Routine

When I hear or read the word 'routine' I think of vaguely negative word describing everyday things... things that happen regularly, and without a lot of fanfare. 

For anyone who has been religiously observant for most of their life, many rituals can't help but become somewhat, well, routine.  However when one leaves the comfort of one's home and community to spend shabbat in a hotel, the expectation is that things will be anything but routine.   At least that was my expectation when a few months ago Zahava and I were invited to attended a Bar Mitzvah held over a whole Shabbat at a hotel in Jerusalem. 

It was a wonderful weekend and every detail of the event was arranged and executed to perfection.  On some level I knew that an Israeli hotel... especially in Jerusalem... had to be accustomed to hosting religious guests.  But having grown up in a country where the typical hotel banquet staff aren't well versed in Jewish ritual, it was particularly refreshing to see all of the staff had anticipated even the smallest ritual needs of the guests.

On Friday evening before dinner the guests were shown into a ballroom that had been set up to serve as a synagogue, and I was again impressed by how every detail seemed to have been anticipated. 

As I was passing a tall set of shelves on which all the prayer books had been arranged, I noticed a sheet of paper peeking over the top.  Curiosity got the best of me and I pulled it down to see what it was.  I have posted a scanned copy of this sheet of paper here for you to see:

[click the image to embiggen]

This is obviously a standard form used by the hotel staff to communicate what is obviously a routine requirement.  This form (I have deleted the names and dates) is used by the banquet staff to arrange for Siddurim (prayer books) and a Sefer Torah to be placed at the disposal of guests at a particular time and place.  The form also indicates which 'Nossah' (e.g. ashkenaz. sephard, edot hamizrach, etc.) is needed... which suggests that they have a wide enough variety of Siddurim and Sefrei Torah to meet the needs of most/all Jewish guests.

The fact that this internal hotel memo was so routine as to warrant a standard, photo-copied form made me smile.  This was not only a reflection of the frequency with which these items were required by hotel guests... but the lack of complex explanation also speaks volumes of a routine familiarity that the entire staff have with these items.

Even as I feel myself becoming less and less surprised by the 'only in Israel' moments... this one reminded me that I'm still pretty new.

I know, I know... this really isn't a big deal.  But that's exactly the point!  With very few exceptions, you can't book a weekend Bar/Bat Mitzvah party at a hotel anywhere else in the world and assume that the staff will know to provide all the trappings of a synagogue (right down to which tradition you follow) with the same routine ease with which they provide (l'havdil) clean towels, shampoo and bath gel.

Additionally, in a Jerusalem hotel you can likely turn to pretty much anyone - from the bellman to the catering manager - with a question about what time shabbat begins/ends,  where to wash your hands for bread or how to get an extra roll for making the 'HaMotzei' blessing.   

Try that at your local Ramada!

On many levels the big challenge facing those who are religiously observant is to keep things fresh and avoid the sense of doing things by rote.  But I have to admit, there is something comforting about being able to check into a hotel and know that, for the staff, my religious needs are completely routine.