Day 4 Shabbas 3.9.2010

Day 4 Shabbas 3.9.2010

We arrived at the wedding venue on Friday evening. Because it was Friday evening, we were invited to celebrate Shabbas with Caleb and his family. Apparently, the Jewish community are an exclusive group. So we were very fortunate to take part in Shabbas with Caleb’s family.

The evening meal was held in the library at Lythwood Lodge. Old leather bound books were mixed with more contemporary prints. The books were housed in beautiful oak cases which stretched along each wall. In the middle of the room, there was a large round table covered in a white linen table cloth.  Caleb’s father began by explaining the meaning of Shabbas, the Sabbath and that Shabbas was a time for the family to be together, to break bread and drink wine. Caleb then blessed the bread (challah) by saying a Hebrew prayer over the bread. He sprinkled some salt on the bread board and blessed the bread while rubbing the two loaves of bread into the salt. There is always two loaves blessed because they commemorate manna that fell from heaven when the Israelites were in the desert for forty years after being exiled from Egypt. Manna didn’t fall on the Sabbath, instead two loaves fell before the Sabbath.

Calebs father poured some kosher wine into a large glass. The wine from this glass was poured into little glasses, about the size of a shot glass, one for each person present at the table. This ritual signifies that each person drinks from the glass of the host. Everyone stood for the blessing and then sat down when invited to do so.

I felt very lucky to see first hand what Shabbas was and take part in the ritual and blessing. It was awesome. I felt that Kobus and I were part of a family while in the room around the table. It was a very special moment.

I had initially anticipated that Shabbas would be a formal affair but I was mistaken. After the blessing, everyone started dinner and the stories of Caleb as a young boy were relayed by his parents, aunties and uncles and his cousin Ramon’s wife, Sarah. Sarah told us that Ramon would constantly pick on Caleb and slap him around, not because he didn’t like him or because he was older than him, but because he had brothers and that’s how he treated his own brothers and he saw Caleb as a brother.

Kobus and Caleb exchanged stories about their days in Rhodes University, all of which seemed to revolve around booze, sport and women! Ramon and Sarah told us about their year working in Vietnam and how the Vietnamese eat dogs and have dog farms, I guess like we have chicken batteries.

The evening became more jovial and as time passed, more wine and whiskey was consumed , resulting in an elevated amount of bromance between the lads. Declarations of undying brotherly love was announced, the men embraced each other, while the women giggled or rolled their eyes to the heavens because they had seen these public displays of affection on numerous occasions. The result of these acts would be noticed the following morning when the men would run from their own beds and duck into the bathroom to have a conversation with the big white telephone!

So, Shabbas seems to be a reason for family to get together and enjoy each other’s company, no different from any other family ritual that other religious denominations and the non-religious celebrate. Proving we are all the same under one big sky!