Springtime, At Last!

After months and months of seemingly endless cold, gray, and snowy/rainy days, springtime has finally arrived in St. Petersburg. The blue skies, sunshine, and blossoming tulips have been asuper- delightful change of pace! My freshly polished toes are thrilled to be exposed once again to daylight. And there is plenty of daylight here these days: the sun rises shortly after 5am and doesn't set until close to midnight. (It makes for really bizarre Shabbat observance -- but not nearly as weird as when Shabbat doesn't end until Sunday morning! And it makes me rethink the over-simplified statement that Saturday is our day of rest.)

I've been explaining a lot of the basics of Judaism of late. Irina, our new missions director at JDC, started yesterday. She, like so many members of this community, has Jewish roots (her father is Jewish) but relatively no knowledge to accompany her ancestry. Fortunately, she is inquisitive and hungry for knowledge; she made a list of vocab words she didn't understand after reading our missions book. It makes me realize just how much I take my Jewish knowledge for granted. I can't really remember a time when I didn't know what "yiddishkeit" meant. I really struggled when I tried to explain that one. We decided together that it means "Jewish spirit" or something along those lines. Hopefully over the next few weeks, I'll transmit to Irina more than just the responsibilities of her new job -- I have the amazing opportunity to help shape her fledgling Jewish identity.

Me and my FotoQuest teammates running around SPB.

Fortunately, it's not all work and the heaviness of conveying our tradition. The warmer, spring-like weather has also brought us outdoors for many fun activities, including a recent outing to the Udelnaya flea market, Hillel's FotoQuest (scavenger hunt all over the city), and last night's late night rooftop party at a local club sponsored by a new, cutting-edge indie Jewish organization called Krem. We've also had a bunch of fun, indoor activities, like our latest Shabbat meal on Friday night, dinner out with friends at an Azerbaijani restaurant, the final EVA performance, and a Zenit game.

Here is me wading through the crowds at Udelnaya Market. Can you find me?

Tonight is a huge Shavuot celebration at YESOD, including over ten different modern "beit midrash" classes, including flower arranging, aromatherapy, as well as a few more traditional offerings, including Matt's text study on the Ten Commandments in English, and a shiur on piyut (liturgical poems that are often set to music). As Shavuot approaches, and I reflect on what it means to receive the Torah, I can't help but draw the parallel to the freedoms that the Jews of this community have regained, anew in recent years. It's not surprising that my feelings about celebrating Pesach here among the Russian Jewish community carry over, 40 days later, to Shavuot. Chag sameach l'kulam -- wishing all of our readers a joyous Shavuot!