Interesting Shabbes Customs (11pm Saturday July 23, 2011)

11pm Saturday July 23, 2011

This Shabbes, we almost had a minyan for Friday night services. Had we counted women, 12 year old boys, and men who haven’t yet converted, we would have had 10.  Friday night dinners are very interesting compared to what I’m used to in the US, both in terms of food and conversation.  Here in Huanuco, lunch is a giant meal, so for dinner we eat “lonche,” a light dinner.  Friday night is usually tasty crème of asparagus soup with bread rolls.  More interesting is the minhag (tradition) at the Friday night table, essentially based around crude jokes.  Instead of the zemiros and divrei torah that I’m accustomed to, the community leader Juan says it’s their way of Oneg Shabbes. I don't complain; I sit at the table smiling at my quasi understanding of the jokes, while the rest of the community is cracking up. Citing that there aren’t enough pictures of the community doing Jewish things, this Shabbes turned into a photo shoot. I explained to them that I don’t use cameras during Shabbes, but they could do whatever they felt necessary.

 I found out about a peculiar tradition that many non-Jews in the Huanuco area follow.  Kids don’t get their hair cut for their first few years.  At the age of 3, there is a special ceremony where the parents cut their hair.   Irwin explains to me that when the first Jews came to Peru in the 16^th  and 17^th century, they brought this tradition, and somehow it caught on until this day.