Musings from Students of the Pardes Institute of Jewish Studies in Jerusalem
Posted on September 17, 2014 by Ariella Siegel
From my blog:
I have pretty normal, brown, curly-girl Jew hair. Nothing special, not terrible, regular curls. I do my best to condition, to take care of them, and style them in a manageable (and hopefully acceptable) way, and I tend to do pretty good job at that.
However, on Shabbat, something special happens. My curls become beautifully shaped spirals, cascading down my back, bouncing and shiny, frizz free and beautiful. At first, I thought this was a fluke. Ok, maybe sometimes my curls behave themselves and create geometric forms like I would think they should do. But this has gone on for almost a month and a half now. Without fail, my pre-shabbos shower always leaves me with beautiful curls. And only on shabbos does this happen.
This leads me to an obvious conclusion…Shabbos is magic.
No wait- hear me out.
Here, in Jerusalem, I think shabbos really is magic. Even the hint of its appearance causes people to do a variety of seemingly crazy things, including venturing out to the hot, sweaty, crowded shuk where being pushed and/or run over by a Bubby cart is a very real possibility. People mob the markets to buy food to cook all day, clean houses like maniacs, wash laundry, set tables, turn on hot plates and set timers. I can’t think of a greater driving force that I have experienced here in Israel that motivates people to move more than Shabbos. What seems to make it worth it is that last push, the engines that churn up to the last minute, so that Shabbos can roll in and things flow like a well-oiled machine: the soup bubbling over right in time for the first course, fresh sheets on the bed, the lights going off at just the right time.
There’s something different in the air here on Shabbos. Whether it’s the troves of people walking to shul, the sounds of “shalom aleichem” coming from the open windows, the quiet streets, traffic lights changing for no one, there’s a certain something, a sacredness, a holiness that exists on Shabbat.
I not only know this from personal experience, but I have a personal barometer of awesomeness….my curls.
