The drumming of rain on the rooftop this morning was
actually cheering. It meant I had no
objective reason to drag myself out of bed.
I had even turned off the alarm on my cell phone last night to mark
today as an “off” day. When I opened my
eyes, it was almost 10:30, well past time for the hotel breakfast. After a coffee from the bar, I went out briefly on errands, then returned to work up a
mini-presentation on jurisdiction.
By the time I checked the local clock, it was 3:30
and I had marked down services for 4:15.
At any rate, I got to the synagogue and was told the services had
started. All I saw was a small group of
men sitting around a table, probably studying.
The shammos led me past them
to a screened-off area for the women. It
wasn’t a place for praying at all, just a line of tables and benches. One table was set for Kiddush with plastic wine cups and paper plates holding some
unidentifiable ingredients, probably fish and carrot sticks. A stony-faced woman wearing a standard-issue
Orthodox hat (resembles an upside-down saucepan) rejected my offer of
help. I meant help as in setting the
table, but maybe she thought I was being patronizing. We sat at opposite ends of one of the long
tables, she thumbing through a humash;
I wondering what was supposed to happen and whether I’d made a mistake in
coming. Was I an intruder, a gawking
foreigner and a non-Orthodox woman foreigner at that?
Then the evening service began behind the partition. I could hear the voices of men and boys (or
at least one) chanting and the familiar Hebrew words now and then. Their pronunciation was very broad
Ashkenazic, hard for someone who’s used to modern Hebrew, and the melodies were
sung in so many different keys I couldn’t even tell what the tune was. Even if I could, it wouldn’t have been
familiar. But just knowing what was
going on wore off the awkwardness and the feeling of estrangement. I was no longer an anomaly; this was my place.
At the end of the service, the men gathered around the tables for
the Kiddush. Both the cantor and the rabbi, unmistakably Chabadniks by their dress, greeted me with Shabbat
Shalom (or maybe gut shabbos and
I was the one who replied Shabbat Shalom. Whatever).
A small plastic wine thimble was placed on the table for me and
filled. No conversation—this was still
the service. We all held our glasses
while the blessing was pronounced and we all drank up in one gulp. The cantor’s cup—the actual Kiddush cup—was filled to overflowing
and wine dripped off his fingertips as he held the cup and recited
the blessing. A symbol of plenty, the
overflowing of life, joy, everything the Sabbath is supposed to represent. I hadn’t seen that gesture since college, I
think, and I was pleased to recognize it.
After the Kiddush,
people seemed to be leaving the room and I didn’t notice anyone calling for the
motzi, the blessing over the bread,
which starts a meal. I wondered who the
platters were for but was not tempted to find out, lest I be invited to
actually eat what was on them. I
followed one man up the stairs as he made his way out, figuring it was as
appropriate an exit moment as any. No
questions were asked of me, no special notice was taken of me. I was there; I was celebrating Shabbat with the community; that was all
that was important. Who I was or where I
came from made no difference.
On the way back, I stopped into the De Gusto café next to the hotel for dinner. I was the only patron; it was about 5:00 and
I suppose Rigans observe European dinner hours, i.e., late. A salmon on
champagne risotto and a glass of Riesling came to 8.4 lats (about $17.00). I got coffee at the
local newsstand in the covered shopping mall for a lot less than it would have
cost in the restaurant. But I was
content to have had a “grown-up” dinner as a change from the nightly take-out.
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