New Year's Eve Memories

Wednesday, September 8th, 2010:

In the evening I put on my newly-purchased long skirt and blouse, and walk the forty minutes down to Noa’s synagogue. She’s waiting for me, holding a Hebrew-and-English prayer book that she has gone out of her way to acquire. Throughout the service, she leans over to flip pages for me, helping me to follow along. At one point she tells me, “If you get bored, you can just practice reading the aleph-bet. See, it’s listed here…”

Noa is a natural teacher - encouraging, patient, sincerely delighted to watch me learn. “I think you know this word…” she whispers, and I sound it out. Mem - lamed - chet. She’s right, I do know this one. Melech. Baruch ata adonai eloheinu melech ha’olam, I murmur. Blessed art thou o lord, master and king of the universe. “Melech means king,” I finally answer.

Noa is unspeakably proud.

After services we walk up the hill to her friend Ona’s apartment. Ona, Yossef, and Ronen are waiting for us. Ronen is Noa’s husband, a lovable bear of a man with enormous blue eyes and an adorable tendency to relate everything in life to a Friends episode. When I compliment Ona on the spectacular meal she sets before us, Ronen declares, “Ona is Monica,” - referring to the Friends character who cooks and cleans for the entire clan.

I have a lot to learn about kosher shabbat kitchens. I see two sets of cutlery and dishes - one for meat, one for dairy, which are never consumed at the same meal - and an array of unrecognizable devices designed to keep food and drink warm during the 25 hours each week when you are not permitted to light fires or turn on electric devices. (You can leave them on, I discover gratefully, making liberal use of the special kettle that keeps water hot for the coffee.)

Because it’s a holiday, we eat a nice meal in several courses: bread with hummus, tahini and red pepper spread; olives and pickles; delicious zucchini soup. Ona serves up soft carrots drizzled in honey, a traditional dish to celebrate the Jewish New Year. Ronen takes the opportunity to teach me a new word: gezer. Carrot. It’s not a harsh, ridiculous-sounding “geezer”, but a soft rolling word that dissolves into the rounded, swallowed Hebrew “r”. Geh-zehhr.

It makes me think of the verb, “to gaze,” and I do, taking in the richly-arrayed table in soft focus and allowing the Hebrew conversation to roll over me in waves. Noa occasionally translates, but I encourage her just to enjoy the evening and not worry about me. There’s a lot you can learn about people just by their mannerisms. Yossef is a little shy but he’s unapologetically his own person. Ona laughs a lot and never seems to say an unkind word about anyone. Ronen is intensely intelligent and interested in absolutely everything. Noa is maternal and kind as well as opinionated and eloquent. Periodically they pause to teach me a new word. “Kichu.” Zucchini. Key-shoe. I stare at my zucchini soup, picturing a key and a shoe. Kichu.

I’ve done this before. I used to train with a trapeze artist named Kito. Key-toe. To remember his name, I imagined a housekey dangling from a string wrapped around his big toe as he perched on the trapeze. And forever after I called him Toki.

Gezer is easier, for some reason. Gezer lands in my brain and stays there, a round peg in a round hole. Gezer is the color orange and crunchy taproots, made soft with boiling. Gezer is not just the word for carrot; gezer is carrot.

The meal before me is so elaborate, I forget that we’re only in the appetizer-and-soup stage, and I barely have room for the rice and chicken and sweet potatoes that follow. There are also ample opportunities for me to practice the Hebrew word for “wine.” Ya-een. Easy to say and easy to swallow. As the evening passes I float comfortably on the sea of foreign speech, letting it wash undifferentiated over me. Ronen liked what I said to him about reading Hebrew: “I want to enjoy it now while it’s still just beautiful drawings. Soon I’ll recognize it as words and I’ll be reading them; it will be different.”

The conversation reaches a lull. In the silence, I realize I haven’t said a word in thirty or forty minutes. I gaze around at my new friends, their faces soft-edged with wine and candlelight. I want to express my appreciation for their company, for the way they’ve made me feel welcome, for how confident and relaxed I feel on this New Year’s Eve in Jerusalem. Breaking the quiet moment, I gratefully murmur, Gezer.