Havdalah

The afternoon of Shabbat spent on the beach in Jaffa: just me and a couple of hundred of the people whose acts I’ve been decrying in this blog, as if they’re a people of only one mind and opinion. I still decry those actions. But I can no longer see all Arabs in the same simplistic light as before.

I meandered up and down the beach among children and adults building sand castles, flying a kite, playing some sort of paddleball game, having picnics, gossiping. Sometimes some nasty Israeli pop music was blared over the loudspeakers at the lifeguards’ hut. Jellyfish lay scattered along the high water line, rather bewildered to find themselves dead all of a sudden, and looking like some glassblowing experiments gone awry. Collected 2 shells, 1 rock, and 1 jellyfish sting, quite inadvertent, I assure you. The thing rammed itself into my ankle.

Walked back to the house, but I slipped out of M’s weekly pre-Havdalah teaching because it was almost all in Hebrew which, as we all know, I don’t understand yet. Very frustrating, because I’m sure I would have loved it. Sat on top of the restaurant across the street with my dinner of hummus and tea, and watched the sun set into the Mediterranean.

I came back for Havdalah itself, because that doesn’t seem to be language-dependent. And I’d finished my tea, too.