Sephardi Shabbat

A few weekends ago I spent Shabbat with my Sephardi host family and and a blast. Having not been there since the beginning of my trip, it was nice to be invited back for a relaxing Shabbat and I had a blast! I had already experienced some of the differences between Sephardi and Ashkenazi (typically Jews from Central and Northern European) culture from my previous stay but was a bit unprepared for what lay in store.

Shabbat began with a nice trip to the local synagogue and some Kabbalat Shabbat to welcome the Sabbath before sitting down to the evening meal. Having only been at the Cohen's house for Yom Kippur the amount of food was quite shocking--in a good way. We started the meal with prayers and challah accompanied by the customary plethora of Israeli salads and hummus. Next came the spicy fish in red sauce, fried cicken schnitzel, spicy Tunisian beef meatballs, meaty burrito-things, and what seemed like dozens of other dishes. We shared this meal with Tzvia's (the matriarch's) family and I spent a majority of the meal and aftermath trying to comprehend the Hebrew zipping around the table. After the post-meal tea and sunflower seeds I headed to bed, already sedately entering a food coma.

In the morning we headed back to the shul for morning prayer, where I got a healthy dose of Sephardi tunes that made me feel as if I had never attended a service in my life. The influences of their middle-eastern and north African heritage run deep and although the words are the same, the fluctuating tunes escaped my singing abilities. I was surprised to find out that our post-prayer activity would be attending a wedding celebration from the previous week, and guess what that meant? MORE FOOD! David, who was hosting me, told me the intricacies of Sephardi and Ashkenazi wedding traditions, particularly that the previous celebrate the Shabbat following the wedding while the European Jews typically celebrate the preceding Shabbat. I tried to prepare myself for a family gathering that seemed reminiscent of My Big Fat Greek Wedding, especially since the relatives lived kitty corner from my hosts and loosened my belt in preparation.

Once again the food was in large supply, but the dish that caught my eye here was a Moroccan-style cholent (a sort of beans and potato stew). The beef was tender and the beans delicious, but what made this version unique from previous experiences were the hard-boiled egg and mystery dumpling on the plate. With slow-deliberate Hebrew David explained the dumpling to be some mixture of animal fat, oil, and some sort of meal (corn?). Not being a shy eater and certainly not wanting to offend my hosts I dug in--it was edible, but I found it to be the dryness that was off-putting, yet certainly worth a try.

Following the wedding feast I waddled back to my temporary home and settled in for the end of Shabbat. As a parting gift from my hosts I came home with two huge jars of homemade olives, two loafs of challah, bourekas, some of the spicy Tunisian meatballs I love so much, and a bag of the delightfully lemony herb Tzvia grows that makes a divine tea.

As someone who does not keep the Sabbath in the traditional sense I find myself longing for experiences such as these every now and then. I get to experience a different culture first-hand, Hebrew becomes my only form of communication and forces me to practice, and I get a healthy dose o both family life and free food. I feel a closeness with the family that only comes from sharing such experiences, and the open invitation to return for Passover and any other Shabbat is more than enough to fill my heart with warmth--the kind of warmth that flourishes beautifully here in the desert.