Sukkot, Chassidic style

October 9, 2006 - 6:56 PM by Sarah

Rafi G and his son headed deep into Jerusalem last night, into the famous “ultra-ultra-Orthodox” neighborhood of Mea Shearim, where the chassidim throw tremendous parties (for men only) in their sukkahs:

The place was packed with all sorts of people. Chassidim of the Karlin Stolin court, along with chassidim from all lsorts of other courts, along with litvishe and dati leumi and American yeshiva guys and some people who looked not religious at all. Everybody was dancing together and having a great time.

We continued down Mea Shearim street heading to the legendary court of Toldos Aharon. I have seen their Simchas Beis Hashoeva described as being a” basic, authentic, simchas beis hashoeva”. As we join the throngs of people heading in that direction, the road splits. There are guards telling men and women to separate, with women walking on the right side of the street and men on the left. There were also signs posted all over the area informing (warning) people to split like that. Most people followed the wishes of the organizers and were split, but it was not 100% and nobody bothered those who did not follow orders.

We made our way to the Toldos Aharon Beis Midrash and went in. The zebras were all over the place. They are affectionately known as zebras because of the striped cloaks they wear. It was a great sight, as normally one sees them a few here and there. Going onto their home court where you would see hundreds of them together dancing in circles was something special.

They are much stricter about taking pictures and have signs up all over warning people not to photograph. If they catch you there, you can forget about a warning. Just say goodbye to your camera. We go in and join the circles. Eventually we see the Toldos Aharon Rebbe is sitting on the side and people line up by him to shake his hand and wish and be wished by him a good yom tov. Wanting the full experience, we decided to get in line. . . .

So we joined the line and the pushing was amazing. Everybody was pushing and shoving to get into line. They were at least very smart how they designed it so the pushing was only at the end of the line. Once the line crossed a certain point, they had sectioned it off so it could only be single file. My son could not deal with the pushing so I went alone and shook the Rebbes hand. Shortly after that I saw the line had dwindled down. I got my son and went back in line and with no pushing we went and shook his hand again.

After dancing with the zebras a little more, we went to their cousins. Toldos Avraham Yitzchak. When the Rebbe (I think his name was Reb Aharele) died a number of years ago, his two sons split the chassidus and each tool leadership of a court. one took over Toldos Aharon and the other started Toldos Avraham Yitzchak. I think this must have been the older brother because the rebbe there looked much older than the rebbe at Toldos Aharon. . . . .

We were there during a break in the dancing and some kids and adults were singing in what I guess would be called a choir, while people were standing around listening. I saw the admor on the side shaking hands and we joined the line. This line was not quite as organized as the line in Toldos Aharon and it was a matter of who could push their way to the front of the line. We joined the pushing and were almost the front when the gabbai decided enough was enough (it looked as though the whole crowd might topple oon top of the Rebbe) and shoved the whole line back five feet. Obviously people lost their places they had fought so valiantly for, so the pishing started again immediately after that. My son gave up but I persevered and after a few minutes I made my way to the front of the line and shook his hand.

We then left and went back to “the real world”.

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