We spent our first Shabbat evening in Jerusalem all alone.
One of the things we're most looking forward to here is spending Shabbatot with Ben's classmates, which we can't do easily in New York because we live in Brooklyn. But last night was exactly as it should have been. After a long week of marrying, traveling, and getting adjusted, we were craving the downtime that Shabbat would bring, and we didn't have any energy left to share.
On Friday morning, we joined thousands of other Jerusalemites at the shuk to buy fruit, vegetables, halva, and — in our case especially — basic household goods that we were missing, such as a knife. Then three friends brought a home-cooked meal to our apartment. We lit candles at 4:28 p.m. and forced ourselves to wait until the crack of 6 p.m. to cut into our challah, quiche, salad, asparagus, and chocolate cookies. By 7:30 we were asleep.
What we lacked in social interactions on Friday night we more than made up for on Shabbat morning. Up early, we decided to walk down to Emek Refaim, the main drag of the German Colony, for services at Kedem, an egalitarian minyan. Populated mostly by rabbinical school students and other Americans in Jerusalem for short spells, Kedem felt a lot like stepping into Altshul, or onto the Upper West Side. In the future, we'll try to visit synagogues unlike those we frequent at home, but davening at Kedem made for a comfortable way to ease into Shabbat in Jerusalem this week.
Afterwards we headed to a Shabbat lunch hosted in our honor by two friends, a couple who were also married in North Carolina (but before we knew them). We closed our week of sheva berachot around a large table packed with new neighbors, munching until havdalah on a huge spread of salads and a Yerushalmi kugel (made with caramelized oil and black pepper) — a perfect way to end a turbulent first week of marriage.
