Not Quite All Black-and-White

I was in the Braslav (Breslov/Bratzlav) bookstore in Meah Shearim (^) today. No men were behind the counter as the Frank family which runs in are quite central to the annual Rosh hashana pilrimage to Umman and so they are already there preparing.

As I came in, I thought I saw two "Taliban women" in the back but it turned out to be a different story entirely.

Here they are leaving:

Photo credit: YMedad

As they left, they asked the girl if she forgave them and she replied in the positive.

So, who were they? What did they purchase?

The were two Russian Orthodox nuns.

And they has purchased a set of the Selichot order of service, the special penitential prayers said just before the High Holiday season until the eve of Yom Kippur.

Oh, and here is the Bet Medrash of Braslav getting reading, hiding the 'tribunes' (*) used by the women to enter the Ezrat Nashim from the outside as the building's internal architecture is all male:

Photos credit


(*)
Tribunes is the term used to describe the stands or bleachers on which the Chasidim stand en masse high up to watch the action, as in this usage:

Hundreds of Hasidim stand on the tribunes and watch the Purim Spiel together with their Rebbe.

(^)

אגודת משך הנחל

רחוב מאה שערים 110

ת.ד. 5719 ירושלים 91056

טלפקס: 02-6273120

^

We've Got An Alternative to Umman

And it's in Jerusalem, at the grave of Rabbi Yisrael Ber Odesser, the "Saba", owner of the "slip":

And while we're at it, former US President Bush's image is exploited for a...bagel bakery in the hareidi poster:-

^

Going to Rebbe Nachman for Rosh Hashana

You are aware of the Braslav/Breslov trek to Umman?

Here:-

Rebbe Nachman once declared: "Gohr mein zach is Rosh Hashanah . . . My entire mission is Rosh Hashanah." He was particularly emphatic about his followers coming to him for Rosh Hashanah, and indicated on his last Rosh Hashanah in Uman that we should continue to do so even after his death (Chayei Moharan 403-406; Likkutei Moharan I, 211; ibid. II, 94; Kuntres "Ha-Rosh Hashanah Sheli," citing numerous additional sources).

and

The Rebbe once told his followers: "Whether you eat or you don't eat, whether you sleep or you don't sleep, whether you daven [with proper concentration] or you don't daven − just make sure that you are with me for Rosh Hashanah!" (Chayei Moharan 404).

You should know:

Uman, a manufacturing center in central Ukraine, about 130 miles south of Kiev, has some 95,000 people...
In 1768, during a peasant and Cossack rebellion against the ruling Poles, many Uman citizens were murdered, including 20,000 Jews. Before he died in 1810, Rabbi Nachman of Breslov, a renowned Hasidic master, expressed a wish to be buried here, so that his soul might serve as a spiritual support not only for the souls of the town's martyrs but also for those of its errant free-thinkers. Rabbi Nachman also pledged to intercede ''from the other side'' on behalf of anyone who celebrates Rosh Hashana at his grave. That's what Bob and I are doing here in September along with 1,400 others, according to the Breslov Research Institute, who have come to take Rabbi Nachman at his word.

(A short distance from Lenin Street, Pushkin Street, like a Hasidic version of Woodstock, is busy with thousands of black-suited men in black hats who, between meeting up with lost friends or buying bottled water from the locals or camping out in tents, make unceasing visits to pray at Rabbi Nachman's grave.)

Well, the posters are up here in Jerusalem, offering visions

and a price of $699:

Enjoy.

^

Bratslav Goes Psychedelic

That's the slogan Na-Nach-Nachma-Nachman-M'Umman.

It can get almost weird.