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My time of grace

The average haredi woman works around the clock and gets no breaks just because she’s tired. So, what do haredi women do on Friday night?

Let me tell you a little secret. Despite what people tend to think, haredi women do not go to synagogue services. All the stories about whispering and gossip in the women’s section are about our modern Orthodox sisters. A haredi woman will show her face in synagogue perhaps at Rosh Hashanah, and at most on Yom Kippur. So what do haredi women do on Friday night and other nights?

 

The average haredi woman lives around the clock. Her schedule includes all 24 hours in the day, with no option to slack off just because she’s tired. What would drive an average woman crazy is the normal way of life in Bnei Brak and other such places.

 

It would not be unrealistic to tell a story of a woman who sat up every night for an entire week checking exams, unable to calm down her child who was screaming from teething pain. Or the story of a woman with five children, all of them with chickenpox, who is already a regular visitor to a doctor who sees 70 patients a day, and he still remembers her first name. And what will happen tonight? Thanks very much for asking. She managed to sleep for exactly 10 minutes when the baby finally fell asleep on the washing machine, in the middle of the spin cycle, and woke up again during the second rinse cycle.

 

Nirvana arrives  

After a very packed week comes the high point, Friday’s preparation and organization. My friends, all of them working women, turn back into fulltime housewives, a role still considered worthy of respect only in the haredi community. They add hours to the day to get the house back into proper order after the weekly hurricane.

 

At least once a week I also turn into a maid and abandon my computer in favor of polishing, all the time reminding myself that the week has ended and the good life is beginning. Fortunately, that idea manages to survive until the sun goes down, the candles are lit, and nirvana arrives.

 

“Shabbat shalom” and a smile hasten the departure of husband and offspring for the synagogue, and I relax on the living room couch, close my eyes, and listen to the silence. It is a deep, powerful, and filling silence of the kind that you hear only in Shabbat-observing towns. Before I’ve even managed to find a comfortable position and take out the latest thriller, which I’ve been longing to read for the entire week, I hear a soft, hesitant knock at the door.

 

One after the other my friends come in and sit on the couch. The children, who are already used to this, go quietly to the next room. The women who run around busily all week in everyday clothing, who have accumulated miles of stains and walk around in formless housedresses, look as if they’ve just had a makeover with a wand that has transformed them from tired Cindarellas into attractive, made-up, and perfumed ladies.

 

Countdown till next week  

The three of us sit on the couch and discuss the latest news of the week, about the woman who had a miscarriage (we need to see how we can help out there), about the family in the building across the way that is enlarging their home, about the older unmarried woman (27 years old) who finally found a husband, and about who is painting their home this summer.

 

But before we’ve had time to get into the motivations of the young bride who cooks a three-course meal every night for her husband, I hear the voices of the building’s “Council of Sages” in the lobby, having their last conversations. That’s the signal for us to close up shop and for everyone to go home, promising to be in touch during the week, knowing that it won’t happen.

 

My ladies go back home and I try to find another few stolen moments of quiet, but the latest letter of the Rabbinical Council causes raised voices in the lobby, and as I go with a sigh to set the table I begin to quietly count the moments until the next meeting, a week from now.

 


פרסום ראשון: 06.01.07, 15:42
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