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One month into living with Helena and Sergey Rozhenko, Alexander is taken to Shabbat Services on a brisk Friday night at the Temple down the road. He doesn't like it.
He doesn't like how he feels even more alien among these humans than usual. He hates the way it seems like everyone else has learned and trained and mastered the order of these rituals and not bothered to tell him anything. Perhaps worst of all, he hates that SoSnI’ and vavnI' (he will not address them as Bubbe and Zayde ) force him to disable his translation circuit. The congregation sings and prays and chants in unison, but Alexander understands none of it. SoSnI’ and vavnI' say that tradition dictates translators be disabled during prayer. Alexander thinks that to be foolish. Why pray if you cannot even understand the word you speak? But he is new to this world, to these traditions, and so he practices rare self control in biting his tongue. It will not be long before he feels comfortable enough to speak his mind, truths and lies both, but for now he presses his lips closed and lets himself sway in tune with the prayer.
He closes his eyes and recites old lessons in his mind to pass the time, but he finds that the soft Hebrew turns of phrase and lilting blessings penetrate his mind and hearts nonetheless. It is almost infectious.
After the service, Alexander and his grandparents stay a little while longer for the Oneg . Much of the food is unrecognizable, and he is startled to realize that quite a lot of it seems to be cooked by hand, as in the traditional way.
When SoSnI’ sees his confusion plain upon his face, she explains to him that Shabbat is a day of rest. In the 21st century, she says, observant Jews often refrained from using electrical appliances or devices on Shabbat, despite their increasing ubiquity. In that same frame of mind, observant Jews of the 24th century try to forgo technology such as dematerialization and beaming, as well as food replication.
Alexander still does not understand. Why not make use of luxuries that you have at hand? It seems almost masochistic. But again, he holds his tongue.
That night, he fills his stomachs with sweet cinnamon kugel, creamy blintzes with blueberry sauce, and rich challah bread. He goes to bed, still not understanding these strange traditions of his SoSnI’ and vavnI' , but the food was good. And that he does appreciate.
The next Friday evening, the Rozhenko’s are meant to attend services once again, but Alexander gets into an argument with vavnI' , one of those fights that feel so infuriating in the moment but that he will not remember the contents of even a few weeks later, and instead spends the rest of the night in his room, wishing he was anywhere else. He wonders if his father had been made to go to services as a child, if he had liked the cheese and blueberry blintzes. But he distracts himself from that train of thought quickly, and the thought of his father at services disappears from his mind.
The week after that, his grandparents want to take him to Temple once more, but Alexander doesn’t want to go. He has only been here for a month and a half and already he is so tired of these humans and their strange traditions. He tells SoSnI’ and vavnI' that he hates Temple and he doesn’t want to go again. They don’t push him.
Alexander doesn’t mention that on Wednesday, he had seen a boy who had been at Temple two weeks before, and the boy had mocked his Klingon heritage with awful scorn. Alexander thinks that if he sees him again, he might rip his head off.
So Alexander stays at home. He doesn’t go to Temple again. He eats SoSnI’ s kugel on occasion and he watches as the Rozhenko’s dutifully light a pair of candles every Friday at sunset. But he does not participate any further. This might be his grandparents faith,, but it does not feel like his.
Weeks pass, then months. And soon Alexander finds himself on the Enterprise. His father is here. There are people of many different species and worlds and cultures. There are even people like Counselor Troi, who is both human and Betazoid, just as Alexander is both human and Klingon. Still, he feels just as alone as ever.
It is all the more strange, then, that when he finds himself sitting alone in his room on a Friday evening, he thinks back to that first service, of the Oneg and how SoSnI’ had explained that Shabbat is a day of rest.
Alexander could use some rest. He is so tired of his father and his expectations that Alexander can’t help but fall short of. He is tired of the other children on the Enterprise. He is tired of speaking and feeling as if no one is listening.
So, Alexander takes the rest of the evening as well as what would be the daylight hours of the next day to rest and relax. He does the same the next week.
The third week, he does some research and finds that there is a Rabbi who helps determine the proper hours to observe Shabbat while in space, and he reads the guidelines with a growing fascination.
Alexander is not sure how it happens exactly, but somehow, Shabbat becomes an effortless ritual. Every week, he adds in new factors and practices. One week, he procures candles to light, the next he replicates Challah. Several months down the line, and Alexander is reciting prayers softly to himself, his translator disabled. The words are like a melody, and he thinks he finally understands what his SoSnI’, his Bubbe, had been trying to explain to him.
Alexander sits before the gentle firelight of two pale candles, he sings the blessings softly to himself and anyone else who might hear. He doesn’t feel alone anymore.