Fili’s world

There was a big welcome Hebrew sign hanging up at the entrance of this expensive 5 star hotel, high up at the main mountain, looking down on a beautiful view. Everything was set up neatly - china plates, golden forks & knifes, like it was taken out of a mid-15th century European picture. As I was going in, the tall doorman smiled at me and greeted me with a warm "Happy Passover" and coming in the main hall I was surprised to see that I knew everybody. Anyone I've met this past month was there, even some people I had a hard time believing they were actually Jewish. They all seemed pleased, sitting around the round tables, sipping high-quality wine, talking and laughing. For the first couple'o minutes, I just walked around, exchanged some words with people I've missed, getting to know the place, really admiring the work and effort invested in throwing such a Passover party. At every table I could see the Passover main symbols, with a decorated illustrated Hagada, big yummy Matzahs and all bunch'o Jewish spices, up and ready for the big dip. Sitting down with some friends I remembered how much I used to dislike this holiday - with all the ceremonial drag and all the "same same" jokes and read-through, family usually making an effort to just pull this one through. I couldn't remember the last Passover I enjoyed, but I knew this one might be different. Here, in some distant far away land I might reunite with my people, maybe learn to make peace with my religion and just have a good time. This was going great! For a moment there, I thought I saw my little Sheyne, at a far away table, waving around what appeared to be a paper baring her latest 1st test driving license. Feeling really confused (yet extremely proud of her accomplishment) I thought that was kind'o weird but then again I do have a habit of day dreaming when I'm happy. Brushing that picture off, there was sudden loud sound of an alarm that went off inside the building. Looking around, no seemed to care, and everyone was just doing their thing. Bundled together with the alarm I heard this noise coming back from behind me and then I was grabbed and turned over, seeing what appeared to be my friend Assaf from Israel shouting at me "I knew you'd like the Passover in Nepal". Assaf? Sheyne? Nepal?

I was fuzzy, sweating with the evening heat, still half remembering the weird Nepal dream. Slowly, I was waking up to the awful sound of my alarm clock. I still have 15 minutes until the Beit-Chabad Seder starts. I rise up from bed, blindly walking to the shower, pushing over the one cold-water button that was there, letting my body shiver in joy to the contrast in temperature. Approaching the resort, there were big Lubabitch signs hanging up everywhere showing directions to what was looking like a hanger from the Gaza strip. The ars bodyguard at the entrance looked at me suspiciously and half-asked "Yeah?". I took out the 400baht ticket I got the day earlier, and got back a hard blow to my head that pinned down a monstrous Kippa. O…K… There was no AC and it was really hot. Looking around the 400 people that were already there I soon realized that I knew no body there. I recognized some faces, but it was all the faces I spent allot of time forgetting from my previous encounters. After what appeared to be eternity, I saw this descent guy I met once walking past me, so I ask if I could join him. He was quite glad, so he took me over to his table, where his wife and 6 very dark eastern Israelis sat down and chatted. "This guy was looking for somewhere to sit" he said, and all the faces turned at me, examining the new guy. Silence… long silence… the guy I sat next to gave me an evil look and then turned away. The others just sat there saying nothing staring at me. After a while, someone actually managed to say "I can tell you're from a Kibbutz, right?" to which I replied - "No, I'm actually from Jerusalem". This seemed to bright up their faces abit, and some of them even mid-smiled, asking "Oh really? where in Jerusalem?". I've never seen such hostile response to "Rehavia" as I did at that table, as one of them said with disgust "Figures, it seems right". I think Gilo or Kiryat Yuvel is what they were looking for. The annoying Rabbi was gathering people for Arvit, and they were happy to leave me there with the guy who took me there. As I was looking desperately around for another table, I noticed the plastic plates, the cheap food and the horrible florescent light. All the tables were about the same, I might have even got my self a fairly good table. Probably looking shocked, the guy asked me - "why did come here if you don't seem to like the people or the place?". It took me 2 minutes to get over that fuckedup question, get up and walk out.

As I was walking the beach, looking at the full-moon lighted waves, I thought about the conversation I had with Doron and Eli while breakfast. I was happy to meet them up after not seeing them for three weeks. Doron was saying to Eli, after a horrible encounter with some $$%^! chabadnick in Laos - "These are not my people, and this isn't my religion". But I know blaming Israelis for everything I felt that night wasn't Masochistic enough, so I brought up something else he said to me while we were discussing "Chacham" ("smart" Hebrew for Eli) people they met on their trip - "You're Chacham, you just have to deal with your women issues ". A worthy summary.