Five Reform Jews Walk Into a Conservative Synagogue in Ra'anana...

One of the things that you never have to worry about in Israel is finding a synagogue.  In Ra'anana alone, there are more than 60 and they represent almost every group you can imagine: Ashkenazi (eastern European), Sephardi (Spanish), Yemenite, Shtiebele, Conservative, Reform.  As one would imagine in a country like Israel, much of which is governed by religious law, most of the synagogues are not large, ornate buildings like you find in the States; they are shuls for a smaller group of people.

In advance of Rosh Hashanah, which is still a month away, we wanted to experience Shabbat services.  Fortunately, there is a Conservative congregation about 2 blocks away.  Their web site talks about them being a merger of two congregations: one, mostly English speaking, and one, Spanish speakers from Latin America.  "Why not?" we said and off we went for Shabbat morning services today.

Before describing everything, let's let the girls tell you what was similar to services at home and what was different.

The Same

• Prayers were in Hebrew
• Some of the tunes were the same
• All of the people were nice
• They read the Torah
• Some of the prayers were the same
• It was casual -- people moved around during services
• There was lots of audience participation

Different

• It was MUCH LONGER (it was probably 3 hours, not that much longer than a Saturday b'nei mitzvah service at home)
• They did the entire Torah portion
• The space was a lot smaller than we were used to
• Most of the tunes were different
• There was no English during the service (except when they were addressing us or talking about us)
• The chairs were not as comfortable as our Temple at home
• It was really cold -- the air conditioning worked well and we sat right under it
• The sang the kaddish many more times than we were used to
• There was a very big oneg and they served whiskey for the adults (yum)
• It was very community led -- everyone seemed to do something and there were 4 students preparing for their b'nei mitzvah who helped lead part of it.  Special props to Gabi who accepted the invitation to dress the Torah.

The Torah portion today was Re'eh, from the book of Deuteronomy.  Moses tells the people about punishments they can expect if they worship idols, he explains the laws of kashrut, and he details the three pilgrimage festivals (Passover, Shavuot, and Sukkot).  I can honestly say that it will be some time before I forget this portion, not because of the content but because of what happened during the service.

A few days ago, a friend of ours here told the folks at the synagogue that we'd be coming today.  We arrived at 8:40 to find about 8 men praying.  We weren't 100% sure where to go but someone approached us and invited us in.  We did, sitting together, and finding our place in the all-Hebrew siddur.  Fortunately there were numbers on the wall, constantly being flipped to keep up with the page we were on.

Maybe 30 minutes in, Moritz approached me to say hello -- he is a congregational leader and was expecting us.  He knew my name and said, "You're a Levi, right?"  There are three groups of Jews: the kohanim (a small subset of priests, descended from Aaron), the levi'im (the larger group of priests, descended from the Tribe of Levi, responsible for music in the Temple and guarding stuff), and Yisraeli'im (everyone else).

So I acknowledge that I'm a Levi.  The next thing I know, I'm following a kohen into the kitchen to wash his hands.  Yep.  Performing the duty of a Levi.  But it gets better.

About halfway through the service, the Torah is removed from the ark and eventually the week's portion is chanted (quite nicely here too).  Before each section of the portion is chanted, a congregant is called up for an aliyah -- they recite a blessing before and after that part of the portion is chanted.  The first aliyah goes to a kohen.  The second one goes to -- you guessed it -- a Levi.  And there's Moritz, asking me for my Hebrew name and my parents' Hebrew names for the aliyah.

The rest of the service went smoothly and we had a nice oneg -- snacks -- afterwards.  This is when we discovered that there were a good number of Israeli-Americans in the room. They were really helpful and curious about us. We learned about the youth group that meets on Fridays (almost 100 youth), the Tues/Fri market in Ra'anana that sounded like a good farmer's market, and people's family in the States (a high school teacher in the Boston area, a professional violist in Miami ... yes, a professional violist...). Jan was quickly friendly with the folks who host a lot of house concerts and are especially active in the folk music community of Ra'anana.

The people were incredibly friendly and welcoming and they look forward to us returning.  I imagine that we will, even though Alice and Gabi were lost most of the time and the rest of us were struggling to keep up with the speed of the Hebrew reading.  But it's nice to feel welcome and part of a community, even one that is almost 6000 miles from home.