A Sabbath Tale

The protaganist of this story (lets call him C to protect his identity) thinks that Shabbat abroad is a strange phenomenon; you´re without family and friends far away from home, yet it can act as a anchor for things you recognise and know. C is a bit of a planner, an organiser...he likes to know what he is doing next week, next month, so he is still getting used to expecting the unexpected and the unknown.

C woke up last Friday morning having no idea what he was doing over Shabbat..yet within the hour, a meal had been organised with 14 secular Israelis and it was then that the fun really began...

Eveyone went shopping, the secular Israelis chose stuff for themselves, C chose stuff for himself, they were very nice about it, getting C to choose a dessert he could eat and everything. They all get back, start cooking, start chopping...and then two religious girls (or one religious girl and her veggie friend) arrive. And not just religious like Shabbat and Kashrut at home religious. One told C that the pasta he had wasn´t kosher, she didnt want to eat from the food cut by the (cold) cutlery they'd used...she didnt want to light Shabbat candles so as not to be obligated to light in future weeks...she thought it was weird C had pre paid at a veggie restuarant for lunch the next day...apparently C´s shabbat times were wrong. Dont get me wrong - they were great girls, it was just a bit funny for C to suddenly lose his monopoly on being a Halachic authority... to make things even more interesting, 4 Israeli religious guys then appeared fresh from this trek, with their own food and cooking utensils...

it was incongruos to say the least that in a kitchen of a random youth hostel in Southern Chile, lots of Israelis were preparing different Shabbat dinners. C ended up eating with the larger group of Israelis, davenning with the others and sitting and chatting with both. He is still unsure where he felt more comfortable. Clearly its too simple to pigeonhole people by being either secular or religious - its clearly more of a continuum that everyone finds themselves on (like eating pork on Yom Kippur to a girl not wanting a guy to hear them sing...or maybe thats just C´s continuum of frumness). But it did raise interesting questions about where Anglo Jewry fits in to Israel. All in all, it was definitely an unforgettabble if not slightly longer than planned) Shabbat for our hero.