Well, it's been an intense season here, with the holidays coming one on the heels of the next (although I will take this year's schedule of Shabbat and then a brief break with Rosh Hashanah starting on Sunday night, rather than last year's three-day marathon of Shabbos going right into Rosh Hashanah. On the downside, though, the supermarkets were madhouses on both Thursday *and* Sunday).
Chana arrived a few hours before Yom Kippur started, which may not have been the smartest thing to do in terms of preparing to fast for 25 hours (pretty sure I've never read any pre-fasting advice that suggests international plane travel, although I was glad to see a number of other religious people arriving as well. There was, at least, comfort in knowing we weren't the only lunatics with this idea).
We were able to buy her a "Welcome" balloon at the aiprort, but were stymied in our quest to get her an iced coffee, because the restaurant was closing. Thinking I'd have better luck at Departures, I went there only to find a literally empty terminal with closing stores and two very bored-looking security agents with absolutely no passengers around.
With thanks to the Times of Israel for explaining, because I truly had no idea that the airport closed down! Love this country!!
The holiday of Sukkot is always neat here. Even taking the trash out to the bins at the end of the street is (slightly more) fun because you get the visual tour of every single house on the street with a sukkah outside of it. Super props to the apartment of single guys at the end of the street for figuring out how to get a sukkah up on their tiny bit of outside space:
Stores have "Happy Holiday" signs up
And Ikea had some very cute displays of sukkahs around the store (I love how they included the cot to show that people also sleep as well as eat in their sukkahs)
We had an interesting experience having three seminary girls (including
Cousin Sela!!!!) here for the beginning day(s) of Sukkot. Interesting because they keep two days of holidays like those not permanently in Israel, and we have only one day. So while they were having a full Holiday day, we had a "like a holiday" day, with lots of hanging out (and definitely far better meals than we would have had without them with us), board games, shmoozing and homemade french fries. I guess the big difference is that we could use our phones and they couldn't, and that they had to do all the rituals themselves--i.e. one of them had to be the "
Aba shel Yom Tov" and make
kiddush while another had to light candles.
It's been a (slightly exhausting) blast. We're nearing the end, with Shabbos and then
Simchas Torah and then a big BLUMP right back into normal life/routine. But I will leave you with a photo I took while walking to work in Geulah, a religious neighborhood in Jerusalem (I love all the sukkahs up on balconies, and the boys playing in the courtyard)
and one final photo of a product that made me laugh out loud when I saw it at the store. I will tip my hat to the marketing pro who knew what to do to make sure the product sold in Israel:
Could you see it?!
Happy Holidays!
