare shoulders and arms), but you see many people walking to prayers in their best clothes.  In certain circles, it is customary for both men and women to dress completely in white in Friday evening, but others wear more formal jackets and even ties.  Hariedi men mostly wear black, and those of certain hasidic sects wear silk robes and shtreml fur hats. 

Even among the non-religious, it is common for a family to gather for a big dinner on Friday evening.  The kids in the army are often home on leave, and the kids beyond army age who have gone off to start lives of their own often still come home to their parents' homes to share the Friday evening meal.

On Saturday morning, the religious are of course back at synagogue for the morning prayers and Torah reading.  The non-religious, if they aren't relaxing at home, are outside, walking, running, going to the beach, gathering in a park.  Because the weather is good almost any day of the year here (right now in Ashqelon it is 26 Celsius, down from today's high of 28...and it's the 22nd of December), people tend to go outside a lot.  But the main thing is that, on Shabbat, few people are going to work or rushing around.  It's as if the entire country 'takes a chill pill.'

To me, that's a big draw to life in Israel; the sense of shared slowing-down that happens once a week and on other occasions when holidays occur.  Whether one observes these days in a religious or secular fashion, they still happen - and they influence how the entire country behaves.