Well hello there, sorry its been so long since I’ve written. Usually my writing of my blog is like kinda like writing my parents home from camp, I usually don't do it because i'm busy doing much more fun things, but i can be persuaded by monetary compsenation. Just kidding...(hint hint)
A lot of people (ok fine just my family) have asked me about my High Holiday Experience in Morocco, so I guess I’ll tell you all about it. So first we went to the Shul in Rabat. Its called Talmud Torah. Back in its heyday like 20-30 years ago it was also the seat of Jewish life in Rabat, with a school serving 400 kids and plenty of members. On Erev Rosh Hashanah, there were like 30 men and 10 women (those numbers include 4 American men and 4 American women. The Shul itself is pretty beautiful, with giant Moroccan carpets covering the floor, a gorgeous amud and Ark and many chandeliers, which I guess is a recurring theme in Moroccan Synagogues. Services were pretty weak overall. This is due to two main reasons. The 1st is that I don’t really love Sephardi davening. I’m just not really used to it nor does it have the epic-ness and truly awesomeness of Ashkenazi High Holiday davening. In the case of Talmud Torah, this is exacerbated by the 2nd reason, which is that there were only like 30 old men davening. After davening was over, all of the American students were invited over to people’s houses for dinner. It was really awkward standing around with the president having him ask people to host us, but our hosts were great. Me and Raechel ate dinner with two brothers who were visiting Morocco and their mother from France. They were both born in Rabat, in fact, their mother said that her family had been living in Rabat for like 400 years or something, they went to Talmud Torah, but now they both live in Strasbourg, France. We had an awesome meal. The brother’s both spoke English (in addition to French, Darija, and Hebrew) and the mother spoke darija.* The meal was delicious. We began with a bunch of symbolic Rosh Hashanah foods, including: toasted sesame seeds with sugar, cooked vegetables, some odd spinach paste, pomegranate seeds with sugar, and cooked sheep head. Oh Rosh Hashanah! And that was just before motzi. There were also plenty of delicious Moroccan salads, and when they brought out the main course, they told us they wouldn’t tell us what we were eating until we tried it. So they passed around the plate which had meatballs and something that looked like diced pieces of chicken but really fatty. Turns out they were cows’ stomach. They were very flavorful but had a really chewy texture/consistency. Raechel thought it was really good but I wasn’t too big a fan. There were also plenty of fresh fruits for desert and overall was a great meal. Me and Raechel then walked the 3 miles back to Agdal.
The next day services were fine. There were more people but same kinda boring atmosphere. However, we got invited to the Rabbi’s house for lunch. We had a ton of salads, and Couscous with mutton. It was awesome. I love couscous. Neither the rabbi or his wife spoke English, so we mostly communicated in Hebrew and Arabic, since neither me or Raechel speak French. After lunch was over, we asked the rabbi if we could go hang out in the Shul before mincha/maariv. He said yes, then took us to a locked garden next to his house. It was beautiful and there were so many different types of trees, including an etrog tree. He then took us into another locked door, which turns out was a beautiful 400 year old synagogue. It was in perfect condition, because even though nobody uses it anymore, he still keeps it clean. All of the Rabati Jews who go to services go to Talmud Torah now, even though our hosts from the night before both went to the 400 year old synagogue when they were kids. Again, I can’t really stress enough how beautiful this synagogue was. It was just exquisite. Anyway, we went back to Talmud Torah to just chill out for the 4 hours before mincha/maariv, but this crazy women who always sits out in front of the synagogue wouldn’t let us in, so we went back to the Rabbi’s house and napped on his couches. After maariv we went back to the brother’s house for dinner where we had tongue as our special treat. We also went to services the next morning but ate lunch with our respective families.
Yom Kippur was another affair altogether. We decided that since davening in Rabat was kinda lackluster we would go to Casablanca, which has at least 3000 Jews, as compared to Rabat’s 120. Raechel got us an invite with a family whose daughter had gone to Brandeis. They were awesome. We ate a giant pre-fast meal with them and then went to their synagogue, Neve Shalom, for Kol Nidre. It was fantastic. It was remarkably different from Talmud Torah, and substantially more enjoyable. I counted and there were at least 100 men and 40 women in the Synagogue, not including all of the people and children who were outside in the courtyard. The services were lively and energetic and just great overall, even if I didn’t recognize any tunes. For Shacharit we went a Synagogue called Beth El. Its also known as The Temple. It was huge and remarkably beautiful. Honestly the ark was probably the most beautiful ark I’ve ever seen in my life. While it was exceedingly beautiful, the davening was much less enjoyable than at Neve Shalom. However, after musaf, we stayed at Beth El for an hour while the Governor of Casablanca and his political and military entourage came to the synagogue. The members of the Shul put up a picture of the king and The Rabbi said a prayer for the king and the president gave a speech to the governor. It was a fascinating experience. We then went back to Neve Shalom for mincha and Ne’ilah. It was great. The whole Shul was crazy hyper during the last half hour of Ne’ilah. By the way, the ark opening for Ne’ilah was auctioned off for 27,000 dirhams, which is approximately $3200. After Ne’ilah we ate break-fast with the family. We broke the fast first with wine, then with a glass of arak. Lovely stuff. Another great and fun filled and gigantic meal. Also the Jews of Morocco tend to eat slow more American paced meals, whereas my host family gobbles down most meals in like 15 minutes.
*Sidenote: The vast majority of Moroccan Jews I have met speak French at home instead of Darija. I have no clue why this is the case, since they all know Darija and French. After many conversations with Moroccans on the subject of French, Since everyone is fluent in French there isn’t really anything socially unacceptable about mostly only speaking French, although I get the feeling it might be regarded as very slightly elitist, at least among Muslim Moroccans. It sounds at least among the mainstream that French only is regarded as a little hoighty toighty. That being said I have met a number of Muslim Moroccans that predominantly speak French.
Anyway, I hope this post satiated your burning desires for tales from Morocco. I actually plan on writing more today, so inshallah this won't be my only post of the day. If it is though, Shabbat Shalom!
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