The Light of Ohr Shalom

I’ve had remarkably diverse religious experiences this semester, including visits to a Hare Krishna temple and a Buddhist temple, attending church services at multiple denominations, and since last semester, going to synagogue some Saturday mornings at Ohr Shalom. Reflecting on these various experiences enriched my own spiritual understanding and I’ve resonated with certain ideas everywhere I’ve gone. On every occasion, I’ve come across unexpected similarities between my own faith community and the ones I’ve sort of voyeuristically inserted myself into. My favorite of these similarities: announcements. Ah, that single uniting factor that spans race and age, belief and background. Every religious group has its own culture of announcements, and of all the ones I’ve observed, the announcements at Ohr Shalom are the most endearing, the most welcoming, and the most family-like.

From week to week, the announcements may include a mention of who sponsored the luncheon after the service, a mention of which Jewish holiday is approaching and when the signups for the feast are, whose baby has been born and whose kid has graduated, and where the next service project is taking place. All of this culminates with an invitation for all the guests and newcomers to stand up and say where they are from, and a little bit about themselves. This Saturday was my third time attending shul, and I finally felt that I could legitimately stay seated when the rabbi asked all the newcomers to stand. It was a good feeling, and not because I hate standing up in the middle of a church service, trying to decide whether I’m from Norco, where my dad lives, or Riverside, where my mom lives, all the while hoping my skirt isn’t tucked into my underwear. It’s because I really like the thought of becoming a regular part of the Ohr Shalom community. The other day, in fact, I was telling someone, “I think I’m a closet Jew, except that I really love Jesus a whole lot.” I’m not going to get into the theological framework behind that statement, or try to analyze it for its lack of political correctness, because what I really want to convey is my conviction that the community at Ohr Shalom has a much better grasp on what it is to participate in the story of G-D than do many Christian communities I’ve been a part of.

I suppose the Jews have something of a leg up on Christians when it comes to communing with God, since they do speak the same language as G-D does. J And when I say they speak the same language, I really mean speak so fast that I can hardly follow along, much less read aloud with everyone else. I had the distinct feeling that all my hard work in Hebrew 1 and 2 was naught when compared to the 14 year old girl who was reading from the prayer book with perfect inflection and such rapidity that I just stared blankly at the page and listened. Not to say that I regret taking the class, because I’m convinced that someday I’ll be able to read along and in the meantime, I can pick out words here and there just so I can at least stay on the right page. I do get some satisfaction, too, from being able to read the banners and decorations hanging around the interior of the synagogue and the prayers hung in the bathrooms.

Language barriers aside, there are a number of elements to the Jewish service that I would love to see my church family adopt. First and foremost is a much enhanced sense of reverence for all things concerning G-D. The rituals, the yarmulkes, refraining from speaking the divine name, the long (and I mean LONG) prayers, the standing up and sitting down at prescribed times…all of these contribute to a sense of longstanding tradition that my own community is sorely lacking. I think it’s safe to assume that part of that is due to the fact that, yes, Judaism has been around for several thousand more years than Christianity, but I think Christianity, and specifically the Protestant factions of such, has done a great disservice to itself by ignoring what rich traditions are available to us: patterns for worship and repentance that are prescribed in the very texts that Jesus himself lived by.

That essentially cavalier attitude toward Scripture that trademarks many Protestant circles is, to say the least, not an option in the Jewish tradition. The Christian habit of treating Scripture as nice quotes somebody said, or using it as a sermon illustration rather than the sermon itself, is unheard of; instead, the entire service is structured around the reading of the Torah. And here, the readings include every last bit of Torah, even down to the tedious descriptions of how the ark is to be decorated. Each Sabbath, members of the congregation go up and pray over each section of scripture before it is read, and everyone in the room reads along closely to make sure that the words are read correctly. If the reader makes a mistake, even a minute syllable, someone in the audience is sure to call out a correction. It sounds tiresome, but there is so much reverence and awe for the divine role of scripture, and so much God-infused freshness and newness that permeates what could easily be old-hat routine by now, that even readings about the types of metal that are to be used in manufacturing the temple walls take on an air of majesty and mystery.

All this is helped, too, by the fact that every time the Torah is taken from the place of honor, befitted with tassels and silver trimmings, and taken for a joyful parade around the synagogue, children come running behind it with baskets full of chocolates and candies for everyone in the service to share. Now here is a tradition that I’d like to see instated in my church, and not just because I love Snickers. Really, the reason it is such a beautiful ritual is because, as the rabbi explained to us afterward, the Torah is meant to be sweet on our lips and on our tongues, and sharing candy before and after the Torah readings cultivates an awareness that reading the words on the scrolls is to be as delightful and as treasured as a Reese’s in the middle of shul. The thought and intricacy in this symbolism is profound, and it parallels the honor given to the Torah in all other aspects of Jewish life, i.e. studying and memorizing it from a young age, reading Torah as a faith community, etc. Looking at the tradition from a psychological perspective is interesting as well, as giving out chocolate at a specified time during the service would eventually elicit a Skinnerian response in the congregants, who are now conditioned via positive reinforcement to look forward to the Torah reading, as I found to be the case in my own experience on Saturday. I was fairly drooling by the time the Torah scroll was taken out of the paneled room behind the podium!

So much of Jewish culture speaks directly to my hunger for tradition and symbolism and intelligent discussion. Take, for example, the luncheon served after the service, for example, and the rituals that accompany it. Everyone receives a little cup of juice, wine, or Jack Daniels (hello, Nazarenes?) and sings a prayer together before drinking as a group. Aside from the whiskey option, which seems like a great one in my opinion, the similarity to my church’s communion service is remarkable. After the wine everyone follows a prescribed method for washing their hands while saying a prayer. This hand washing has been going on for centuries, and is actually part of the reason why the Jews didn’t catch the Black Plague so many centuries ago (Silly Christians, we thought the Jews were possessed by Satan-spirits – maybe we should have adopted their cleaning habits rather than kill them). The hand washing is followed by the ritual of breaking the Challah bread, sprinkling it with salt, and passing it around for everyone to share.

Now, I love the high-church feel of the worship service, and I do get a kick out of the Torah treats, but my favorite part of attending shul is by far the conversation around the lunch table. Every time I go I learn something profound about the nature of G-D or about human history, or about literature or sociology, all just in casual banter over bagels and lox. Last week, for example, I talked with a gentleman and his wife about their life history and childhood experiences. He told about going to bed hungry many nights, and about how his mother frequently sacrificed her dinner to feed her sons. He then laughingly remarked that his job now is to keep his wife happy, and when I asked her if he did a good job of that, she smiled and said wryly, “No, he is terrible at it.” Later, the conversation took on a serious note as he began to tell of his experiences in World War two, and how most of his family did not survive. Finally, he asked us if we had ever seen one of the tattoos that people got on their arms in the concentration camps, and when we said No, we hadn’t, he pulled up his sleeve to reveal a bar of black letters and numbers. We sat in stunned silence for a few minutes, taking in the realization that he will bear that mark for the rest of his life. Praise G-D he no longer wears it as a stigmata branding him as something less than human. It is now a symbol of his survival, of his faithfulness even in persecution, and perhaps even a physical reminder of G-D’s faithfulness to G-D’s people.

As I sat at the round table shredding my napkin and looking around at the kind souls gathered all around me, joyfully eating and laughing together, joking that they don’t take G-D so seriously and he doesn’t take them all that seriously either, I had the distinct feeling of being very young and very shallow. I am a dandelion in the wind compared to these vast oaks who have been in the world for such a long time, putting their roots deep down into the soil of their faith, relying on G-D and each other to help them weather storms of maltreatment and trial. My prayer now is that I may sink my roots into the same soil, and watch my faith flower alongside theirs.