Some more quickies to report

- I'm in Moscow... Eli Ginsberg had a baby girl, and I'm here to celebrate with him

- We started running Sunday school since the Sachnut has no more money for it, and our new ideas and style has already been applauded by the parents. The kids love it... but more on that when I get internet at home, which should be iy"h this week

- I started: learning with Yisroel Silberstein once a week shulchan aruch over the phone, organizing my Wednesday class and making it more professional, visiting an old person from the community every Monday in order to meet more people in Stavropol (and I try to go to ones with large families that are Halachically Jewish, but don't have much to do with the community). That idea credit goes to Levi Stiefel of Voronezh. And finally, my Mivtzoim route has expanded a bit on Thursdays. I'm out of the house almost the entire day. Oh, and Friday night I started a Minyan.

Last shabbos we had the first 'minyan', and it was better than I dreamed. I spent all Friday working on typing out in Russian some main songs of Davening (Yedid Nefesh, Lecha Dodi, Shema til Emes, Vayechulu, Aleinu and Al Tira), and two men came. But there was such a beautiful atmosphere. At one point, one of the men's children came in and started singing with us, holding onto his fathers hand. They also quietly read from a Siddur by Shmone Esrei and whispered their own private prayers. At Lecha Dodi I explained the history of the prayer and spoke a little about it.

I finished with a Dvar Torah on the week, then we gathered for Shalom Aleichem, Eishes Chayil and the meal.

They are learning the tunes and words. It helped that I gave them some downloaded youtube videos (gorgeous ones) with the songs on them, such as:



Search for this on youtube under שלום עליכם.

Also, Moscow cut all funding from the president of the community...

More next time.