No Shabbat Feeling

B"H

Everybody has his crises from time to time. Sometimes you just don't have any feeling for the holiday or Shabbat. It doesn't mean that you don't keep it but somehow you simply don't feel any kind of special atmosphere. Exactly this happened to me last Shabbat. One of the reasons might be that I am in the middle of moving. Furthermore, I felt completely exhausted from carrying and packing all my stuff. I decided to skip the Maariv prayer and instead went with a friend straight to the Shabbat dinner at Rabbi Mordechai Machlise's house.

Afterwards we only went to one chassidic Tish: to the Toldot Aharon.
There we were quite lucky to find great seats from where we could watch everything going on downstairs at the men's section. First it seemed that Rebbe David Kahn was as tired as us, and only later he really started swinging. At the beginning, not too many Toldot Aharon women showed up and I think that they must be exhausted and fed up due to their Pessach cleaning.

As soon as we entered, we just saw huge crowds of sephardi national religious girls. And those of you who are familiar with the Israeli kind of chutzpah can imagine what was about to happen. The national religious just jumped on the few women and immediately started questioning them about their head covers. This was quiet funny to watch, as it reminded me of a certain academic who needed months to get the right answers from the chassidic women. However, those national religious girls just asked, got the answers within minutes and we were able to listen to everything. By the way, I have had many experiences like that before. Female Tish visitors walked in and asked the Toldot Aharon women anything.

However, those national religious moved on to other subjects as well. If a Baal Teshuva (a Jew becoming religious in the course of his life) could join the group ? And if they accept sephardic Jews ?

Of course, anyone could theoretically join the Toldot Aharon. Anyone serious enough and willing to sign their Takanot (internal laws, constitution). However, in an ashkenazi society, sephardic Jews are not always too accepted and vice versa. Sepharadim do have a chance of getting accepted but reality shows that within chassidic society, they always remain outsiders. No matter what, they are always "the Separadim".

Those of you being familiar with the Shidduch business (match making) know that usually a born Chassid is not getting married to a Baal Teshuva. Baalei Teshuva marry other Baalei Teshuva and born Chassidim marry among each other. One of the young Toldot Aharon woman, however, claimed that there are cases in Toldot Aharon were Baalei Teshuva did marry someone born chassidic.

After a little more than an hour, my friend and I were too tired and almost fell asleep at the Tish. We decided to leave which was almost a pity because especially that night, the chassidic women really seemed to enjoy talking to the outsiders.

I am still not sure were I will spend the next Shabbat. Bnei Brak would be a great alternative and an interesting change. Additionally I am planning to go to different religious institutions in Tel Aviv and Bnei Brak in order to question them. One good example is the main branch of the Israeli anti - missionary group "Yad Le'Achim" where I know one of the leading figures.