After a day full of visits and mitzvot, we returned to our hotel late Thursday evening with a problem on our minds. We wanted to invite some of our new friends for Shabbat services and dinner but had nowhere to host them. As we passed the hotel bar, the matzah ball loving bartender (whom we mentioned in our last post), introduced us to Rick and Sandy, a Jewish couple that lives on the island part time. They also happen to be the owners of the hotel where we are staying. We asked if we could host Shabbat dinner at the poolside, and they agreed.
Friday morning we set off to the airport to purchase tickets for the next leg of our trip. As we searched for the Air Turks and Caicos counter, we met Gil, who greeted us in Hebrew with a magnificent smile! He accepted our invitation to don tefillin and half way through Shema, he became emotional and tears filled his eyes. He informed us how thankful he was for having met us. In his words, "It had been a long time."
Next we met another Jewish islander named Debby. Turns out that she serves as director of development at Air Turks and Caicos, the airline we tried to buy tickets from but whose ticket counter we could not find. Debby tapped a few keys on her keyboard as we chatted in her office. After we left, Debby called saying she had gotten us free tickets to Nassau! On the way back to the hotel we paid a visit to some of our new Israeli friends to inform them of the time and location of dinner and to affix a mezuzah on their office door.
We returned to our hotel room—which by now was doubling, tripling and quadrupling as an office, a synagogue, and a full service kitchen—to prepare for Shabbat.
As the sun set, and our guests came trooping in, we felt a magical calm descend upon us. One of our guests, named Shlomy, mentioned that he had been stuck on another island when his friend called to tell him that he bought him a ticket for 5:00 p.m. to get him here before Shabbat. He wasn't sure why, but he knew there was a "very good" reason he needed to be here for Friday night. When he arrived, he was absolutely stunned to hear about our Shabbat dinner, something he used to do all the time. After the last Shabbat song faded away and the guests went home, Shlomy remained behind to discuss Judaism until the wee hours of the morning.
