Yom Kippur - the only day I can sit at my leisure in the middle of a road and only worry about being hit by bicycles or baby strollers. No one drives. It's great - and super quiet. I went for a walk with some friends just to enjoy the quiet everywhere. The question we had was what do Israelis do on Yom Kippur? They don't drive, they don't bathe, they don't wear leather shoes or eat or drink. So what do they do? They go to synagogue and sing. They pray. They read things. They go for long walks with friends. The country is completely shut down, completely quiet, but everything feels purer, less distracting and busy and stressful. It is a day to stop and think and repent of sins and refocus ourselves. Even non-practicing Jews take part. It's an amazingly peaceful feeling when everything shuts down and there are absolutely no demands for the day. I wouldn't mind doing this once a year - or even once a month. Once the sun goes down, life begins again - big meals, party, and WORK. They have only two days till the Sabbath begins and all work must stop, and then less than one day till Succot begins on Sunday evening - the Feast of Booths to celebrate the harvest, and they have to build all the booths before the festival begins. I walked to the Western Wall that night to see if anything was happening - there were few people at the wall itself but there were a lot of men out and about cutting down massive palm branches and assembly metal structures to lay them on. A professor later told us that they will be working through the night for the next few nights to get everything ready in time.
No comments:
Post a Comment