Holyday
“Did you understand that?” Neta asked, trying his best to include me in the conversation. “Yeah I think so,” I replied, “He went to the meal earlier in the afternoon and was saying that they didn’t have enough food. There was just some bread and hummus and he thinks that the meal finished too early.” Neta nodded approvingly, I had understood the Hebrew-speaking man correctly.
It was Kol Nidrei, the first service of the holiest day on the Jewish calendar, Yom Kippur. The sun was just about to set in the early evening and the heavy humidity of the day still lingered in the air outside. I was in a large hall at the top of the Chabad of Koh Samui ready to begin the twenty-five hour fast. Air conditioners were running at top speed, spitting out bitterly cold air and instantly freezing beads of sweat which dripped down over tanned, Israeli foreheads.
The small synagogue that usually ran prayers for nomadic worshippers was way too small for the large crowd that had gathered. It turned out that the room I thought was merely a foyer leading into the synagogue was, on any other day, the synagogue.
A few hundred people filled the hall in a sea of white apparel, a symbol of purity on the holy day. The clothing stores along Chaweng Beach had done significant trading in the early afternoon. It seemed many people had forgotten to bring any shul clothes on their holiday and resorted to buying the same, mass-produced white, pseudo-linen shirt that was sold by every shop on the main strip.
The remainder had ransacked the bottom of their suitcases attempting to find something reasonably conservative to wear for the evening. Some had been more successful than others. Light, puffy elephant pants featured extensively over the knees of many in the mens’ section. Also featured were an array of colourful pairs of thongs and pair after pair of Israeli, Jesus-style sandals.
Neta sat next to me in his mass-produced, white shirt and Jesus sandals. He was a Hifa local in his early twenties on his first solo trip. I met him at my hostel earlier in the day whilst he was going through the pre-fast dinner pack he had bought from the kosher restaurant under the synagogue. I had spent my afternoon in a bit more of a frantic state, running around Koh Samui trying to find food to fill me up before my day of no eating or drinking. I eventually settled on some noodles from a local restaurant and an assortment of cakes which I forcefully shoved into my mouth outside the 7-Eleven.
Neta and I walked to the synagogue and took some seats in the tenth row, about twenty rows too far forward for my liking. Given the relocation of the prayer service to the hall, the chairs were unpacked in short, temporary rows with a makeshift mechitzah running down the centre of the room. These rows were quickly disrupted and rearranged by attendees who decided that they didn’t want to turn around to chat with their cousin. I started the night in the tenth row and by the time I left I was in the thirteen-and-three-quarters row.
Soon after Neta and I took our seats, an Israeli man sat down in the almost-row in front of me. Without knowing Neta, the man quickly began speaking at him in Hebrew, explaining his dislike of the pre-fast meal. Neta did his best to include me in the conversation, though I was happy in my role as absent observer.
The man spoke in Hebrew to Neta not because we were in a synagogue but because we were in Koh Samui. In Koh Samui there were Israelis everywhere. The entire synagogue service, the sermon and the unashamed auction to donate money to the synagogue was all done in Hebrew. When, the next day, a man sat next to me in the synagogue and asked me what page number we were on, he did so in Hebrew. When I rushed through heavy rain the next afternoon to get to the evening service, a Thai man in the street yelled out “geshem” to me, the word for rain in Hebrew.
With the Israeli language came Israeli chutzpah. The service was made up almost entirely of Israelis keen on getting their prayers over and done with so they could get on with their trip through Thailand. This was a holy day that was interrupting their holiday. The man who complained about the hummus took no issue in adjusting his chair over my feet throughout the evening. He, like many, was in the row-redistribution business.
Nevertheless I got through my first overseas Yom Kippur. I broke the fast at the nearest street vendor I could find after leaving the synagogue. I ordered a banana roti, hoping to shove it into my mouth as soon as possible. The man took his time, slowly rolling out the dough, then turning the gas on, then waiting for the oil to heat up, then slicing the banana, then frying the roti, waiting a while for it to cook, letting it drain out of the oil, slicing it up and then not having any change when I handed over the cash which meant I had to wait whilst he broke my hundred baht note at the laundry across the road. No doubt the chutzpah brought in by tourists had rubbed off on the Koh Samui locals.
