Challah

I sometimes wish I had control over things other than my emotions. Wouldn’t it be nice if a person could control his environment, namely others? As you know I moved out of my room on Monday, and tonight we are traveling to Xi’an, where I will spend one Shabbos alone. This could not be avoided; the price to make alternate plans was too great. Since I would be in a place where the is no shul (temple) and no other Jewish families, the Rabbi in China packed me just enough kosher bread and grape juice for Friday night and Saturday afternoon so that I can do my mitzvahs of seudah and Kiddush and nothing more.

Upon moving out of my old room, I noticed that my new room had no refrigerator, and the bread would go bad before Shabbos. So the one favor I asked of my Indian roommate was that he let me leave my bread in the freezer of the refrigerator in his room. He agreed.

This morning when I went to his room to pick up my bread, I saw him munching on the bread. "Oh, these were yours?" he asked. Staying calm and morally wanting to hit him, I took a deep breath and said to myself, three pieces is enough. I’ll reuse the second one from Friday night so that I’ll have the required two on Saturday. Unfortunately, the pieces were warm because he took them out of the freezer and left them on the desk, so they defrosted. There is no other place to get Challah in China, at least not this close to the train ride. I hope they don’t get moldy before I need to use them tomorrow and the day afterwards.