I asked him what he thought this experience had meant to me. He said with some conviction and authority in his voice that that was my place. He explained that when I was in Australia, I was far away and missed being here. It was only here that I was somehow close. He continued to tell me that he himself didn’t really feel anything much at all when he was there at the Kotel. In his opinion, a person is better off finding a partner in life with whom he can feel happy rather than a coreligionist who would make him unhappy. He said that all too often, religion causes unnecessary problems and divisions between people. It is much better to have a friend who brings happiness, he said, even if that friend is from another culture – although he conceded that a coreligionist can also bring happiness.
I thought that one thing had nothing to do with the other. Happiness comes and goes. A person can be extremely happy one day and feel most unhappy the next. Happiness is a “now thing”. It also seems to me that a person is more likely to find long-term happiness, contentment and fulfilment with a partner of a similar background and culture than with someone very different, especially when children and family become involved in everyday life, or in the long term, as we age.
The longer term and the short term!
Now I asked Avi if he was interested to know what the Kotel really meant to me, as it was very different from what he had thought. He said yes. I explained that he had never seen me pray my daily Shacharit (morning service). To me, it is always fairly much the same, but special; of course, sometimes it may not be quite as deep and spiritual as at other times; but in any case, I never feel properly dressed in the morning without my Shacharit. My Shacharit is the same at home in Australia as it is in America, Europe, Israel or East Timor – it is the same anywhere and everywhere in the world. The Kotel does have a very deep and sentimental meaning which enhanced my experience; but, it is not its stones that created that enhancement.
I said to Avi that both of us were here as children of Holocaust survivors. We were both part of a continuity of a people that has survived for over two thousand years of exile and dispersion in many parts of the world. Our survival defied logic. Whether we agreed or disagreed with organised religion and whether or not we felt part of it was not the point. The point was that our children and their children, our grandchildren and our future generations, all form part of this continuity.
Avi replied that his identity was anchored in Israel; this was all that mattered to him. He did not need religion, he said, as he simply did not have any feelings for religion nor belief in G-d. When his children were young and asked him, their father, if G-d existed, he had answered that he could not really tell them yes or no.
I told him that there are many people in the world who think the same way as he does and that at least he and his children are lucky to be living in Israel, because there they generally mix with an Israeli Jewish society and thus have some kind of identity. Elsewhere this is more problematic.
For me the Kotel represents Jewish continuity and connects the present with the past as well as with the future. When I prayed at the Kotel I felt a close togetherness with my people; in my prayers, I was praying with them through history and eternity. I was not alone. I was an individual – and at the same time also a part of the Jewish nation. I felt part of Jewish continuity. I acutely experienced myself as being closely intertwined with a congregation of Jewish souls; I felt this on a spiritual level, very far from any physical experiences.
We then walked back to Avi’s car and drove to Abu Ghosh, an Arab village, where one can get the best humus in all Israel, according to Avi. An hour later I sat in the King David lounge at Ben Gurion airport, as my flight was delayed due to demonstrations in Frankfurt, where President Bush was visiting …
I sat in the lounge, sipping on a glass of red wine. I was reminiscing. I closed my eyes and thought about Avi and Abu Ghosh. I dozed. I was back at the Kotel. I felt as if I were at home on Shabbat.
Over the years we have enjoyed the company of many people in our home as well as when we are away, or invited out. You see, Shabbat is Shabbat everywhere we are and everywhere we go.
It is never important to us how people arrive or leave, except that they are safe and as comfortable and as happy as we can make them feel. Shabbat is not exclusively ours. Shabbat is for everyone to enjoy and so many people have remarked about how they had never known what Shabbat feels like; until they came to us, they experienced Shabbat as just another day of the week. But when they came to our home …
Both psychologically and practically, the Sabbath is the focal point; our weeks revolve around it, rather than it getting in the way of the rest of the week.
Our self-imposed restrictions, synchronised with Torah law, dictate that each week, Shabbat starts no later than a fixed time (sunset on late Friday afternoon) and ends at another fixed time (when three medium-sized stars are visible in the sky on Saturday night). This provides about twenty-five hours of serenity, spirituality and family togetherness each and every week, wherever we may be around the globe: no phones, no television, no cars, no switching lights on and off, no cooking, no working, no anything involved with the other six days of the week.
This story has been repeating itself every week of my life since I started keeping the Sabbath. It is not just a case of “Monday is pizza night, Thursday is sushi night and Friday is Shabbat night”; no, at least not for me. Shabbat is special, very special and very different. We sit around the table – all together: family, young and old, friends and visitors. How many people in today’s world make time to sit around a table for a meal together any time during their week?
As Shabbat begins, the world of the rest of the week fades away. We have time for each other – to talk together, sing a few songs, sometimes play a game. It is happy and informal. There is a feeling of warmth, love, friendship and hospitality. The food is always great, too – but the truth is that my wife Dina does wonders in everything that she does. When we are a large group, people sometimes wander off into smaller groups – casually, relaxed, naturally.
Thank G-d for Shabbat.
Over the years we have enjoyed the company of many people in our home and have also been away, or invited out. You see, Shabbat is Shabbat everywhere we are and everywhere we go.
Here are some stories about very special and unique Shabbats I have experienced.
Shabbat in Casablanca, Morocco
It was late morning in January 1994. We were floating weightlessly among the clouds; I was drifting in and out of sleep, having slept only very little the night before. A voice jolted me back into consciousness. “Fasten your seatbelts. Secure your seats upright and prepare for landing.”
Our last night in Rome together with our family had been so much fun. The togetherness, the pasta, the vino (wine), the pesce (fish), the caring and sharing and telling and listening; the closeness of family, where so often language and culture are of little consequence. But although all of that had taken place only a few hours before, it seemed like ages ago.
The five of us – my wife, two of our daughters (14 and 8), a niece (15) and myself – were about to enter Casablanca, Morocco. One man and four young women on a short vacation, before returning from the European winter to our Australian summer; five Aussies landing in Casablanca on a bleak Thursday in January.
We disembarked, feeling happy and excited about our arrival at such an exotic place. “Here’s looking at you, Babe,” we imagined Humphrey Bogart saying to Ingrid Bergman. But as we entered the terminal we were surrounded by armed uniformed paramilitary troops.
“Passports,” we heard.
I handed over our five passports.
On our way to the baggage hall, we were forced to show our passports no fewer than eleven times to various armed bureaucrats. What a wonderful and hospitable place, I thought. What a stupid mistake to choose this as our holiday resort. We should have gone to Sicily or stayed in Rome or gone to Florence and enjoyed the warmth of the people, despite the wintry weather and