The Unexpected Shabbat Guests
Everyone has an "only in Israel" story, here is Raizel's story.
This past year, I moved to a beautiful town in Northern Israel, with nature all around.
One Shabbat, I was at one of the famous lookout viewpoints in my town with a few friends and saw another two of my friends there. We decided, as it was close to the end of Shabbat and is customary to end it in song, to sit together and sing some Shabbat songs. It was filled with really beautiful energy.
As we kept singing, two men came to the lookout point, and I noticed that they were really enjoying our singing. We invited them over to sing with us, but they were really shy and said they knew none of the songs!
Well, we didn't care that they didn't know the songs, and eventually convinced them to join us and to sing whatever songs they knew. One of them began singing a really beautiful Shabbat song that we all knew. As the group grew, the singing became even more beautiful and meaningful.
As we were finishing up, I asked the two men what their names were. It turns out they were Druzim, who lived in a village nearby! They weren't even Jewish, and yet they knew one of our favorite Shabbat songs (and sang it beautifully as well!).
It was incredible to see how moved they were by our Shabbat singing and came to even join us and make it an even more special experience.
So there we were, in a small town up north - two Americans, a few Israelis, and two Druzim - singing together in the holiness of Shabbat. Only in Israel!
