The Journey to Shabbat by Stacey Blank
This story was published in the CCAR Journal Fall 2020/Winter 2021 Issue
When Friday arrived, Amanda had been a guest at Pundak Eliyahu in the Arava desert for four nights now. As she lay in bed in the pale early morning light, she thought, How does one do Shabbat alone in the desert? It was an unsettling thought, as for the past twenty-five years she had spent most Fridays running around Herzliya, starting with the makolet[1]for last-minute essential needs. (Amanda had learned not long after making aliyah never to go to a supermarket on a Friday unless you are prepared for battle and bring a good book to read while in line at the checkout.) She spent the afternoon cooking and taking care of her children, Shachar and Tal. When they were younger, she put them down for a nap. When they were older, she took them to friends or to the Scouts.
Every Friday evening, they traveled to Kfar Saba to her in-laws, arriving punctually at six-thirty (meaning, everyone was invited for six). Since Amanda’s family was in the United States, she had no excuses, and, in any case, all of their friends were similarly engaged with their extended families. The kids never argued about going—whatever their age and regardless of any angst they felt toward their parents, dinner at Sabaand Savta’s house wasas a part of their lives as getting up and going to school every morning. Friday night dinner with family was sacred.
The ritual was always the same. Amanda’s friend Liron taught her a trick to bake a cake timing it to be ready fifteen minutes before leaving the house. It was still warm when they arrived at Kfar Saba, a short drive from their home, depending on traffic, of course. She entered the apartment with a smile plastered on her face and glided towards her mother-in-law, Nurit, to give her the perfunctory kiss on both cheeks, exuding appreciation and respect. She joined the women in organizing the table; Shachar and Tal plopped on the couch next to their cousins and joined them in playing on their iPhones; Alon, her husband, grabbed a beer from the fridge and chatted with the men on the balcony. Then Nurit called everyone to the table. The men took kippot out of their pockets and placed them on their heads. Alon’s father, Shmulik, recited Kiddush in rushed Ashkenazic intonations, a collective “Amen!” resounded followed by a dutiful silence as the Kiddush cup was passed around, and then the food was brought out. No one asked to pass anything—everyone got up to take from the dishes they wanted and reached across others to take the salt. While chewing on roast, each one shared his opinion on business or politics with the airs of an expert. The volume rose gradually, forks waved in the air, a wine glass overturned from an impassioned gesture.
As the cabin began to glow from the rising sun’s rays filtering through the curtains, Amanda turned over on her side, tucking her hands beneath her cheek on the pillow. Not only was she alone, but also, she wondered, how would the day itself feel like Shabbat? On a weekday, Herzliya was like a beehive of traffic, commerce, and construction. On Saturday, most stores were closed and most people did not work. The streets of Herzliya were relatively quiet and people partook in pleasurable activities like walking on the beach, meeting friends, and reading the newspaper from cover to cover. Actually, according to this definition, she had already begun her Shabbat at the beginning of the week having stepped out of her weekday routine when she got in her car and headed south. Silence reigned in the Arava. Every single day this week had been like Shabbat—she did only things that were fun, and she had felt an overall sense of rest and inner peace.
Amanda lifted herself from the bed, filled the koomkoom[2] with water and turned it on. Then she emptied a packet of Turkish coffee into one of the mugs. She went to the bathroom and washed her face, put on deodorant, and brushed her hair. From her small suitcase she took out a bra, t-shirt, and loose three-quarter length pants and put them on. The koomkoom clicked and shut off, the boiling water rumbling. She poured the water over the coffee, stirring vigorously. She took the mug outside with a banana she had filched from the dining hall of the pundak last night and sat on a plastic chair on the porch. As she waited for the coffee grounds to settle, she reflected on her week.
On Sunday, she put Tal on the bus, sending him back to his army base with a rucksack full of clean clothes and a few Tupperware containers of schnitzel and rice. Shachar had gone back to her Tel Aviv dorm the night before. Alon left before she woke up as he did every day to get in a workout at the gym in his office building. Amanda put on a tank top and workout pants and went to her regular yoga class. Her teacher, Inbal, about the same age as she, entered the studio looking radiant. Amanda had taken yoga from Inbal for about ten years now and asked what good news she had to share. She announced, “I’m getting a divorce!” When Amanda’s face registered shock and sympathy, Inbal said, “Motek,[3]tell me mazal tov! It’s a reason to celebrate. I’m free! I am like a bird, ready to soar, nothing holding me back anymore. No one telling me what I can and can’t do. Ready to fulfill my truepurposein life.”
Her words hit Amanda like an elephant. She inhaled, “My true purpose in life” and exhaled, “I’m free!” As a social worker, Amanda had counseled hundreds of people who felt dissatisfied and frustrated with their jobs, their sex lives, and raising their children. She had helped most of them to work through childhood traumas, adjust their expectations, and set healthy, attainable goals. She understood that something Inbal had said triggered something inside of her that had been hidden to her. Her mind scanned her memories of the past twenty-five years, reaching into cobwebby corners like a probe scanning her insides for abnormalities. There were blips of rapture here and there—like the births of her children—but, overall, her life seemed to her like a bland middle-class sitcom—a family just like every other family in their standard Israeli suburb. Suddenly, this bothered her.
That evening, as she prepared dinner and placed the newspaper on the dining table for Alon, she began to prepare a packing list in her mind. Inbal’s words floated in her head. I am also a bird, she thought. She had migrated across an ocean to set up her nest after meeting Alon at her study abroad year at Tel Aviv University. He charmed her with his disarming smile, muscular build, drive to make money and live in a beautiful home, his post-army toughness, and his “Yehiyeh b’seder”[4] answer to every problem. She went home for the year to finish college and then ordered the aliyah papers. For a few fun years, they lived in a tiny apartment in Tel Aviv. She went to ulpan[5] and worked as a waitress; he joined the high-tech boom, and they partied on the beach. Then they married and moved to the upper-middle class suburb of Herzliya along with hundreds of young couples like themselves. Together they had babies, fretted over getting accepted to the right preschools, joined gyms, bought iPhones and iPads, and upgraded. The men worked long hours and disappeared into miluim[6]for a few weeks a year. The women became teachers or worked part-time jobs so they could take care of their children. Later on, they consulted one another on extensive chugim[7] schedules, joined the PTA councils, and chaperoned school trips. That is when Amanda began her master’s degree in counseling, finally feeling comfortable enough to study in Hebrew. Every year, they vacationed in a different locale from Eilat to EuroDisney, following the itinerary of friends who had gone the year before and oftentimes joined by different members of Alon’s extended family.
What kind of bird am I? she wondered. Right now, she felt like a sparrow, who built its nest in trees and in building eaves, flitting around, in need of other birds and people. She was tired of it. Now she wanted to be a falcon, a bird that one only spotted on tiyulim[8] and everyone got very excited when they spied one floating on the air and flying against the wind. She needed to soar in the open skies without being directed by anyone or having to take care of anyone. She wanted to discover new landscapes and to navigate the world by her own instincts.
The following morning, Amanda was already awake when she heard Alon’s car pull out. She waited fifteen minutes and then got herself ready for the day. She took a small roller suitcase out of the closet and filled it with clothes and toiletries. She sent text messages to all of her clients. She went downstairs and took a notepad out of a drawer, scribbled on it, “I’m going away for a week. Don’t worry.” She placed it on the table, grabbed a water bottle and her purse, checking that her wallet and phone were in it, and got in her gray Toyota Prius.
At first, she drove on auto pilot, navigating the familiar side streets of her villa-lined suburb to the highway. She turned to Route Five heading east. After twelve kilometers she saw the blue sign for Route Six and chose the south direction. Here, the highway widened into four lanes. After the exit to Jerusalem, the traffic thinned out and then the landscape flattened into fields of low prickly stalks, remnants of the wheat harvest, and haystacks scattered like wheels of giant golden chariots. The sh’feilah[9] then gave way to rocky desert, on whose surface the September sun radiated. Mounds and plateaus chiseled by unrestricted winds and unobstructed rains jutted up in rigid majesty. This was the landscape she desired for her retreat, though she had not chosen a particular destination.
Only now, with the wide expanse before her, Amanda felt her body begin to tingle. The last time she had felt this way was when she landed at Ben Gurion Airport, showed her aliyah documentation at passport control, and was whisked away to a small office where she received her Israeli identity card. For those first few years, every day was like a new adventure—buying a ticket on the bus, living together with Alon, figuring out how to buy yogurt at the supermarket, even paying a phone bill. Like so many other couples, she got pregnant very quickly after their wedding, and she began the adventure of motherhood. Now, there was never time to stop and think—besides work and activities, someone always needed her, friends invited them, the family got together for a holiday (and there were many holidays). When their youngest child joined the army leaving them devoid of motherly weekday duties, the women went to modern dance performances at the Susan Dalal Center and book club meetings, and the men met at a bar to watch soccer matches and played basketball.
Halfway down the Arava road, Amanda noticed a small settlement on the left side of the road identified by a gritty sign as Pundak Eliyahu. She turned in, parked, walked into the dusty reception and met the owner, Yossi, who introduced himself as the father of Eliyahu who had been killed in the Second Lebanon War. She reserved a cabin for the week, requesting a spot on the edge of the settlement. Yossi obliged as rentals were low for the few weeks between the end of the summer holiday and the upcoming Rosh HaShanah holiday at the end of September. She showed him her identification card, passed him a credit card, and signed a ledger.
He glanced at her ID and then took a closer look at her. “Amanda, eh?” he said in mizrachi[10]-accented Hebrew. “What’s a pretty young woman doing down here at the end of nowhere by herself?”
She laughed, charmed by his banter and returned, “And what’s a charming gentleman like you doing living out here at the end of the earth? Waiting for Miss Right?”
He chuckled, “Miss Right caught me a long time ago picking dates together in that grove over there.” He pointed to tall date palms dotting the horizon to the south of the settlement. “So, all I know is this God forsaken purgatory. Where are you from?”
“Herzliya.”
“Born and raised?”
She laughed again, “Is twenty-five years enough?”
“But, motek, you don’t even look twenty-five years old! I thought you were the bat mitzvah.” He handed her a big silver key with a hard plastic tag that said “Tamarisk 2,” smiled with a kindly yet puzzled look in his wrinkle-framed eyes, and pointed her the way.
The pundak consisted of fifteen identical brown stucco cabins scattered from the reception in a wide circle encased by desert. Concrete walking paths cut through a crab-grass carpet dotted with tall date-palm trees. Scattered among the cabins were picnic benches, grills, and an occasional hammock hung between two poles. Amanda took her suitcase from the trunk of her car and rolled it on the winding path to the eastern edge of the site to a cabin with the number two painted on the door and a wispy faded tamarisk tree casting a modest shade as its only adornments. She entered the cabin and was greeted by a waft of cool air in the dimness. She flopped herself down on the plain bed and gazed out the window up at a rocky slope that stood like a sentinel between the holiday village and the wide vastness. She had done it.
The next three days, Amanda morphed into a vociferous tourist. She hiked the mountain next to her cabin and other nearby paths. She rented a bicycle and rode the Peace Road that paralleled the border with Jordan. She treated herself to lunch at the Arava’s only gourmet restaurant, which was attached to a local brewery. She bought a bracelet from a local jeweler. She went to a yoga and meditation class in an open-air ashram where she sat on a circle drawn in the sand surrounded by lanky women in string bikinis and shirtless men streaked with a “paint” made from brown earth mixed with water. She woke up before dawn to join a group of Japanese tourists on a Tomcar tour, small open roadsters that seat four, even getting the wheel handed to her to drive, her eyes wide with excitement behind the plastic goggles. She pet baby crocodiles in the Crokoloco reserve and explored the archaeological site of the ancient biblical settlement Tamar, serenely tearing away the thick skin of a pomelo fruit in the shade of a two-thousand-year-old jujube tree.
Amanda’s phone rang only once on Tuesday around noon while she was standing in line at a falafel stand and “My Shachar” appeared as the caller. Amanda took a deep breath and answered.
“Hi sweetie,” she said slowly, opening the dreaded inevitable conversation. “What’s going on?”
“What’s going on?!” Shachar said in high pitched lightly accented English. “Ima, where are you?”
“I’m down south,” she answered casually, resisting slipping back into her placating mother role. “Where are you, Shachar?”
“I’m at the university. Where else would I be?” came the annoyed answer.
“OK…What you do want?” Shachar, her firstborn, rarely called unless there was a pressing or practical matter with which she needed help.
“Nothing. I just want to make sure that…you’re OK.”
“I’m OK, motek. That’s so sweet of you to call and ask. But really, I’m fine.”
“Why did you go? When are you coming back?”
“Do you need something?” Amanda evaded, giving herself a moment to formulate an answer. “Um, I don’t know. We’ll see.”
“I don’t need anything.” Shachar answered and then continued her line of questioning. “We’ll see what?”
“We’ll see…how it goes.”
“How what goes, Ima?” Shachar’s voice went up a notch.
“How…life goes. You know.”
Shachar’s voice got even higher, “Ima, what are you doing just picking up and leaving like that? It’s not good for you to be by yourself. Abba said…”
“What did Abba say?” Amanda straightened up both curious and hopeful.
“He said…it doesn’t matter. When are you coming back?”
“What did Abba say?” Amanda’s voice took on an urgent tone.
“He said that he couldn’t find the newspaper. You always put it on the kitchen table for him when he comes home from work.”
“I see.” Amanda’s hand holding the phone became limp. After a minute of Shachar’s silence her resolve returned. “Everything will be fine. We’ll talk over Shabbat. Okay, sweetie?” Shachar conceded and hung up.
Except for that phone call, it had been a perfect week, Amanda thought as she sipped her coffee on the cabin porch slowly and luxuriously. Amanda had thrown herself out of her comfort zone without hesitation and with a gusto that surprised even herself. So what if I am alone for Shabbat? She thought. Change is good.
In the late afternoon, the sun floated in the western sky like a golden orb in a sea of blue before drifting onward in its travels around the planet. Amanda strolled to the dining hall, which was attached to the reception, and entered as the staff was setting the tables and placing the heated food trays in the buffet. A medium-built man in a well-worn t-shirt and jeans was directing the preparations, his jade green eyes shining from his lightly wrinkled tanned face. He smiled wide and brought his full gaze upon her. “Shabbat Shalom!”
“Shabbat Shalom,” she returned in a dazzled voice, forgetting for a moment why she had come. She quickly recovered and asked, “May I take dinner to go?” He nodded affirmative and with a gallant flourish brought her a few Styrofoam takeaway boxes with lids that clasped shut and extended his arm with exaggerated regality in the direction of the buffet. She smiled as she filled the boxes with various brightly-colored salads, gefilte fish, cold poached salmon, grilled vegetables, rice, and some chicken legs. He waited for her with a bag for carrying the boxes, some chocolate cake in a small box, and two sets of utensils wrapped in plastic.
“Oh, no, thank you,” Amanda said quickly. “One set is fine.”
“You are eating alone?” The dining manager’s face clouded with concern.
“No!” she answered quickly. “I mean, yes. But it’s OK. I planned it this way.” He still looked puzzled as if searching his mind for what arrangement would be best to offer a lonely middle-aged woman. She thought a moment and said, “It’s part of this meditation seminar I’m doing. It’s the practice for Shabbat.” He nodded, visibly relieved, happy to receive such an excuse even if it was a thinly-veiled lie. She breathed deeply as she walked out of the dining hall.
As she walked along the path, she heard male voices chanting in a small stucco building with no windows on her left, the drone drifting from an open door adorned with a small sign that read “miklat.”[11] She peeked in to see a small makeshift synagogue in which exactly ten men barely fit inside praying the evening Kabbalat Shabbat prayers. A tiny corridor on the side was partitioned by a dusty white lacy curtain to designate a women’s section. Amanda had not been in a synagogue since her nephew’s bar mitzvah a few years back. Even on Yom Kippur, she preferred walking the empty streets with her friends and catching the wafts of prayers on the way as she passed the synagogues and then resting in the air conditioning at home during the hottest hours.
Amanda lingered to absorb the impromptu sense of community and idly flipped through a siddur lying on a table in the entrance. She decided to see if she could follow the mumbled prayers. She opened to Kabbalat Shabbat and began scanning the words of the psalms that opened the prayers. Her eyes met the word midbar, desert, or, to be more exact, wilderness. It was in the closing lines of Psalm 95:“Do not be stubborn as at Merivah, as on the day of Massah, in the wilderness, when your ancestors put Me to the test, tried Me, though they had seen My deeds. Forty years I was provoked by that generation; I said, ‘They are a mistaken people; they did not know My ways.’ So I swore in anger that they would not come to My resting place.”Amanda closed her eyes and imagined the multitude of the Israelites wandering in that vast desert wilderness, very close to where she had spent the week exploring. She knew the basic story—God freed them from slavery in Egypt, Moses led them through the desert to Mount Sinai where they received the Ten Commandments. When Moses was up on the mountain for forty days, they built a Golden Calf and wanted to worship it. They witnessed so many miracles and yet the Israelites never stopped complaining. God realized that they still had the slave mentality and made them wander for forty years until the old generation died and a new, strong generation was born.Amanda walked out of the synagogue back toward her cabin. The Edom Mountains before her were glowing red, like the embers of a fire. Perhaps like the Burning Bush on Mount Sinai, she thought. The sun was now a sinking yellow bauble on the horizon behind her, somehow tinting the entire valley with ethereal luminosity. She felt transported to a different plane of existence. She closed her eyes and heard the knocking of wood on tent pegs, the clatter of pots over open fires, the shouts of children running errands between tents, men grunting as they hoisted sheep over a spit. The young men showed off their prowess at lighting the bonfires to the young women carrying water buckets on their shoulders, light-hearted and optimistic. The older folk sighed heavily as they moved about the camp, this barren open land the only canvas on which they painted their lives and which would entomb their bones in death. And yet, each day they prepared their meals and continued their journey, keeping an eye on the wondrous pillar that alternated between cloud and fire. They loved, gossiped, and told stories around the campfire. Could they have imagined how their triumphs and their failures would be recounted for so many generations?
Amanda decided then that she would ascend the slope behind her cabin to receive the Shabbat. There were a few narrow lines that zigzagged the mountain face but no marked trail. When she reached the top, she sat and caught her breath. Only then she noticed that she was still holding the siddur. I’ll return it tomorrow, she thought. It fell open to a different page of Kabbalat Shabbat, Psalm 29. Again, the word midbar jumped out: “The voice of the Lord convulses the wilderness.” An asterisk next to the verse drew her eye to a footnote at the bottom of the page: “Convulse—meaning like the convulsions of a woman giving birth.”
Amanda sat very still for a long time as she witnessed Shabbat slowly descend upon the land like a mother covering her child with a blanket in his bed. Up on the summit, the wind danced around her. A new yet familiar voice whispered in her ear. She breathed deeply and felt her insides tremble like she remembered the first tremors of childbirth. This was the Shabbat she sought. This past week had loosened the fetters of her soul like the warm sun coaxes open the petals of the red poppies in the spring. She was perched on the fulcrum between past and future. Her soul joined to the generations of desert wanderers and seekers, and all of her accomplishments, failures, insecurities, and questions were laid bare under the clear sky. In the desert, there is nowhere to hide. The sand rubs out the layers of accumulated complacency. The inexhaustible silence extracts the answers slowly and patiently.
She doubted, and then she believed. The future, she admitted, was not clear. But from her perch on high, she saw there was plenty of room to soar.
Shabbat Shalom.
[1] Neighborhood mini market
[2] Electric kettle
[3] Sweety
[4] Well-known Israeli expression: “It’ll be alright,” used whenever a problem is expressed
[5] Intensive Hebrew course
[6] Army reserve duty
[7] Extra-curricular activities
[8] Excursions, usually in nature
[9] Fertile lowland
[10] Jews of Middle Eastern descent
[11] Bomb shelter
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