חג סמח!

it is the holiday season in the holy land. and there is so much to say and i apologize in advance if this post reads a little scatterbrained.

pesach just started and i can already feel its effects in the city. the streets are completely void of people and cars. there is silence in the air as people sit down with their families to remember the time of israelites' imprisonment in egypt. if you know anything about the ten plagues, this is what pesach is all about. the holiday lasts for a week and this is one of the few times many people in israel have a break from work or school. it is also a time when many haredi jews go on vacation so on my travels, i will see black and white clad perons in the negev or the galilee area. pesach is one of the three pilgrimage festivals, along with shavuot and sukkot, which are the three times in which the jews offer up a sacrifice to God. and just like any jewish holiday, pesach involves the family. there is the reading of haggadah, which elaborates the story of enslavement in israel, the ten plagues and the exodus from egypt. along with the story, there is an intricate service, involving drinking of wine, partaking in bitter herbs, and consumming the matzah.

i wasn't able to join a family for the seder dinner so my friend, jonathan, and i decided to spend the holiday together. it was really nice since both of us weren't going to be alone. jonathan cooked a fabulous dinner of salmon steak with sweet curry sauce, vegetables and quinoa, and a nice salad. avi left us a copy of the haggadah so we can partake in the seder service. since we didn't get to eat until midnight (we napped for a long time), we gave up on the story halfway through and made hillel's sandwiches (matzah, haroseth, bitter herbs) and drank the customary four glasses of wine. our own tradition was in the making.

the one thing that makes me weep a little inside is how forlorn the bakeries appear this time. during pesach, no leavened products (חמץ) are consumed and the pesach cookies are so unforgiving. they are made from coconut, eggs and sugar. some have jam and some are covered in chocolate. these cookies are the hardest, nastiest tasting things i've ever eaten. there are no more pitas, breads, rugelach, bourekas... it makes me so sad. there is no more lovely smell of yeast in the air. i'm a little crazy, sorry.

this year, the seder pesach was made extra special because of the birkat hachama (creation of warmth). this is 'sun worship' happens every twenty-eight years. the prayer is said to commemorate the creation of the sun, which supposedly happened on tuesday night/wednesday morning. and because of the way the earth rotates on its axis and revolves around the sun, the exact same point is reached every twenty-eight years. for the prayer service, many flocked to the western wall before sunrise and created a frenzy of voices as the sun rose. while the birkat hachama occurs every twenty-eight and pesach every year, the next time the two will coincide won't be for another five hundred years. so indeed, this pesach is something special.