As I said in my last post, Friday was a total “chill day”. We woke up late and Marsha, Shayna, and I walked over to the Hadar Mall to buy food for Shabbat. This is an amazing thing, that in Israel, on Friday morning, many of the malls will have booths set up with vendors selling Shabbat foods. There were so many choices, and we got chicken, yerushalmi kugel, vegetables, etc. We could have gotten Challot, but we decided to go back to Marzipan in the shuk for that.
The food booths at the mall
After getting the food in the refrigerator, the three of us took the bus downtown to do a little shopping. We ordered a necklace with Shayna’s name, got a replacement chain for one of Marsha’s that broke and I got to have my second Shwarma of the trip! We got Noam his own Hebrew siddur and then went to Marzipan to get Challot and Rugelach for Shabbat. Finally we took the bus back to the apartment. We were definitely tired from our shopping!
At five the three of us drove to the Jerusalem First Station. This is the old train station in Jerusalem that was renovated about three years ago. Now there are shops and bars and I understand a very nice nightlife. Every summer at 5:00 pm there is kabbalat Shabbat live at the station. Each week, one of three different groups will perform and sing the Kabbalat Shabbat with instruments and people sing along and dance and have a great time. The idea is to have people from all walks of Jewish life, secular to Orthodox come together and celebrate. It is over at least 45 minutes before Shabbat begins, so people who are shomer Shabbat have time to get home and finish preparing for Shabbat. We had a lot of fun and even Shayna sang along!
Kabbalat Shabbat at the First Station.
Shabbat was wonderful. We went to our friends Marc and Ellie for Shabbat lunch and had a great time. After lunch we had time to rest at the apartment before we went back to shul where Noam read Torah for the first time as a Bar Mitzvah! His Bar Mitzvah in the states is next Shabbat, and the Torah reading for Minha, the afternoon service, is always the same reading as the following Shabbat. So Noam was all prepared and he did an amazing job! The Monday and Thursday readings are also the same as the coming Shabbat, so he will be reading again on Monday morning at the Masorti Synagogue in Talpiot Mizrach, Kehillat Moreshet Avraham.
Tomorrow we are going to an archeological dig and the Ayalon Institute Museum which houses a bullet factory that was built by the Jewish people in years prior to 1948 to make bullets to prepare for the upcoming war.