Shabbat HaGadol in Mitzpe Ramon

Yesterday was Shabbat HaGadol. I went to Chabad, and the little shul was chock-a-block with people, almost standing room only. This was in addition to the large crowd of guests who had packed into the Chabad House for Shabbat.

Rabbi Slonim gave the Shabbat HaGadol drush during Shacharit. He spoke mostly in Hebrew, so I didn't follow it very well, but part of it had to do with why the Talmudic tractate that deals with the laws of Pesach is in the plural ("Pesachim") while all of the other Talmudic tractates dealing with holidays are singular (Rosh Hashanah, Megillah, Shabbat, Succoth, etc.). I gather from my sketchy Hebrew that this has something to do with the collective nature of the redemption from Egypt and the fact that the Pesach sacrifice was brought only by groups of people.

After shul, walking the short distance back in the cold and rain, we had lunch with Chavie and Donny and their friends Asael, his wife Channah, and their children. Asael is an ecology student at Ben Gurion University in Sede Boquer, where he is doing research on desert bats. His research deals with studying bat drinking behavior in the desert.

There is an invasive species of Mediterranean bat that has gained a foot hold by hop scotching from one small settlement to another. It needs to drink water to survive in the desert. This it does by swooping down while dragging its tongue through pools of water, while the native desert bats receive all the water they need through eating insects alone, an amazing evolutionary adaptation to desert life.

 The Giant Mediterranean Bat -- about the size of a pigeon

Asael uses a special bat voice recorder to determine which species is at a watering hole. The invasive species has a tone at around 10 Khz, while the native bats cheep at a much higher frequency, around 200 Khz, far beyond human hearing. He has discovered that the invasive species can be kept out by placing strips of plastic on a watering hole, which prevents them from swooping down to drink, and may be used to control their numbers.

After a lovely Shabbat meal prepared by Chavie, we waited for a break in the rain and all ran home.

A Happy and Kosher Pesach to all!

Shabbat in Mitzpe Ramon

It was a lovely spring Shabbat day in Mitzpe Ramon. The temperature was warm but pleasant, somewhere in the low 90s but the traditional low humidity and light breeze kept things comfortable, at least in the shade.

I count 6 Shabbat minyans, possibly 7. There is the crater shul, just up the street from us, with an Ashkenazic minyan on one side and a Sephardic minyan on the other. Then there is the main Sephardic shul and the Chabad down the street toward the center of town, followed by the kolel yeshiva minyan and the shul just up the street from them. Sometimes the high school yeshiva boys stay in town and they have another large minyan across the park from the crater shul.

The crater shuls -- Sephard on the left, Ashkenaz on the right

The minyans all start at various times, most around 8:00, with Chabad being the latest at 10:00. I almost always go to Chabad and see people going to and fro from shul thorughout the old section of town where we live between 9:30 and 10:00 in the morning. After shul there is usually a large continget that gathers throughout the day at the bird's nest eerie overlooking the machtesh just up Nachal Gerofit. There eveyone seems gaily dressed in white, with the boys wearing white shirts and khaki pants. The women's head coverings are alll white, some spangled with sparklers of various kinds, others with colors. I never thought I would see white as a "gay" color, but it seems to be when everyone wears it for Shabbat. Although Chasidim traditionally wear black, non-chasidic religious Israelis all seem to wear white on Shabbat and holidays.

There is a languid and lazy atmosphere around town in the afternoon. Lots of people walking to and fro, and occasionally the hippies jamming in an apartment near us. The dogs run around and bark at people, while children play in the park. Later, I sleep and wake for minyan, skipping Shalos Seudos.

Kabbalat Shabbos

 

Whoever has not welcomed the Sabbath Queen from the Machtesh, has never welcomed the Queen.  -Anonymous

It is late. It is always late. I am late for shul. I decide I will go to the Machtesh and begin my davening there in solitude while I wait for Kabbalat Shabbat to begin.

As I walk uphill I hasten my pace toward the Machtesh. I hear the sounds of a Schubert Adagio, soft cries over plucked heart strings, and feel the tug of a passion from long ago.

From within the corner shul I hear the murmured sounds of quiet prayer. A young IDF soldier walks out, rifle slung over shoulder, siddur in hand. Her long olive skirt tells me she is observant. She crosses my path and walks toward her comrades, some distance away at the visitor center. A large crowd of IDF soldiers has gathered there for Kabbalat Shabbos. I hear their song begin, swelling from afar. Other soldiers sit in small groups with friends, quietly talking, watching along the crater's rim, their rifles across folded legs.

My foot steps onto the Eerie. The crater is resplendent with light, a supernal glow that comes from everywhere and nowhere, from within the very rocks themselves.

The world is filled with the glory of G-d;

It flames out, like shinning from shook foil.

It is late. I begin, “Ashrei yoshvei vetecha od y'hal'lucha, selah.”

“Happy are those that dwell in Your house; they keep on praising.”

The sun goes to its place.

The shade of night is drawn. The sixth day is rolled up into a blue-grey shadow.

Now is the night one blue dew,

my father has drained,

he has coiled the hose,

low in the length of lawns,

a frailing of fire who breathes...

I join a group of yeshiva boys and their teachers on the crater's rim behind me. They sing and sway; later they dance; friends embrace, their ritual fringes, tinged with t'chelet, blowing in the wind. They welcome the Sabbath Queen:

O come, let us sing unto the LORD: let us make a joyful noise to the rock of our salvation.

Let us come before his presence with thanksgiving, and make a joyful noise unto him with psalms.

For the LORD [is] a great God, and a great King above all gods.

In his hand [are] the deep places of the earth: the strength of the hills [is] his also.

The sea [is] his, and he made it: and his hands formed the dry [land].

O come, let us worship and bow down: let us kneel before the LORD our maker.

It has grown dark. The supernal light disappears...The radiant Shabbat Queen comes in...

As Shabbat arrives, she merges into Oneness, and is separated from the “other side”, and all strict judgments are severed from her. And she remains in unity with the holy light, and crowns herself with many crowns for the holy King...Her countenance is irradiated with a supernal light, and she crowns herself here below with the holy people, all of whom are crowned with new souls. Then the commencement of prayer is to bless her with with joy and radiant countenance. 

(Click for full size image)

  

Erev Shabbat in Mitzpe Ramon

(Friday afternoon, before the Sabbath)

... It has become that time of evening when people sit on their porches, rocking gently and talking gently and watching the street and the standing up into their sphere of possession of the tress, of birds' hung havens, hangars. People go by; things go by. A horse, drawing a buggy, breaking his hollow iron music on the asphalt: a loud auto: a quiet auto: people in pairs, not in a hurry, scuffling, switching their weight of aestival body, talking casually...

Long before Shabbat begins, Mitzpe Ramon starts quieting down. The streets begin to empty of cars, and people sit quietly talking and drinking at the 'neto.  Most people are off work, and school is only a half day. The quiet settles over everything, like a blanket snuffing out the fires of the week. There is a rush of people doing last minute Shabbat shopping at the Shabbat market and the Supersol. By mid-afternoon even that has ceased. Each greets the other with "Shabbat Shalom".


The quiet is palpable.



              Quiet settles over Mitzpe Ramon in preparation for Shabbat
  

Shabbat Bris

This was an eventful Shabbos in Mitzpe Ramon. There was a Shabbaton at the boys' high school and Rabbi Slonim, the Chabad shaliach, made a Bris for his new born son. I joined the boys yeshiva for Kaballat Shabbos at the crater's rim. There was a magnificent sunset and much singing and dancing. It was a transcendent time. Tzfat has nothing on Mitzpe Ramon when it comes to the supernal, transcendent light of the Shabbos.

Rabbi Slonim, the Chabad shaliach in Mitzpe Ramon

In addition to Rabbi Slonim's Bris, it was the Shabbos before Yud Shevat, an important date in the Chabad calendar, which is the Yahrzeit of the previous Rebbe, Yosef Yitzchok, and the commemoration of the the ascent of the current Rebbe, if I can use that expression, Menachem Mendel Schneerson. The Chabad shul in Mitzpe Ramon is small, an L-shaped room with a room behind for women. But we took a second Torah outdoors so everyone could have an aliyah, it being a custom that all Chasidim be called up to the Torah on the Shabbos before Yud Shevat. When the Rebbe was still alive I used to go with Rabbi Levin, the Chabad shaliach in Palo Alto, to 770 for the Fabringen that commemorated the event. There were many thousands of Chasidim and supporters there from all over the world. Sadly, it is just a memory now.

After davening, we proceeded to the new Chabad House where the Bris was to be held. A large community of people packed into the room for the Bris, which was accompanied by singing and dancing by the yeshiva boys, divrei Torah, followed by the Bris itself. The boy was named "Yosef", after the previous Rebbe, but not "Yosef Yitzchok", since one of Rabbi Slonim's sons is already named "Levi Yitzchok".

We had kiddush and a meal after the Bris. Rabbi Slonim speaks in Hebrew, Russian and English. For my benefit he made some of his remarks in English, saying on the first day that we arrived in Mitzpe Ramon I was present for a Bris at the Chabad House, and now I was present for a second soon after.

I was the Sandek for this Bris on the day we arrived in Mitzpe Ramon. Just call me "Godfather".

The desert is a place for miracles. It is where the Torah was given, and the spies, who didn't want the Jewish people to enter the Land of Israel, wanted to stay in the desert. There was another miraculous connection between us and Rabbi Slonim. We had lived in Palo Alto, where Rabbi Slonim had been just a year before for medical treatment for his daughter, and were most recently members at Lubavitch of the Palisades, whose shaliach, Rabbi Shain, was one of the supporters of the new Chabad House in Mitzpe Ramon.

The mohel (ritual circumsciser) was a young Chabad chosid who had three lovely daughters. I guess you could say this was an extreme case of the shoemaker's children not having any shoes. I sat next to him and his oldest daughter in shul. This daughter, about 6 I think, was learning Mishnayot during davening, more assiduously than anyone I had ever seen, slowly going over each word for several pages. Occasionally she would stop and ask her father about a word. It was wonderful to see this little girl learning with her father.

Gut Voch. Shavuah Tov. Have a Good Week.