Prague Journal

Friday, November 26, 2004.

Howard conducted the service at Bejt Praha this evening, so it had a slightly different flavor than usual. (Peter had gone to Košice to be with his family for the weekend.) The main service and songs were the same, but Howard asked some people to read some parts of the service in Czech and English, in addition to saying the prayers in Hebrew. He also gave a short explanation of this week’s parsha, or Torah reading, which is the story of Jacob’s struggle in his sleep as he prepared for his encounter with his brother Esau after two decades of estrangement. The rabbis always ask who Jacob fought with. Was it a strange man, an angel of God, or his own conscience? Petra and I (and Rick) thought that adding the parsha to the service was nice and that we should include this in the service more often.
The service at Bejt Praha is always pretty loose and short. Eunice had commented that it lacked structure and Torah, which is true. Rick and I go mainly for the people there. This evening we saw Ivo, an old friend from seven years ago, who gave us a photo he had taken of us with Matt (Matt was 11 at the time) blessing the challah in the Jewish Town Hall classroom where Bejt Praha met before the completion of the reconstruction of the Spanish Synagogue.
Rick and I are always looking for new restaurants to try—and Rick always appreciates American-style steak—so he suggested we try "Crazy Cow," the Texas-style steak house on Dlouha (Long) Street, not far from the synagogue. Apparently, the owners are from Texas and Brazil and the beef is from Argentina. We heard mostly English among the patrons, and were impressed with the waitstaff’s fluency in English. I miss steak on our grill, but this was close.

posted by JWinn @ 10:50 PM