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| Part of the Sukkah City behind our building |
The festival period is coming to an end. Only one more tonight and tomorrow and then we can get back to a proper routine for the first time since before the summer holidays. Whilst a nine week school term with no breaks is a bit scary, I'm so looking forward to a bit of discipline in our lives before we waste any more of it with late nights and hardly any mornings.
On Shabbat we went to my cousins in Netanya. It was a leisurely day including two meals in their sukkah with extremely good company. Some of their friends we meet every year and it's lovely to catch up. Some new faces but no one is completely 'new' as everyone is from the expat community. A bit of delving and you always find a connection. The couple I met for the first time were in the Scouts with my dad and remembered him fondly.
There were wonderful sunsets over the Mediterranean but the 25 hour festival without [visible and hands-on] technology encompassed both of them so no photos this time.
This final festival tonight celebrates coming to the end of the yearly cycle of reading the Torah (Old Testament) which we read weekly portion by weekly portion. We celebrate the Torah and that the the book of life, that we were hopefully written into for the coming year, will be signed and sealed by God. There is a lot of singing, dancing, and rejoicing in the synagogue. It goes on for hours.
It's been an intense three weeks of introspection, atonement and celebration. To be honest, I've had enough and I'm looking forward to real life starting again on Wednesday.
I love the thought of 25 hours tech free! Sounds like a good festival season.
ReplyDeleteEvery week on shabbat is supposed to be tech free but we bend the rules quite a lot.
DeleteSounds as though you had a lovely time - and I think everyone would benefit from a holiday break from technology now and again!
ReplyDeleteWe are just about to start the holiday season - Canadian Thanksgiving is this coming weekend, then some people have a holiday for Remembrance Day - there will be big services this year as it is the 100th anniversary of the end of WWI. Then it's Halloween, with US Thanksgiving in November, followed by Hanukah and Christmas and then New Year! Honestly, you just start to get back to "normal" after the Summer and then it starts right back up again. Some retailers even have Christmas cards & decorations in already - they could at least let us get Halloween over with first!
It has been a busy week here as I swap Summer & Winter clothing and purge items from my wardrobe (taking a couple of bags in to the donation bin at church today) and I'm also in the middle of switching my basement storage locker with a friend who has left the building. My room requires me to go up and down 7 or 8 steps with no handrail whereas her room allows me to just walk straight in so it will make life a lot easier - even though it is a slightly smaller locker. I'm moving things around from the storage locker to my apt. and back so my place looks like a total tip at the moment - but it should be all sorted by the end of the week so I am trying to keep that in mind and not stress too much! Have a great week.
I know what you mean. The bakeries here have already started selling Hanukka doughnuts and we're not through with Sukkot yet. Two bag donated sounds good. And of course you won't need such a big storage locker once you've got rid of a lot of stored stuff, right? Good luck with the reorganizing. xxx
DeleteI always feelmthe same with celebratory periods, you look forward to them, they are lovely and by the end you just need routine again. Here's to a great, back to normal week for you. Mich x
ReplyDeleteThanks Mich. Were on the final straight. Prepare for a very boring R2BC next week. xxx
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