by Daniela Lowinger
After a long time, I’ve come back to Tzfat. To a different city, or through different eyes, for the first time I saw her beauty and was able to understand why she is so special.
After visiting the Arizal, Cordovero and Alkabetz graves in the morning we arrived at the old city on Friday afternoon. The streets seemed busy with people running their last errands before Shabbat. And very early the city started to shut down. Businesses closed their doors, people disappeared from the sidewalks and the sounds started fading out. Then we went to the hotel to prepare for our last Shabbat together.
When the sun started setting we met at the hotel lobby to light our candles, each praying for her husband, children, parents, friends…in each pair of eyes a glow, the sign of a tear, the emotions reflected in the hugs and blessings given one to the other. And then, slowly… with the same pace the sun was hiding, we started walking thru the narrow alleys of Tzfat.
Through the sunset we could see the hills and valleys…a breathtaking view. And in the silence of introspection we walked, all of us together and each of us alone with our thoughts and emotions, looking for a synagogue to receive the Shabbat.
We reached the alleys of the old city and found this little synagogue, very unpretentious but full of people inside and outside. At the beginning I thought that we were going to look for another shul where we could all go in. Then suddenly an unknown woman asked me if I wanted to go in, she had a place for me. I didn’t know what to answer…to go alone and leave the group? For some reason I decided to go in and take the risk and be separated from my friends.
Inside, the music started to envelop me like a blanket. People – complete strangers – were singing these beautiful nigunim* over and over, each time with more joy, filling the room completely. Men were dancing and singing on the other side of the mechitza and we, the women, kept the rhythm with our feet, following the song, singing softly. I closed my eyes for an instant and felt that this precious moment was different from all that I knew before. It was, if I can use this analogy, like touching heaven, with a sweetness unknown before.
In that tiny synagogue none of the people seemed to have their feet on earth, the nigunim seemed to fly high to the skies, to heaven, not being contained by the ceiling of the synagogue, and if we could have seen their hearts and their souls they would have been shining like the strongest lights in the universe. A sense of unity, of togetherness, of familiarity fell on all of us. In my mind a little thought kept coming back: “That’s the way it was once when we were all together.”
In my humble and innocent prayer to G-d I had just one question for Him: “What else do You need from us for the Diving Presence to be here, right now?”
With a full heart I walked out of the synagogue, and promised myself I’d look for kabbalot Shabbat like that one the rest of my life.