Not now. We are getting ready for Shavuot. We have to prepare to gather around Mount Sinai and not be frightened by the thunder and lightning around us.
We need to renew our holy vow with God and accept again the Torah with total faith and devotion.
“Na’ase ve’nishma,” we all answered with love and fear of God almost 3,000 years ago. So strong was our faith as we stood at the bottom of the mountain watching what seemed like the end of the world.
“We shall do, and only then we shall listen.”
That is the key to the unique relationship between a beautiful nation like ours and our God. Just like the beautiful relationship between a husband and a wife, as in I usually do the “do” part while he is busy fulfilling the “listen” part.
Not that I am complaining about my better half. I am just underlying a fact of human nature. It seems like the word na’ase was passed down the generations from woman to woman and nishma was the part men were more focused on.
I am not picking a fight. There’s enough tension already in the air in Israel, which brings me back to the dreamy desserts I am planning for the holy Shavuot meal.
As day zero approaches, or more accurately, day 50 of my counting calories... sorry, of the Omer, when I have cleansed my soul and tightened my waistline for 49 days, so I can come to Shavuot with real spiritual awe to be ready to accept the Torah again and physically be able to fit in my new flower dress, size 38.
My prize is a marathon of no calorie-counting and just eating my favorite foods from the moment the sun sets on the eve of Shavuot to the moment it will set again the day after.
I am Italian, so for me, Shavuot is pasta, lasagna, tortellini with cream, ravioli al pesto, eggplant Parmesan, tiramisu finishing with a good espresso with panna (whipped cream).
My longing to be in Italy is so strong that I literally start having visions of my “bella Italia” in Jerusalem. But if I can’t be in Italy, at least I can eat like an Italian.
Not that I don’t love Jerusalem, but as a true Italian I need to go back often to just breathe the land a little, its noises, its flavors. I need to get lost at least once a year in a small market in some remote old town and just stumble in a small shop where old ladies with big aprons fold the ravioli with their hands and lay them neatly on a checkered towels ready to be cooked.
Everyone smiles there, everyone is happy, the land of no worries, freedom, pretty faces, gorgeous men and elegant women who pick flowers at the Thursday market with a Chanel bag and Gucci loafers.
OK, Hadassah, stay focused on your meal for Shavuot. I plan it as if I will be hosting in a palazzo in Florence.
It all starts when I do my shopping. Usually, my shopping starts by getting my foot squashed by the carriage behind me. I start swearing in Italian so no one understands except for my daughters, who are highly embarrassed by my behavior.
The line to the fridges where all kinds of creams and cheeses are amassed, with crazy deals like “take five pay for three, minus two divided by four.” By the time you figure it out, there’s nothing left.
THE BEST is when you get to the vegetables, take an onion and realize you provoked a small earthquake and all the onions are sliding down toward you. So you quickly move away, trying to go unnoticed when you hear one old lady who has watched you from the beginning and screams, “Slicha, lama at lo marima?” (Why can’t you pick up?) There goes another Italian swearword into the air.
There are too many people with way too much food in their carts, and too many kids sitting in cart seats with dripping icicles crying that they need to pee.
Women look exhausted, there is tension, no one wants to wait in line and we all need to get back home, unpack and start cooking. I can’t breathe, get me out of here.
Once home, I need to sort out the shopping, put it away neatly, start going through a mental list of what I will cook first, because when it comes to cooking Italian I get serious.
I switch on the Italian channel I usually listen to when I am busy in the kitchen and realize how mentally far removed the Italians are from where I am now. They are discussing different vaccines and why the country still needs curfew at night because of the coronavirus and how the population needs to get back to work right away.
As I peel the tomatoes for the sauce I am about to create, I think how much more ahead we are as a country in Israel. I wait for some mentions of the missile attack only to hear some very opinionated Italian VIPs who seem to be very uncomfortable in condemning the Palestinians for attacking us on Yom Yerushalayim, but feel safer in criticizing Israel for its overreaction.
I turn off the TV.
We have no one, only God, I think as I throw the Barilla penne in hot water.
With all due respect to the Italians, my love for my birth country, my passion for its food and its people, where are you when I need your support?
My thoughts are deep and complicated and the pasta has overcooked. “Hadassah it’s not al dente!” my grandmother’s housekeeper, Rita, would scream when I was a girl learning how to cook pasta. Pasta, to be perfect, needs to be al dente. You taste it with your teeth so it shouldn’t be too soft.
Usually by the time Shavuot starts, I am exhausted. I have been cooking for three days straight, shopping with kids, buying new clothes, making flower arrangements for the table, and inviting people. I am not complaining. I am blessed that I can do all this.
As we finally sat down at a gorgeous table on Shavuot eve last year, and all my guests were perfectly seated, my kids all dressed in new clothes and looking happy, my food bubbling on the hot platta, I remember taking a moment and looking around with pride.
Na’ase ve’nishma. I did it all.
My husband welcomes everyone, smiles at everyone, opens the bottle of wine, and voila! With a lot of savoir faire, he pours cups to the guests, makes sure everyone got some wine, and raises his cup to make kiddush.
That is what my husband did.
Nishma. He listened.
He lovingly listened to me complaining that I am tired, me screaming at the kids, me doing sponja late at night, me preparing the table.
He is such a good listener.
May this Shavuot bring us full redemption as we accept and promise again to follow the Torah with all its laws, those we understand, and those that are beyond our comprehension.
We accept our God unified as a nation and we renew our love to Hashem for having chosen us as a favorite among all the nations.
I might be longing for my Italia, but my heart and soul belong here with all of my brothers and sisters from all over the world, together united, strong and fearless.
May Hashem protect us from our enemy and from ourselves!
Remember women, we are the na’ase. Stay strong. And if you make pasta, only al dente.
Chag sameach.
The writer is from Italy, lives in Jerusalem and heads HadassahChen Productions. A director and performer, she also heads the Keren Navah Ruth Foundation, in memory of her daughter, to assist families with sick children. hjm74@hotmail.com