The rain has stopped and after our morning routine, it was time to hit the road.  We drove down the Superior National Forest Scenic Byway to Minnesota Highway 61, a sparsely travelled road that follows the shore of Lake Superior.  Lake Superior is, by surface area, the world’s largest freshwater lake, contains 10% of the world’s fresh water, and is the largest lake in the U.S.

We are still awed by the beauty of nature in Minnesota and by the lack of road trash.  Minnesota claims to be the land of 10,000 lakes – they say so on their license plates – and seeing is believing.

Once on Highway 61, we stopped off at a rest stop for lunch.  We parked in a spot that overlooks Lake Superior and a small boat dock.

We then followed the shoreline into Duluth.  It was not our intention to spend time in large cities (Duluth’s population is about 86,000), but it was an opportunity to see the downtown area and we took it.

We arrived at Congregation Adas Israel, which is in downtown Duluth, during the early afternoon.  So with time to spend before Shabbat (which started at 8:48 pm), we walked to the main street and happened on some very interesting and unique shops: the Duluth Trading company, an upscale camping/clothing store with great clothes, high quality, higher prices; a Duluth visitors center where Sima got very interested in stories about the numerous shipwrecks in the Great Lakes; a huge second-hand store with antiques and books, which brought back so many childhood memories.  (We both recognized things that were very similar to what our parents had.  Why, I asked myself, did my mother make me give up my baseball card and comic book collections?)  I really felt old when we came upon two young women trying to figure out what they were holding in their hand –  I had to tell them it was an ice tray, where you pulled the handle up to break up the ice into cubes.

Further down the street we stopped into a coffee shop where they roast their own coffee beans and I found what I have been looking for since we started this trip, coffee brewing cones.  Of final interest, we found a throwback to the 60s, a hippie store with clothes and the largest selection of vinyl records I have seen in a long time.  The store has been in business since the 60s so I guess it has hardly changed.  No other comments necessary.

Shabbat, June 24, 2017 – first day of Rosh Chodesh Tammuz

Adas Israel left me with mixed emotions.  It is a struggling congregation, whose members are all aged 60 plus, and has a difficult time putting together a minyan; there was no minyan Friday night and barely a minyan for Shacharit.  The shul is 118 years old, very well taken care of (although, unfortunately, they are looking towards future financial problems), but the orthodox Jewish population has either moved away or passed away.  Like Moshe Yes’s song, “The Torah of Kiev,” it is a holy place of worship with hardly anyone there to be its soul, except for a handful of devoted people trying to keep it from being lost.  We found the people to be warm and caring and, regardless of the numbers, davening was with kavanah (no talking).  We then enjoyed a wonderful lunch: different fishes, including lox, cream cheese, bagels (Sima was very happy), salads, kugels, potato latkes, etc…, finished off with chocolate ice cream for dessert.  A meal fit for a Shabbat King.

We enjoyed many stories about the shul’s history (no, Bob Dylan did not have his bar mitzvah in the shul, but he was born three blocks away and moved to a nearby town at the age of three).

When other shuls within a hundred or so mile radius closed their doors, they donated many of their treasures to Adas Israel: sifrei Torah (they now have 11 or 12); an aron kodesh, which is in the downstairs shul where we davened (the beautiful main shul is used only on the yamin noraim); even the bronze memorial plaques, where small bulbs are lit to commemorate a yahrzeit.  We were also shown cupboards full of sifrei kodesh that were printed as far back as the 1890s.  What will happen to all of this if there is no one left to love them and this shul has to close its doors?

Downstairs shul:

Upstairs shul:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

One of the cupboards

An interesting side story – in a conversation with one of the congregants, who also happens to be a drummer, I learned that his grandfather was the shamash of the shul I grew up in, in Chicago.  It’s a small Jewish world.

Sunday, June 25, 2017

Rain, rain and more rain, and the forecast is for rain during the week.  We knew we would have times like this and at least we had over a week to get used to living in the RV.  One thing we have come to realize is that we did not bring enough warm and waterproof clothing.  Walmart, here we come.

We met with David Sher, the leader of Adas Israel and the person most responsible for keeping the shul going, in the morning.  He spoke some more about the shul he so dearly loves (he was married there and remembers full houses on Shabbat and holidays), and about the Jewish community at large, past and present.  He asked if there was anything we needed and I mentioned that we had not found grape juice or wine for Shabbat (although we still had enough for a few weeks).  He went to the cupboard and found us a bottle of Kedem grape juice.

We then headed to Wisconsin to find a campground with water and electrical hookups, hunker down, eat good food, drink good drinks, maybe watch a DVD, and wait out the weather.  We drove down a scenic highway and noted how different Wisconsin is from Minnesota.  There are many more cultivated fields, cows, and farm houses here.  Our GPS found us the type of campground we needed.  It’s interesting – we really don’t have any reservations; we simply hope to find what we need along the way.  We don’t plan too much except to head in a general direction.  This is so unlike us, ask our kids.  “And away we go.”