I was supposed to meet a two friends at the synagogue's street corner (30 feet from the building) and I ended up running into one of them on the way there. As the two of us were waiting at the meeting spot for our other friend a guy came over and asked, "You waiting for anyone?" (in Spanish). Only after I responded did I realize he had an earpiece, prompting his next question, "Are you going to shul?" When we told him we were he immediately asked if we had IDs and then told us we couldn't wait on the street and had to go inside. Thus we walked over to the security guard at the entrance gate with our passports out. "Oh, you're from the United States," he greeted in English, "I speak English, we can talk in English. You have gun?"...nothing like a nice "Hi, you're from the US (not an American since technically American is for all people in North and South America--that term referring only to US citizens offends some people here), got a gun" greeting. He then proceeded to ask about a knife, my synagogue at home, and then after being satisfied with our answers and seeing Israel passport stamps he let us in. While this may seem like high security, the reality is he didn't frisk me, nor did I have to go through a metal detector. Compared to my synagogue at home this was tame.
While putting on my tallis a woman directed us up to the upper level and told us to find a seat. So we went up only to find every seat reserved except the few seats all the way in the upper front corners with no view of the bimah. So after some debating we sat in those seats and started talking to a nice man who apparently was the first elected Jewish leader in a Patagonian town. Then our other friend arrived and told us that he'd talked to the Rabbi's wife a few days before (another story entirely) and she said to take any seat on the first (one above the ground level in Argentina) floor. So we moved to the best seats on the first floor until a woman from Chicago started talking with us and told us that all the seats were reserved and that every one would be filled and we'd be kicked out. A porteno who looked like a regular confirmed that sentiment so we went back to our nosebleed seats until we decided to play the extranjero card. We went downstairs to the main level right up to the bimah and my friend asked one of the cantors where we should sit since we didn't know where to go. While he couldn't really help us a guy in the front row said his parents weren't coming for the service and that we could sit there. He only had two seats but we accepted, hoping the person next to him wouldn't show. Suffice it to say no one tried to take our seats during the morning service, so we sat three feet from the cantors and within reaching distance of the bimah.
Now we found out later than this synagogue we chose has a lot of baggage, from a ritzy reputation to a politically charged, controversial (and very reputed) Rabbi: Sergio Bergman. When I told my host parents about my seats after returning home they also informed me that I'd sat in, without paying a dime, the high-roller seats costing members of that Sinagoga boatloads of cash.
Anyway we're sitting there at 9:15 awaiting a 9:30 start to the service and there are about 15 people in the Sanctuary. For those of you who know my synagogue, people are playing a distinctive version of musical chairs starting the second the Sanctuary opens, namely one in which the unlucky member of a family who drew the short straw runs to the Sanctuary and covers as many seats as possible with 10 layers of clothing they wore to Shul. The place is packed beyond belief at 10am; here, the place was empty at 9:15...at 9:30...at 10:00 people started trickling in...and not until 11am were most of the seats filled. Though to be fair the place didn't have an empty seat soonafter--entirely different atmosphere when seats are reserved.
Now the service itself was very unique. The Sinagoga is across the street from the Teatro Colon (one of the best Opera houses in the world), and it appears it felt compelled to put on a show since the Teatro is out of commission due to renovations. Instead of an organ there was a keyboard on the bimah which one of the cantors was playing. He also had a mid-sized drum and an electric accordion he pulled out at various points. There were two more cantors--they were all on the left side of the bimah--and all three of them had incredible voices (we ended up befriending the one closest to us). The prayers had such complex melodies with multiple three-part harmonies that after certain ones my muscle memory legitimately made me want to clap. Because of this certain prayers were absolutely gorgeous, but the majority of them were overdone and distasteful in my opinion. I knew almost none of the tunes and felt many of the prayers were drawn-out too much. I especially missed two tunes from my synagogue at home: unetaneh tokef and the following tune. Unetaneh tokef was unbelievably melodramatic at this synagogue...building up deep keyboard chords until the woman cantors high-pitched soft voice was anti-climactic and only made the preceding chords seem inflated. Of course I respect everyone's individual ways of praying and don't think this way was wrong, I just strongly prefer the deep voices of the congregation's chanting in unison. The following portion is the portion that more or less states "On Rosh Hashanah it is written...and on Yom Kippur it is sealed"--about as serious as a prayer can get and yet it was accompanied by a vacuous melody that really bothered me.
Despite that rant the service was really quite nice and sitting within a meter of the cantors and nearly as close to the Rabbi and gorgeous ark was an incredible experience. It was really cool to hear portenos chant hebrew and know that half way across the world we still spoke a common language of sorts. The service didn't get out until 2pm and I didn't feel overly anxious to leave at that point.
During the intermission I went with to a Pescaderia (fish market) with my friend to whose house I was going to break the fast. The place was amazing...7 blocks from my house and I had no idea it existed. Challah, sour pickles, smoked salmon, bagels and bialys, macaroons, horseradish...you name the Jewish food, they had it. Not for any small amount of money, but they had it nonetheless. So I bought a smoked salmon spread (not the lox-stock stuff though, we're talkin' big chunks of fresh salmon) as a gift for the family and we bought a bunch of food for the break fast. I've had very little trouble fasting in the recent past and this year fortunately was no exception...except for walking into this place--absolute torture.
Anyway only two of us went back for the second service and took back our unbelieveable seats. The second half was a bit less theatrical which was nice and was overall fine until the end which was a heck of an experience. Unfortunately that experience began with our getting kicked out of the front row and having to stand in the center aisle (though still in front of everyone standing; there were probably 75 people standing in back by the end). We discovered pretty quickly that about 100 of the 600 people (the place holds 500ish) came only for the last 5 minutes to hear the shofar blown. Anyway they blow the shofar--guy held the tekiah gedolah for a good minute--very impressive, and then they invited the kids to go up on the bimah in the same way they do at my synagogue at home. All the lights except the eternal light went out and the kids cracked their glowsticks and everyone broke out in song. It was a truly amazing moment as the congregation went from Jewish song to Jewish song and in the small synagogue I really felt like part of a community. It was as though a hybrid of a spontaneous version of a Bar Mitzvah Horah with a group night at camp. "Buena semana" was added into "Shavua Tov" and there was a really powerful version of Hatikvah that surprised me since during the service "Avinu Shebashamayim" wasn't even sung.
Seeing all these people who five minutes earlier were stuck in a service dying to leave and eat their huge Break-Fasts suddenly start singing together indefinitely was quite a sight to behold, but the reality is that eating, as usual, was better. The family I ate with had set the table in a very fancy way and had put all the food on nice platters, all for the three of us.
The Break Fast consisted of:
Bagels (Well, what the portenos call bagels)
Queso blanco (Hybrid of cheese and cream cheese; though cream cheese exists here)
Pastrami
Ham (I know, ironic. But ham is unescapable in Argentina. As is cheese)
Full(ish) sour pickles
Tuna salad
Lox spread (Unbelievably good)
Black and green olives
Bialys
Tomatoes
and for dessert:
6 flavors of Freddo gelato with chocolate and strawberry sauce
Sweet challah with sprinkles
Suffice it to say Yom Kippur was a success.
Posts
