Rushing home on Friday to get ready for Shabbat was an incredible feeling that I hadn't had in quite some time. The auto rickshaw arrived to pick me up and drive me to the hotel where services and dinner were being held. When I got to the front desk, I didn't know who to ask for so I stumbled over my words and finally said I'm here to see the Rabbi. She actually knew what I was talking about and pointed me in the right direction. As I opened the door, I was greeted by Rabbi Rifkin, his wife Noa, and their two adorable children. They had moved from Israel to India about two years ago and are living in the Chabad house in Jacour, which is closer to where Aditi is located. From what they told me, the Chabad house is used on a regular basis during the week for the few Jewish families enclosed in the eruv. Apparently there are a few Israeli families, a family from the states, and even one from France. These families don't need Shabbat, but the business men who travel to India for work do. Therefore, Shabbat is relocated to the center of the city so these businessmen are in walking distance. After a little while a young Israeli couple showed up followed by a few business men. They were all in fact Israeli. Some of them were born there and travel all over the world while others made Aliyah with their families and continue to travel to various destinations for work. Services felt weird because I still don't like the idea of a division between men and women, but at the same time it was nice to have my own little corner of the room where only I could hear my prayers. Dinner was delicious and lovely as we all sat around and talked about where we had come from and why we were in Bangalore. We even did high points! I did not know this, but there is some drash that the rabbi gave about saying the best thing that happened to you during the week! At least it felt a little bit like Shabbat dinner! By the time it reached 10, I decided it was time to wish my new friends, people I would probably never see again, a Shabbat Shalom and called for a taxi to take me home.
Saturday was incredibly lazy. Believe it or not, I actually woke up, wrapped myself in my talit and davened Sacharit all by myself for the very first time in my life. There was something amazing about being alone in my room with my pajamas on ( I dont know if there is some halachic rule against that), wearing my talit, and saying the prayers that are so familiar to me. I skipped over some prayers, but found myself engrossed in others that I had simply glanced over in the past or read in Hebrew never really understanding the meaning. It was a wonderful experience that I do hope to repeat to get more comfortable with the feeling of individual prayer.
After davening, I went to have breakfast with Gina. It was nice having an easy morning and she informed me that her friend had free tickets to see Harry Potter, so I thought why not! Hemal works for Titan watches and manages the entire Fast Track line, which is for kids. He loves his job and comes with awesome perks like traveling and getting free movie tickets. The movie theater was BEAUTIFUL! I mean it puts the ones we have in the states to shame. You are assigned your seat so showing up to the movie late isn't an incredibly bad thing (we were 30 mins late due to traffic) and they have ever concession stand imaginable available during intermission. Yes, there is intermission, which apparently everyone looks forward to during the movie. The movie was pretty good even if I didn't understand most of it and then we were off to meet Gina and some of their other friends at the Hard Rock Cafe. This was probably the most "American" day I have had in India between sleeping in, going to the movies, and then going to the Hard Rock, it was just all in Bangalore haha. I had a nice time meeting Gina's friends and the music was fun- all around good night :)
Sunday was also lazy and did not accomplish much, but I needed to down time after my busy time in the north during the week. Yesterday was the first day of Language Arts week at school and although I do not fully understand it yet, the planning of it seemed interesting. During our tea break at 10 I met the exchange teachers who came with a group of sixteen 15 year olds from Germany! A group of our students at Aditi also went over there. It was very interesting speaking with them and hearing about their program. I even got to watch them in the Indian Folk dance class they took during one of the periods during the day. It's so cool these cross cultural connections that are being made over here!
All my love from India!
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