Rushing to the Seventh Day

Bossin, Gadi

RUSHING TO THE SEVENTH DAY Hie Sabbath may be a day of rest, but getting there's another story. Our list of what we had to do before Shabbat read something like this: 1. Shopping—Supermarket:...

...4. Baking—brownies, apple crunch, lemon tarts, honeycake...
...Did you forget you have Hansel and Gretel in English...
...8. Baths for kids...
...Methodically, he rummaged through his clothes drawers till he found just the pair of undershorts he wanted (what the distinction between one pair and another was I don't know), his Superman •-shirt, his Levi jeans—he calls these his "American" jeans, his "Snoopy-playing-basketball" wool socks, his green and yellow hooded sweatshirt, his "jogging" shoes...
...I'd completely forgotten about it...
...Come as a bride comes, O Queen of days...
...We agreed that I'd take Rinat along: that way the baby could have her outing for the day and Donna could work undisturbed...
...But alas...
...All we have to do is clean up after lunch and give the kids their baths before Kabbalat Shabbat...
...She wasn't convinced...
...It was wall-to-wall peopled...
...Donna's good friend Ariela suggested that Roni come over to play with her four-year-old Lior...
...ask if salary from university has been credited to checking account...
...Forget the reading...
...Shalom," Aliza saluted us, as we came into the store...
...Now you are...
...I smiled back, trying to match his expression, simultaneously turning Rinat's stroller to detour back down aisle one...
...No, it wasn't Elisheva...
...What folly...
...We admired his independence but despaired that if we couldn't get him to let us help he'd be late to gan and our pre-Shabbat cleaning, shopping, baking and the rest would also get underway much, much later than we'd hoped...
...I got rid of him...
...Who's this...
...Hence the list of what had to be done...
...It was one o'clock...
...Never mind all the things we hadn't done...
...You reached that number," I explained...
...Just as it was my turn to check out, an old old gentleman holding two challot appealed to me to let him in...
...We were going to greet Shabbat calmly...
...I'd still do the dusting, sweeping, vacuuming, and I'd also wash the floors...
...I asked a man who seemed to be last in the line for cashier number one...
...leading us to believe we'd been "rescheduled") did show up after all at one-fifteen or one-thirty or two o'clock...
...It was already eleven when I set out on my shopping expedition...
...We were only going to create a new overdraft in one bank in order to pay off an old one in another...
...Why don't you believe me...
...I paid with Isracard, the cashier volunteering to hold Rinat while I signed the charge slip...
...I was dumbfounded, stunned, amazed, nonplussed...
...What...
...There's no Elisheva here and never has been...
...I'd try to find the other items on my list before the bread arrived...
...Dinner was cooking...
...What did it matter...
...Donna smiled grimly in response...
...She was putting us all in jeopardy of losing our places, for she was the vanguard of a second tail to our line which stretched directly back into the aisle behind us...
...Once he'd confided to me that by Friday noontime his heroic self-sacrifice usually brought him to a state of what he called "soo-perrr shell shock...
...Never mind the little that remained to be done...
...Rinat usually sleeps most of the morning...
...Are you last in line...
...Our list of what we had to do before Shabbat read something like this: 1. Shopping—Supermarket: challot, milk—2 bags, yogurts, cheeses, ice cream, soda pop (sparkling apple, cola, orange...
...How do you say ya'ar in English...
...But no Elisheva is here...
...5. Banking—transfer money from Bank Leumi account to cover overdraft in Bank Hapoalim account...
...How you know dat...
...Look, somebody gave you the ^^^H GRAB...
...he wanted to know...
...I arrived again at the' storeroom door just as Menashe was backing the first dolly of challot into the aisle...
...Every Friday, it's the same story...
...RUSHING TO THE SEVENTH DAY Hie Sabbath may be a day of rest, but getting there's another story...
...Newsstand: Jerusalem Post, Maariv, Hed HaKrayoi...
...We climbed the stairs to our apartment...
...Picture us madly dusting, frantically sweeping up, feverishly washing the floor after the late departures of these servicemen, the children underfoot, rightfully demanding our attention, and the clock ticking away the minutes until we were due for Kabbalat Shabbat at the nearby Conservative Congregation, or until a guest we had invited would arrive, or until we were expected by friends for dinner...
...Our friend Amnon turned around and whispered to us, "You two look relaxed...
...What number are you calling...
...No shopping carts were available...
...I read Roni his Hebrew Hansel and Gretel...
...Not any more," he laughed...
...It had seemed a good idea for her to take the kids visiting Thursday afternoon...
...Is Elisheva there...
...I don't understand," I said...
...I said 'Good morning.' Can I help you...
...I too was 18 once, bumming around Israel...
...and at three Roni fought a heroic battle with a lion in a dream punctuated with roars and cries for Abba to come help him...
...I asked...
...We'll get a good night's sleep and work hard tomorrow morning...
...Then the phone rang...
...Don't ask about the lesson plans I'd intended to work on...
...The major shopping we'd done earlier in the week...
...Out of the corner of my eye I spotted the storeroom foreman peeking through the door at the throng in the store...
...He looked about 90...
...On top of this good start on my part, Donna was well set up for her role in our pre-Shabbat campaign...
...The day thus began "on the left foot, "as the Hebrew expression so aptly puts it...
...But first 1 read Hansel and Gretel a second time, upon request of course...
...What expectations...
...We held our breath as he soaped and washed her from head to toe...
...It was the same voice...
...Everything smelled great...
...We snapped some pictures of the two of them...
...It's a constant battle to maintain Roni's English vocabulary...
...First it was the gas company...
...We agreed on a strategic retreat from our Wednesday evening list of pre-Shabbat tasks...
...What hopes...
...I passed by the bank, but of course it had been closed for almost half an hour...
...the voice demanded...
...came the somewhat startled reply...
...Forest," he said triumphantly...
...I pleaded...
...I'd better look at my Chumash and commentaries, I thought...
...Then it recited our phone number...
...It was the first of a series of phone interruptions...
...Then I would briefly describe the classic literary outlines...
...and yet another Friday it was Yaacov who works for the furniture store where we'd bought our bedroom closet, two nightstands and a desk, to assemble and install same...
...I abstained from the ensuing debate, but the clinching argument that won for our side was the question, "How can you cut in front of a fellow holding a baby...
...And Tali and Galit, Lior's older sisters, delighted in playing with Rinat...
...They wanted me to supply them with the status of the apartment's former owner's account...
...In truth, neither was I.) We were up twice during the night...
...Tali decided to visit a friend and Galit had to return a book to the public library...
...No...
...We even determined to prepare ourselves for our preparations...
...About fifteen minutes...
...A promising beginning...
...Our wish to be ready for Shabbat is not rooted in religious zeal...
...Despite Thursday's forecast of rain the sun was shining, but I wouldn't wash the car anyway...
...I marveled again as always at the language and the humanity of the tale and composed my remarks according to my notions as a teacher of literature...
...Guess what book I got...
...We arrived at Kabbalat Shabbat services at 6:01 p.m., just one minute late...
...Then I contemplated pulling the telephone jack out of the wall, but didn't, remembering the old-time wrong-number gag and half-expecting a fourth call...
...the week after that the fellow who hooked up the dryer...
...Perhaps they should begin Sunday, or even Motzei Shabbat, Saturday evening...
...I didn't have to worry about the newsstand running out of any of the three newspapers we bought every Friday...
...We ate, did the few dishes, put Rinat in bed for her afternoon nap...
...Then it rained and happily the weather report forecast more rain for Friday: I wouldn't have to wash the car...
...The old man blessed me and Rinat and the rest of the line, too...
...the next week the gas company crew to install an outlet for our gas clothes dryer...
...Why, yes...
...The two boys always enjoyed each other's company (and incidentally tired themselves out so that after playing together they invariably had early bedtimes...
...Two kids get lost in da ya'ar...
...The waiting crowd, now reinforced by people like me who'd been filling shopping carts and baskets instead of standing by the door, numbered about fifty or sixty...
...She was delighted...
...It's a day ushered in the evening before, a day you do the things you don't do or don't have time to do during the week and when you don't do what you do do from Sunday to noon Friday...
...The answer was a stuttered, "Just a moment," followed by three minutes of shouting and exhortation directed away from the phone...
...Rinat was wet and hungry at two a.m...
...Dropping the half-wrung-out shmatte back into the water bucket, drying my hands on my jeans, I hustled to the receiver...
...That was our goal this week: to prepare calmly for Shabbat and to be ready when it arrived...
...So Donna arrived home ready to call it a day...
...The kids greeted each other like long lost relatives with hugs and kisses from Roni and squeals and giggles from the baby...
...The baby looked unhappy in the stroller, so I picked her up and played with her...
...Donna and Ariela would be free to plan a Shabbat get-together for our two families...
...Sure...
...She calls the Post "Jerusalem...
...It's a special day, a day for family and friends, a day of good food and talk and laughter...
...Our work was progressing nicely when, at about ten o'clock, the phone rang...
...It was Alex Jacobs, the religious committee chairman of our Conservative community...
...Don't you have your own records of his payments...
...But we had not managed it without feeling the strain...
...and Roni and Lior, usually as close and as good-tempered toward each other as David and Jonathan, fought over a pint-sized dumptruck...
...Roni insisted on playing with Rinat in the tub...
...To get warm," he whispered...
...Nevertheless, the last time we stayed at their home for Shabbat, Friday afternoon arrived and Asher and Zahava were still scurrying about here and there, doing this, that and the other...
...We're finished...
...And then he broke the connection...
...There were about three hours to go and we were virtually finished...
...The price Aliza quoted me was considerably lower than the week before's...
...Then someone in our line alerted me to a woman who had edged her cart in front of the stroller...
...ence that all this couldn't get done without a struggle, that by the time we'd finish our race against the clock we'd need all of Shabbat to recover from our preparations for it...
...See you later...
...Donna went to lie down...
...Roni wanted to know...
...Dat's right," he agreed...
...He hung up...
...Scuse me," my interrogator backed off...
...My hands were wet with floor...
...Donna would still do all the cooking but the apple crunch and the lemon tarts would be dropped from the baking list...
...At the same time I would be left alone at home in peace to complete my grading, my lesson planning, my reading...
...The past couple of w^eks, however, we'd actually managed to'complete our pre-Shabbat agonies before.' candle-lighting time...
...I paid for the Hebrew papers, already missing my weekly fix of "Dry Bones...
...Good morning," I said...
...Our duty list was ready Wednesday evening, and on Thursday morning I gassed the car and took care of the various tasks on the checklist to ensure safe driving...
...A few minutes later Roni was singing Lecha Dodi, Rinat was clapping her hands with pleasure at Shani, Eli and Rina's two-year-old who always comes over to play with her during services and Donna and I were sitting back at ease, dressed handsomely yet comfortably in our Shabbat attire...
...The cashiers were sitting back on their swivel stools passing the time of day with each other and the odd customer who was checking out...
...Just checking to see if you've got your explanation of the Torah portion prepared for this evening's services," he said...
...At first light I was dimly aware of Roni crawling into bed with us...
...How much this week...
...Sweeping...
...Then we all stood for the final verse of Lecha Dodi, welcoming the Shabbat: "Come in joyousness and peace...
...Menashe didn't see me wink at him as I was going by...
...A moment later I was pushing Rinat and her stroller in the direction of the newsstand...
...A knot of about thirty or forty eager shoppers, men and women, with pre-schoolers and infants in tow, clustered around the aisle one storeroom door, clogging up the aisle, blocking all through traffic to the ice cream cooler case, the live fish pond display and the dietetic food counter...
...check air pressure in tires, including spare...
...We stood to the right of the counter, it being the last checkout on the extreme right...
...You did read it in Hebrew...
...Well, almost...
...The scene was cute...
...I could make out the tone but not the words...
...Then Roni independently insisted on dressing himself...
...A lunch of pita bread and tuna and cheeses and salad was ready...
...Rinat cried because she's teething, needed her diaper changed twice, repeatedly demanded to be fed...
...Confectioner: chazerai for drop-in guests...
...If I make it to his age I hope I won't have to wait twenty minutes to pay for two challot, I thought...
...One week it was the men who put weatherproof windows in the kitchen and salon...
...Roni asked excitedly...
...The local shopping center is within easy walking distance, so I grabbed our flexible plastic shopper's carry-all, strapped Rinat into her stroller, and hurried over to the "soo-perrr," as the supermarket is called here...
...The caller would introduce herself as Elisheva and ask: "Any messages for me...
...Who's this...
...As for me, I was hopelessly bogged down in misplaced modifiers, comma splices, monotonously constructed compound sentences, poor paragraphing, mixed metaphors...
...Who's this...
...Rinat gurgled on cue...
...With Roni finally off to gan and Rinat fed and having her morning nap we began our Friday chores in earnest...
...Donna would make some more rice and cut up the leftover chicken pieces for a casserole for Shabbat lunch...
...A different voice asked for Elisheva, this time less belligerently, without the opening "Who's this...
...Around noon okay...
...But there was no hustling him...
...I asked...
...You can try again in an hour...
...Our other store didn't get its delivery either...
...I asked a man how long they'd been waiting...
...Our desire is for a peaceful, orderly, comfortable Shab-bat atmosphere in our home...
...Nonetheless, this past week Donna and I swore we'd prepare for Shabbat without getting frazzled...
...Hello...
...Maybe the driver is doing reserve service...
...I would begin with a commonplace: "The story is a classic...
...Saturday noon meal: Friday leftovers...
...For Shabbat is a day set apart from the six weekdays...
...The place was jammed...
...While the kids were busy...
...Vacuuming: throw rugs, living room area rug, under bookshelves, sofa and easy chairs...
...I read it in English...
...It was the fellow with the ironic eyebrows...
...all in the name of the Sabbath Queen...
...check oil and other fluids...
...But by Thursday at eight p.m...
...Hello," I said...
...The question is a standing joke but not altogether superfluous because of the frequent inflationary price increases...
...Then shrugging his shoulders, turning up his palms and raising his eyebrows ironically, he added, "Nu, what's to be done...
...I decided to wait till the monster calmed and the crowd retreated...
...I gave the relative of the friend directions to our place...
...Sure, sure," I told him...
...check whether computobank card we ordered has been processed...
...But the dusting in the bedrooms would wait another week, the vacuuming of the sofa and the easy chairs would be put off again for the fourth consecutive time and the bedroom floors would be swept but not washed...
...A big burly type, Menashe always spared his workers the Friday morning job of wheeling the stacked bread dolly through the gauntlet from aisle one to aisle seven...
...Next, an 18-year-old relative of a friend of ours from Chicago called...
...Then came a perfunctory and terse "Thank you very much," a click and a dead line...
...The portion tells of the brothers' anxious reunion, Jacob's fear, Esau's aggressiveness, Jabob's symbolic wrestling with "a Heavenly Being," his becoming Israel, the rape of Dina, the slaughter of the men of Shechem by Shimon and Levi, Jacob's return to Bethel, the death of the patriarch Isaac and the generations of Esau...
...Give me a hint...
...We bathed the kids together...
...2. Cleaning—Dusting: kitchen, living and dining rooms, bedrooms, hallway...
...The price of my constraint was a prolonged wait in the by-now long, disorderly lines at the checkout counters...
...6. Gas station—gas the car...
...So with Roni watching "Mickey and Donald" (Mouse and Duck, respectively) on the tube and Donna and Rinat sleeping I read Vayishlach: "And Jacob sent messengers before him to Esau his brother unto the land of Seir, the field of Edom...
...Ya'ar...
...Go ahead...
...Two from the same person, the third from an accomplice, I suspect...
...Though I was hurrying along, my pace was dictated by the hectic pre-Shabbat atmosphere, not by necessity...
...It was 8:30 a.m...
...INKPtMDEMCE MY 5743 wrong number...
...For Thursday evening Donna was too tired to work...
...Then we had three wrong numbers in a row...
...he countered...
...This is all I have," he showed me...
...Wash floor...
...We'd done it...
...7. Wash car...
...So much for our good night's sleep...
...Somehow, even though it is well known that in Israel work all but ceases Fridays at noontime, all manner of workmen who were scheduled to appear at our apartment Friday morning and hadn't yet shown up by one p.m...
...We overslept...
...Uh, sure," I said...
...No matter," 1 comforted Donna...
...In addition, I'd made a mental notation: have all the coming week's grading of student papers, my lesson plans and my preparatory reading completed by sundown Thursday...
...detergent suds at the first ring...
...Here every soldier, whether regular army or reservist, hopes to get leave for Shishi-Shabbat, for Friday evening and Saturday...
...I was wringing out the floor rag when the phone rang again...
...Hansel and Gretel," I guessed...
...His nursery school teacher has her charges choose a book to take home every Shabbat...
...To Menashe we must have resembled a monster with a hundred or so outstretched tentacles...
...Jerusalem' didn't arrive...
...I don't know what happened today...
...When Rinat and I arrived home we saw Roni returning from gan...
...Menashe was in my Wednesday evening exercise class at the HaPoel Sports Center...
...Several others lined up behind me and Rinat...
...In this country you don't have to be an Orthodox Jew to look forward to, and anticipate, the coming of Shabbat...
...He turned around...
...I picked up everything on my list but the ice cream (the way was blocked) and added a few extra items that weren't on the list: peanut butter, salami, potato chips, facial tissues, pudding...
...You came for your papers...
...His face expressed a mixture of outrage, consternation, frustration, anxiety, panic, maybe even fear of being trampled...
...And I'd go to the bank only if I got all the shopping done by noon...
...In opposition to all good sense and logic we were confident we'd make good our pledge to welcome the Shabbat calmly without undue strain this week...
...3. Cooking—Friday evening: roast chicken, rice, green peas, salads (cole slaw, tossed...
...No problem...
...it was clear that the early going had been an illusion, that, as had been the case every other week, we'd have to do our pre-Shabbat preparations, our last-minute shopping, cleaning, cooking, baking and other jobs, Friday morning and afternoon...
...We should have known from experiQadi Bossin, who lives in Kiryat Bialik with his wife and two children, teaches American literature and English language courses at Tel Aviv University, Levinsky Teachers College and Tel Chai Regional College...
...Not so long to wait for Shabbat challot," he sighed...
...Shalom, how are you," I replied...
...He wanted to visit us tomorrow...
...We are not Shomrei Shabbat by any strict Orthodox definition...
...In short, Shabbat means to the non-Orthodox Israeli a day of pleasurable leisure activity or inactivity, following a hectic week of strenuously paced efforts to make a living, to balance the checkbook, to keep up with the housework and the children, to complete the Shabbat preparations...
...Everyone else did, too, making eyes at her, googling in answer to her gurgling...
...All the foods and ingredients for her cooking and baking—even the eggs which we normally run out of—were already stored in our kitchen cabinets or the refrigerator...
...Friends of ours in Beersheva, still relative newlyweds, still without children, once revealed to us their secret in getting ready for Shabbat: they begin TUesday...
...As I dipped my hands into the soapy water a third time, the phone rang again...
...I stood by watching helplessly, but Donna had the presence of mind to pour a bowl of "Crispies" (Roni's name for Elite's Rice Crispies substitute) and milk and sliced bananas for the well-dressed almost-five-year-old's breakfast...
...We had a standing arrangement: Aliza, who manages the newsstand, put aside the Jerusalem Post, which always sold out early, along with our Hebrew papers, Maariv and the local tied HaKrayot...
...Since our move to our new apartment three months ago our Shabbat preparations have been nothing short of traumatic...
...We began ahead of schedule...
...We did it," she beamed at me...
...The juggling act could wait until Sunday or Monday...
...Oh, yeah...
...I don't know...
...I hurried to the instrument and lifted the receiver...
...Two kids get lost in da forest...
...But almost no one was at the checkout counters...
...We can get everything done before Roni gets home from gan...
...Donna looked triumphant...
...It's a day of visiting, of tiyulim to the countryside, of sporting events, of youth movement activities, of luxurious afternoon naps...
...Since 1 had just a few purchases to make I didn't really need one but, experienced Friday morning pre-Shabbat last-minute shopper that I am, the contrast between the almost deserted front of the store and the jam-packed aisles and rear led me to one conclusion: everyone's waiting for the next load of challot to be brought hot from the bakery truck through the storeroom to the shelves on aisle seven...
...I was right...
...I knew the fellow...
...I don't know about you, but Susie and I had a very hectic day...
...Never mind his problems with "th...
...pay water, gas, electric and telephone bills...
...But it's in Hebrew...
...Yes...
...We also promised ourselves we'd allocate tasks efficiently and begin early Thursday evening right after Roni, almost five, and Rinat, aged six months, were asleep...

Vol. 8 • April 1983 • No. 4


 
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