JoelNothman.com

By the end of a week (now two weeks ago) of eating in fairly cold and mildly damp poorly-covered huts; of such fascinating and inebriating events as the Ghetto Shul’s sukkah, sushi and sake night and Westmount Chabad’s very Chabad-like sukkot party with clown, sausage sizzle, popcorn and fairy floss (cotton candy / candy floss / grandma’s hair); of not going to an Avraham Fried concert due to lack of interest and excess of work… by the end of that week, Arié had convinced me to come with him on a bit of a journey on Saturday night: Simchat Torah.

That morning I got up after not much sleep to go to the Ghetto Shul and be chazan there for Tefilat Hageshem, had a brief lunch there (too much food, too much the same, not enough eaters) and went back to bed. As night fell from evening, after having a seudah shelishit without food (ie just singing) with Allison and her friend Sophie, I packed my bag and was ready to go to our first stop for the night: the Ghetto Shul.

There were nine of us who had decided to walk from downtown Montreal up to the more Jewish neighbourhood of Cote St Luc, about 8 kilometres:
Arié, David Zvi, Denise, Greg, Nathan, Rachel H, Rachel K, Sarah and me. Things started a little late at the Ghetto Shul (announced for 7, actually after 7:30), and yet at the same time I was surprised at how fast things went. We did two hakafot (rounds of celebration and dancing with the torah scrolls) before discussing our movement to the next location (Westmount Chabad). And the discussion took a while to complete, so in the meantime I danced some more, getting hungrier. It turned out half the group weren’t packed and ready to go yet to the night’s adventures, so when things were finally sorted out, the 4th hakafa was already coming to a completion and tables were being taken out for food. Despite our hunger, those of us that were ready left off, to meet the others at Westmount.

So four of us headed down the road for the ~35 minute walk west. It didn’t feel that long, probably because we were singing (and a little dancing) through the streets along the way: me and Arié and Denise and David Zvi (who was dressed in a long black gown and tallit for the occasion). We also figured that at this late hour, we were better off stopping at Shaar Hashomayim who would finish before Chabad. But the Shaar were dining, and it looked/smelled like quite some feast—the sort of thing we should have already paid for. The idea that it might have been worthwhile to sneak in past the security guards only came up afterwards, and we arrived at Westmount to discover that they too had just finished the services. But there was plenty of good food on the table: mostly kosher American Chinese, some of it actually bearable (fried rice even good, but chicken mostly battered alongside pineapple). So we stuck around there for a short while; a couple of plates of food, a couple of glasses of wine and whisky shots; a couple of dances though the dancing was over; a couple of brief conversations. The rest of the group had turned up, and the night was yet long and Cote St Luc far. Next top was another Chabad centre, but some walk away.

We walked on, towards the Montreal Torah Center, the unassuming name of a large Chabad establishment in the Jewish centre of Montreal. It was quite a cool night, and many chins were considering freezing off, but the singing continued, albeit reduced, and it was altogether quite pleasant. If nothing else, it was a wonderful group of people to spend the walk with. When we got to MTC, we were met by large crowds of people in the entranceway. Once again, we had just missed the end of the official action, and now there were only a handful of hasidic farbrengens, and young people crowding the foyer.

So we got bored of MTC pretty quickly, and headed towards “The Lighthouse”, dropping our bags at Arié’s place on the way. The Lighthouse is a youthful scene in CSL run by Rabbi Elyon Shemesh, a shaliach from Israel and a student of Shlomo Carlebach. As we entered his apartment, the nine of us were fervently greeted by many familiar faces, shocked, amazed and excited to hear we had just walked all the way from Downtown (it was now after 1am, too). So we joined in the party, meeting some of the locals and having a good time, snacking on cakes and pretzels. And Elyon rose to speak, and spoke, a long personal anecdote, with a few songs and some nice teachings interwoven, and it lasted an hour. All cheered his words, and decided it was about time for bed. So we too left and found our way into Arié’s basement at 3am. (There Greg entertained us in his unusual lack of sobriety; Nathan and I played footsies through the night.)

We woke up fairly late: the family had decided not to wake us, so we all eventually crawled out of the house in time to miss most of the celebrations at the nearby synagogue. The congregation we attended is a small Moroccan one founded by Arié’s father, and when we got there the crowds had left to dance through a circuit of other synagogues in the neighbourhood. Just as those of us arriving late caught up all we had missed, the congregation returned. They returned with song for the taking out of the torah from the ark. For some reason, the sifrei torah here were not in the decorated cases usually expected for a Sephardi congregation, but were dressed like Ashkenazi scrolls; many of the lovelier tunes were Sephardi, although there was a spattering of chassidic nigunim among them as well. The hazan there has a wonderful voice, and an oriental style that I continually fail to imitate (some think I do a good “shabbehi yerushalayim”, but they clearly haven’t listened carefully to the real thing). According to their custom each nearly-bar mitzvah boy went up to the torah, and upon completing his turn received a toy car (of course one of the congregants owned a toy store—at the same time, they were forbidden to open the box on the festival). They had an atmosphere imbued with cheer and excitement, and for those of us mostly familiar with European styles it was a beautiful experience. I nonetheless did visit a couple of times the Adat shul around the corner, particularly the congregation in its basement, where the dancing continued much later (I still only got in for the last minute of it).

After the services, the Moroccan congregants and my group of friends went downstairs to enjoy the delicacies of the lunch Arié’s mother had prepared in exquisite North African (or otherwise) taste. Meat-filled pastries, turkey, artichokes; a nice small buffet of delicious food. And of course mint tea whose many species of leaves she ships regularly from Morocco; and sweet battered pastries with fruits for dessert.

Many of our group had left by dessert and were off to have another picnic lunch some distance away at Mount Royal; Denise, Arié and I were left with his brother (Yoel) and friend to rest at their house. We came up with an idea of heading up to Quebec City for the weekend of the 28th, but that plan seems less likely now—besides, we would miss all the pre-Halloween parties! Soon we were back in the synagogue for some more prayer, food and delicious song. Later, at Arié’s home we waited for the family to return to say havdalah and bring out the festival. The family gathered around: Arié’s mother and father, Arié, Yoel, his sister and her boyfriend, Denise and me. It was a nice family gathering with beautiful custom and a blessing from the father of the household for the following week’s prosperity for each of his children and those present. Like from the congregation earlier, the prayer was adorned with sporadic “amen” responses from those listening.

Arié continues to repeat an idea from Yosef: Sephardi Judaism is real religion, while the Ashkenazim are all about “what does the halacha say?” And maybe he’s right, and maybe it’s why chassidut felt the need to escape the chambers of learning and to jump up and down in a natural and loving fervour away from the nitpickings of the law. I don’t know how I feel about this, and I think that there needs to be a balance in the styles of practice. I certainly did enjoy my taste of this Moroccan flavour, and will definitely be back for more.

With a lift back to Villa-Maria station and a ticket lent to me who bore no cash, the month’s festivities were over and we were on our way home.