Bedikas Chametz in Stavropol

Chaim Hertzel is in town, which means that the entire community is being seriously harrassed into buying Olympus FE340's.

Unfortunately, no one could afford it.

Chaim bought a special hat "for the first time in like 18 years" according to him. Note: Chaim is 20 years old. But it really is nice, he bought a hat SPECIAL FOR THIS SHLICHUS.

Think about this Ottawa groupies. Go now and buy yourself a hat. Or get a Bris. Your call.

Anyway, so we have been travelling around giving people Matza, talking to people, beating up arabs, etc. etc. and finally Bedikas Chametz night arrived.

We had the candle, the spoon, the feather, and Kanyeshna (Russian for of course) the camera.

Oh yeah, and the ten pieces of bread.

Before I go on, let me note that in Stavropol, barely anyone walks outside at night, unless of course they want to be stabbed in the back.

We did Bedikas Chametz at home, and then remembered that we don't know if we have to do it in the community centre.

So we called a Rabbi in Moscow. He told us that we gotta do it in the centre.

My driver had retired for the night, so we had to find a taxi.

Now remember we are in Russia, where at night the only lights in the streets are the occassional firefly and some headlights of approaching mafia cars.

Basically it was spooky.

Chaim of course had his knife, mace, and fists. I, naturally had my giant muscular muscles (which bulge) to protect him.

Anyway, we found a taxi, and went to the centre. It was dark and spooky. We put down the ten pieces, Chaim said the Bracha out loud, and then we got ready to go, but....

I FORGOT TO BRING MATCHES!

So we searched the whole centre for matches, but apparently all the smokers had stolen anything that had been there.

We were forced to go outside and find someone to light up the candle. We found someone but then as we get back in, me, the "moron that I am" according to Chaim, blew it out.

(Let the record stand that it was completely by mistake).

So we had to go out again. This time there was some gang down the block, so we tried to stay out of view in case they were here to beat our faces in.

Here is where the Rebbe (insert here words which come after saying 'Rebbe') comes in.

Some dude in army clothes walks by and we ask him to light our candle.

He lights it, and then hands us the lighter, saying "so your fire should never go out."



Pictures to come.