Praha 2, or Sweeter than Wine and Cheaper than Water
(written 1/19/07)

It’s officially true – in some parts of Prague, beer is the cheapest beverage available.

While I’ve spent most of today trying to recover from jet lag, I did get to see some things that absolutely took my breath away. I’m not often reduced to such a state of admiration by architecture, but there is a certain castle/church in the Old Square, near Vaclavske Namesti (Wenceslas Square) that has two black towers with multiple cone-shaped spires reaching for the clouds. I first saw it last night, and I swear the spires looked like organ pipes. At least, when I looked at it, I heard something majestic chord from deep within my head.

And tonight, I went to services. Because we’re the Jewish Studies program, attendance at Shabbat services is mandatory for the first few weeks. The good news is, we attend a different service every week. Tonight, we were in Bejt Praha (English transliteration: Beit Prague, or House of Prague, translated), which is also called the Spanish synagogue, for Masorti (Conservative) services. When I stepped in, I gasped for the second time. First, because the “synagogue” looked like a church – upstairs gallery, a hugely spacious bimah, and hard wooden pews in the bottom. This wouldn’t be particularly churchy, except for the ornate columns that held everything up. The second thing that caught my attention was the decoration in the synagogue; it was beautiful, intricate, and…Moroccan.

The primary colors were turquoise and maroon, with sea green, black and gold leaf accentuating every six-pointed star (of which there were thousands). It looked like painted wallpaper, and there were many different kinds, all over the walls and circular ceilings of the synagogue. The rabbi, a good enough sort of guy who spoke some English, welcomed us all in, and I sat down with my photocopied siddur, and had some fun reading the Czech transliterations of the Hebrew. For the first time, it was actually easier to read the Hebrew! I even recognized the font…and hey, was that a familiar page number in the corner of the photocopy?

This shul used the very same siddur from which I learned to lead services! Unfortunately, it was a book I grew to hate, with its sexist, stuffy, inaccurate and ineloquent translations, and inclusion of songs like “G-d Bless America” in the hymn section. Yet, as I held the book, halfway around from the world from where I’d last held it, I gazed at it with a sort of fondness. It was as if we were once friends who had an argument, and upon reunion, realized we didn’t remember what we were so angry about. Then I opened it and read through some of the prayers and got annoyed all over again.

Towards the end of the service, the rabbi asked if anyone had a particular tune in mind for Adon Olam. Without thinking, I started humming the first notes of the Smith Hillel tune, very very quietly. However, a woman in front of me picked up on it, and said “Ah!” and started singing it full blast. Apparently, it’s a regular tune with that group, except they sing a slightly different tune that works as a perfect harmony with the tune I learned from Hillel! The woman who started the song found me afterwards and told me she’d always known there was a descant to that song, but had never heard it. She invited me to come back, whenever. And then the rabbi asked me to lead Kiddush.

(Hillelians, I know what you’re thinking, and I swear on the heads of my nonexistent children that I had no intention of leading anything! I swear!)

There was one other thing about this synagogue that I found meaningful. The rabbi explained to us that the specific spot on which the synagogue stands has been a Jewish worship place since the 14th century. It is also the synagogue that was supposed to be a part of Hitler’s Museum of an Extinct People. It’s connected to the building that was supposed to house the rest of the museum. And to sing in this synagogue was perhaps one of the most beautiful gifts I have ever been given – to add my voice to the many echoing melodies that have survived, generation after generation.

Tomorrow is a day off from orientation, and my goal is to catch a 7:00 performance of Die Zaberflote at the opera! Sunday is Bernstein’s Candide, and in February, Verdi’s Aida is playing…and rumor has it that balcony tickets are only 100kc, which amounts to less than five dollars!

Some of my housemates are getting ready to go hit a bar or five with the boys from the other program (secular Central European Studies – we do a lot of things with them, like trips and cultural events), but I’ve probably walked five or six miles today, and I can hardly keep my eyes open!