By Allison Reich
Exploring the narrow and winding alleyways on a warm Friday afternoon, I imagined Tzfat’s pious residents passing me on their way to greet Shabbat. I closed my eyes and thought about the Kabbalists reciting Kabbalat Shabbat for the first time after it was written. I, as well as many of my peers on the Nachshon Project, highly anticipated the opportunity to follow in the footsteps of the great Tzfat sages and encounter God and Shabbat in a special way.
As the sun was setting, we were led to a shuel with congregants bursting out the door. Excited by energy and beautiful prayers streaming out of the doorway and into the streets, we stood on the sidewalk and joined in, singing a Psalms 95, “Come, Let us sing to God.”
Although the words of the prayer itself were inviting us to sing, the congregants of the shuel were less welcoming. Since the shuel was crowded with black hats, many of the congregants believed that it is prohibited for women to sing in the presence of men. From the disapproving looks, we knew that it would be best to pray elsewhere.
Luckily, I am familiar with the neighborhood, and I knew of a much better location for us to pray, where the words “Come, Let us sing” would apply to all who choose to join in. We arrived at the House of Love and Prayer, the shuel that Rabbi Shlomo Carlebach established. The room was packed with people, young and old, singing and dancing with their eyes closed. By the bright expressions on my friends faces, I was grateful that they were going to finally have the Kabbalat Shabbat experience that they were anticipating.
Overall, I walked away from this experience with a valuable lesson that related to the Jewish calendar. At the time of the Shabbaton in Tzfat, the holiday of Purim was approaching. The main spirit of the holiday can be expressed as v’nahafoch hu, or turning something upside down. Like the Purim story, when you think something is heading towards a particular direction, something more powerful will change its course of direction entirely, for example, Haman is introduced as an important, powerful figure and is eventually demoted and even executed. So too, with the anticipation of Purim in the air, we experienced a v’nahafoch hu moment. When our plans did not go as expected, we needed to act quickly, and turn our plans around. I think this unexpected turn of events is what made our experience even more memorable and unique.
