From Troyes

Very quick hello from Troyes, France. I came here two days ago to take part at a ten-day-long Paideia Summer Rashi Seminar. This will be a very quick message - my access to Internet is not really impressive and I am not sure I will have a chance to write more to you before I come back home to Prague next week. The seminar is just starting and it is too early to say anything about it for the moment. So for the meantime, let me just say a couple of words about Troyes as such. It is a small town in the Champagne county (hence the name of the beverage which is called after this reagon), 90 minutes of train ride east of Paris. Even though the town does not really make a big fuss about it (to my great surprise,) this is the birth town of Rashi, a place where he had his vinery and produced wine and a place where he worked and taught and established a yeshiva after years of study of Worms. I wish I could say it is exciting to be in the place where all the famous Rashi´s commentaries were written and that it is fascinating to breath the same air Rashi did, but I am afraid I cannot say any of this. It is a beautiful renaissance town, it looks very old, but it is deffinitely a far cry from the 11th century town of Rashi´s time. However, I tryed to make up for this by bringing a Maggie Anton novel „Rashi´s daughters,“ which talks about the fate of Rashi´s three daughters, whom their father, not having any sons, started to teach Talmud. I was rather skeptical before I started to read it, but the book is based on a serious historic research and so far, I have been enjoying it greatly (I am on page 56.)