How do you say "Thank You" in Yiddish ?

B"H

Erev Shabbat and also today were the greatest Shabbat meals I have had for a long time. I am still very excited about the wonderful atmosphere and the interesting people I met.

Two of the traditional three Shabbat meals I spent with a chassidic family in the middle of Mea Shearim. I know the family for quite a while but hadn't seen them for some time. As soon as I walked in, old memories came up right away. On both sides.

The family knows that I write on the Internet and although I don't concentrate on all the negative stuff and gossip about the haredi world, they still asked me not to mention any details about them as well as about the other guests. I deeply respect their request and I am just going briefly into the subject and mention a few topics we talked about.

As I said before, I really enjoyed the whole atmosphere. Due to modesty reasons, men and women sat in two separate rooms and, therefore, I only spoke to the females. This was even more interesting because our host had about 20 women including a haredi family from Kiryat Sefer. First I was worried that the living room would be too small for all those people but miraculously everyone fit in. Many of the other guests were frum American seminary girls. Our host was mostly busy with serving the food, as she sees it as a great Mitzwah. Eventually we persuaded her to sit down for a while and two of her grandchildren took over the serving job.

Our host insisted on sitting next to me. I speak several languages, I know her for some time and I can communicate with her very well. She prefers Hebrew of Yiddish. My Hebrew is fluent but our conversations were mostly in Yiddish. My Yiddish is limited, as I don't really speak and only understand. This time, however, I made an effort to speak and I really liked it. One woman said to me that my Yiddish is great and I responded that I wasn't speaking Yiddish but German.

To my surprise, I had some deep conversations with a young European girl, an English speaking woman who at the moment is switching from one chassidic group to another and, of course, with our host. We four sat together and couldn't stop talking anymore. I learned a lot from this conversation.

When we finally left, we were all invited back for the next day for lunch. Most of us showed up again.

The English speaking woman switching from one group to another and I decided to keep in touch. I am going to call her this week and we will meet again. We got along very well and I am glad that I met her. She might even have someone in Mea Shearim teaching me Yiddish. At least how to speak better. Our host's daughters already taught me some new expressions.

It goes without saying that if you speak to the Mea Shearim inhabitants, you are being informed about what is going on in the hood. Already after three minutes I knew about all the chassidic Tishes taking place. And after the great ashkenazi meal (Gefilte Fish, chicken soup and self - made Challah), I went to the Tish of the Toldot Avraham Yitzchak. Rebbe Shmuel Yaakov Kahn had been abroad for a few weeks and is back now. I don't know if the Toldot Aharon Rebbe, Rabbi David Kahn, is back but there was no Tish at the Toldot Aharon on Erev Shabbat.

I went to Avraham Yitzchak and had a great time. I only stayed for a little more than an hour because I was tired, andnd lunch was announced to take place at 12pm. I couldn't even convince some of the meal participants to join the Tish. Everyone just went to bed.

However, the Avraham Yitzchak Tish was packed and I witnessed a great conversation taking place between a group member and two American frum girls. The group member explained the clothes of the male members. White sox for the married men and black sox for the unmarried men. It was funny to see how the three communicated. The girls knew some Yiddish and the woman spoke a little English. If you know Yiddish and something about Chassidut, it makes it much easier to approach the Chassidim. Especially when they know the same people in Boro Park or Antwerp as you do.

During our meal someone mentioned Chabad and our host including further guests agreed that Chabad does a lot in order to bring Jews back to their roots. Our host emphasized that Chabad is good for beginners but nothing further. After Jews gained some more knowledge they should decide which way to continue. Litvish, chassidic or whatever.

The English speaking woman made a funny but also very sad point. She said that in the States she saw posters where the Lubavitcher Rebbe was called G - d. Well, you can imagine that our host almost fainted. Too much is too much.

Furthermore we had a great conversation about converting to Judaism through the anti - Zionist umbrella organization Edah HaCharedit. When you convert this way, the Israeli Ministry of the Interior does not recognize your conversion and therefore refuses giving you Aliyah. This was a surprise to some of the guests from the Mea Shearim neighbourhood. They didn't know that. One of the guests mentioned that she knows a few girls who converted this way and one of them, who went to the Ministry afterwards, got arrested. The girl had to repeat her conversion with the Chief Rabbinate (Rabbanut). In my eyes this is completely exaggerated.

However, I was invited again and I will definitely stay in touch with the English speaking woman.

By the way, "Thank You" in Yiddish means "Yesher Koach" or "A Dank".