The Chaggim
Yom Kippur was an experience. The services were good, the fast was OK, not really different than here, long and annoying etc, but the fact that nobody drives at all in the whole country really does change things. From our balcony we could see people walking and biking on the highways, and even when we walked to and from shul on the small/medium streets in our town, we were able to walk right down the middle of the street. But the biggest thing was the silence. Looking around the city on our balcony, there is always background noise from the traffic – I actually didn’t realize just how much. But on Yom Kippur it was totally silent. It was a bit eerie actually (but in a cool way I guess)
Then there was the rush to get ready for Sukkot. This year instead of just emailing the Rabbi at our Shul in Phoenix to add us to the lulav and etrog list, then picking up the set once it comes in; we went to the sukkah fair in downtown Ra’anana where they had little booths set up (no pun intended – festival of “booths” – get it? 😁😁) selling not only sukkah decorations, but also lulavs and etrogs, and they didn’t have just a few – you could choose from hundreds. And we actually were able to buy a small/medium balcony-compatible sukkah to put up on our tenth floor balcony! (which we later had to zip tie to the balcony railing to prevent the wind from almost blowing it over…) The point is that when the whole country celebrates with you, its a different experience.
