Free Shabbat – Yaakov Metz

Before I begin, you may wonder why I was prompted to write an ncsy blog post. Now I could lie and say that I wrote the post by my own want, but this would be very untrue.  Around 5 minutes ago I was woken up by the sound my my director blabbering on the bus’s sound system.  He claimed with absolute certainty that anyone who fails to write a blog post will not be participating in the next activity, which he claimed to be camel riding and Jeeping (I assume that two activities are separate, although it would be cool to race jeeps and camels.) Anyway, fear of calling my directors bluff led me to this point in the so called “blog”.  I spent my free weekend at my cousins house in Yerushalim.  I have four cousins all under the age of 7, and another one on the way (yes, they are religious.)  So I had to prep for when they asked if I had any games on my phone, candy, and NyQuil (dont worry the nyquil was mostly  for me.)  In addition to my cousins, their cousins decided to come – also my aunts apartment became a makeshift Chucky Cheeses, and I was in the middle of all the chaos. As the shabbos progressed I consumed enormous amounts of Sephardi food.  It was my Ashkenaz stomach against 3 meals a day of Moroccan food.  As you may have guessed my Ashkenaz stomach lost.  Besides that my weekend gave me perspective on how calm Ice Israel actually is.  It also gave me perspective on how easy Ashkenazi davening is.  At the end of the day (or weekend) I had an amazing weekend with my family, and their family, and their family.  It was good to experience Shabbat from a different point of view, even if it means sacrificing my ears, privacy, and abdomen.