Harvard Business School - Day 32

Thursday, 9 Oct 2009

This evening there was an invitation from a number of the Jewish participants on the program to attend dinner at a local Jewish house called “Beit Chabad”. The current period is a traditional holiday time for the Jewish people, among it is what is called the “Sukkot” holiday, which means  a decorated booth or hut (a sukkah). Sukkot lasts for 7 days and is also alternatively known as the Feast of Booths, the Feast of Tabernacles or just Tabernacles.

The sukkah is reminiscent of the type of fragile dwellings in which the ancient Israelites dwelt during their 40 years of wandering in the desert after the Exodus from Egypt. Throughout the holiday the sukkah becomes the living area of the house, and all meals are eaten in it. There are specific specifications for building a sukkah, I am not sure exactly what they are, but given the standard of construction of the one we were in, I'm pretty sure it would be hard to get GDC to consent one in Gisborne!!By tradition friends of all religions are welcome at the sukkah. I think that perhaps 20 of use from the program accepted the invitation. We congregated in the lobby and them walked across to Beit Cabad as a group.

I think in general we were interested in accepting the invitation, from colleagues that have a very strong faith that many of us know little about, as a way of gaining understanding and supporting our friends.

We were greeted by one of the two Rabais present and asked to immediately help ourselves to some food.

I think many of us thought that the food would be ethnically Jewish, and while I have no doubt it was Kosher it was most certainly Chinese Takeaway by origin, and I have every confidence that the sweet and sour was chicken not pork.

We were invited to also wear a Kippah (skull cap) if we felt like it.

The younger and skinnier of the two Rabais welcomed us (it was his house) and told a us a few stories and facts, although he did like the sound of his own voice a bit. There were a few questions some of which were answered by the second Rabai an altogether more rotund version of the first (pictured). It was interesting to see a group of Jews, Muslims, Christians (Catholics, Mormons, Church of England etc.), and agnostics all gathered trying to gain a better understanding of another religion/culture. I think Andres (the Chilian  Jew in our working group) appreciated that myself, Steve, Neil and Philippe made the effort to attend.