Shabbat

This morning I attended a nice Shabbat service at the Grand Choral synagogue, which is around 2 blocks away. It's beautiful inside, with newly painted pale yellow walls, a huge chandelier, and a large Ark with three Torahs locked up with a parking garage gate. Most of the nusach (tunes) was pretty familiar, but there was a choir in the rear and the cantor's voice really filled the vast space inside. He looked (and sounded) like Pavarotti. Chabad pretty much runs the show there, but most of the congregation was in the 60+ generation and seemed to divest itself from actually taking an active role in the activities. I guess there's a free meal at the end so that's why people come (but that's not different from a lot of places though). The rabbi gave me an Aliyah, which was very nice.

I had lunch this afternoon at the home of Menachem Lepkivker who is the head of the JDC here in St. Petersburg. The cholent was excellent, preceded by a whole plethora of different salads, most of them cabbage-based. I guess this is something i'm going to have to get used to. His family lives in a beautiful apartment (with a picture of the Rebbe inside, of course) right off of Nevsky Prospekt (the main drag). His son at home was around 8 years old, speaks fluent hebrew and russian and even a couple words in English.

I've made another new discovery about my host babushka. Not only was she a nanny for orthodox families in Israel, but one of them happened to be in Kiryat Arbeh in the territories. She showed me two entire albums of her 5 years in Israel. After getting an earful of Russian explaining them all, I was ready to take a nap.