HAPPY 5767
Last friday 22 of September we were invited (or better said, we invited ourselves) to a Rosh Hashanah dinner, which is a jewish new year celebration. The jewish new year commemorates both the Creation of the world and the birth and binding of Isaac. So, we celebrated the 5767 year. The way we came to attend to this event was very random (given the fact that we are not jewish): a girl from the USA sent a email to an expats email list that we make part of inviting all jewish people or just people that wanted to learn more about this to join this dinner. So, we went there ;-) These are the kind fo things that you do when you are an expat/trainee!
Some highlights:
1. We came late, and of course we arrived in the middle of singing, when everybody finished eating (well, the first meals). We arrived to the house of an indian jewish familiy where the whole ceremonial thing happened, it was very impresive at the beginning, I felt a little embarrased just popping up like this and sitting on the table, but these people welcomed us very nicely, and also the fact that there were other good group of non-jewish people learning of the whole thing made us feel also comfortable. It was also very impressve that a lot of nationalities were there this night.
2. After sharing these moment with the family, we moved to another small apartment in the same floor where solely expats were there (8-9 people) and we had dinner (very good one) but all was more informal! The great thing is that many of us just got to know each other this night, attracted by this email on the expats list.
3. We learned a bit of jewish culture and traditions, since our hosts not only were jewish, but also one of them religion student - it was very nice to see little stories and explanatios for dummies of their religion. Also we learned a lot from each other and how we came to India and how India is treating us, this is always a non-negotiable topic.
The good feelings that woke up in me that night, is that suddenly I realized seeing these girls being at moments so sentimental about the whole celebration, that I will spend christmas here in India! i am not a very religion-driven person, but I believe and I enjoy christmas as the main celebration of my Xtianism and all the familiy traditions behind - so I am already figuring out how to build christmas atmosphare for ourselves next december here in India... let's see how it goes!
May we all have a good and sweet new year!
Some highlights:
1. We came late, and of course we arrived in the middle of singing, when everybody finished eating (well, the first meals). We arrived to the house of an indian jewish familiy where the whole ceremonial thing happened, it was very impresive at the beginning, I felt a little embarrased just popping up like this and sitting on the table, but these people welcomed us very nicely, and also the fact that there were other good group of non-jewish people learning of the whole thing made us feel also comfortable. It was also very impressve that a lot of nationalities were there this night.
2. After sharing these moment with the family, we moved to another small apartment in the same floor where solely expats were there (8-9 people) and we had dinner (very good one) but all was more informal! The great thing is that many of us just got to know each other this night, attracted by this email on the expats list.
3. We learned a bit of jewish culture and traditions, since our hosts not only were jewish, but also one of them religion student - it was very nice to see little stories and explanatios for dummies of their religion. Also we learned a lot from each other and how we came to India and how India is treating us, this is always a non-negotiable topic.
The good feelings that woke up in me that night, is that suddenly I realized seeing these girls being at moments so sentimental about the whole celebration, that I will spend christmas here in India! i am not a very religion-driven person, but I believe and I enjoy christmas as the main celebration of my Xtianism and all the familiy traditions behind - so I am already figuring out how to build christmas atmosphare for ourselves next december here in India... let's see how it goes!
May we all have a good and sweet new year!
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