Written by Evan - as he explores Shabbat experiences...This picture is of one of the hundreds of menorahs outside in Nachalot (a neighborhood next to ours)
Generally speaking, when I leave my apartment I know exactly where I am going. For instance, most days I walk out of my front gate with the understanding that I will travel down Keren Kayemet Street, cut through Independence Park, pass the American Consulate, cut through the little alleyway, and walk down Moshe Hess Street, ending up at school. Yet are rare moments like last week, when I left my home on Saturday morning and decided that I would do something that I had promised myself that I would do since my arrival in Israel. That promise was to wander through the neighborhood of Nachlaot and find an Orthodox synagogue that somehow “would speak” to me, and I would pray, or daven, with them.
To be honest, I am not exactly sure what that meant, a synagogue that “would speak” to me. Regardless, I took my tallit, siddur, and some water (just in case I ended up far from home), and set out for the neighborhood of Nachlaot. The time was just about 9:45, and little did I realize that most of the synagogues in Nachlaot finish services by 11:00am. Saturday morning in Nachlaot is quite fascinating. There are men roving the alleyways, kids playing in the street, women chatting outside of the synagogues, and a few secular Jews enjoying the tranquility of Shabbat, taking pictures of the synagogues and old buildings that are so characteristic of this neighborhood. I felt quite peaceful and solitary as I walked through the streets of the neighborhood, despite the fact that I was surrounded by Jews. I know I could have asked a friend to join me on this “quest”, but for some reason I wanted to wander through Nachlaot on my own. So much of our experience here in Israel is focused on the collective, I suppose I just wanted something for myself on this Saturday morning.
After passing by two small synagogues, I walked by a small door leading into a basement. From the ground level, I could hear men singing Siman Tov joyously from below. “This is my synagogue!” I thought to myself. I walked down the dark, musty stairs into the modest basement where I saw men joyously dancing around the podium, one of them holding a baby. Some of the men were standing, others sitting. A few were reading from various books, others were singing and festively joining in the conversation. I could see women behind the mesh curtain also celebrating amongst themselves. I surveyed the large bookcase in front of me. It took me several moments to choose a siddur, and I made my way a few rows in just as the celebration of the baby came to a rousing finish. Part of me felt so comfortable there, yet I had no idea what to expect. So many questions came to my mind. Does this congregation get visitors very often? They all seem to know one another. Will they call on me to read Hebrew or for an aliyah because I am a guest? Am I dressed properly? Do I fit in here at all? What is going on at H.U.C right now?
This was not my first time in an Orthodox prayer environment; on the contrary, I grew up going to an Orthodox summer camp every summer and many of my friends to this day are Orthodox Jews. Yet it has been some time that I have davened with them, and because I was by myself in a synagogue that I had never entered until that day, I really felt just a bit unsure about the whole situation.
My experience in this little synagogue lasted only about 45 minutes, as I had spent a good deal of time wandering the neighborhood before I finally sat down there. The most interesting piece of the service in my opinion was the Birkat Kohanim. Three men approached the ark, took off their shoes, and covered themselves with their tallitot. They held their hands up high, and I could tell they were making the Priestly hand signal under their tallitot. I had never seen this ceremony before and was grateful to witness it for the first time in my life.
During Musaf I closed my eyes and enjoyed the orchestra of male voices each singing and praying with their own tones and intonations. I thought to myself how beautiful the medley of all of the voices sounded, despite the fact that my personal preference is to have a chorus of both male and female voices when I pray. As the service ended, I quickly packed up my tallit and quietly walked up the stairs into the bright morning sunlight. It’s interesting to think that most likely nobody there really noticed my presence at the service, but it had an impact on me. My relationship with Orthodox Judaism is complex, and in recent years I really felt no desire to enter an Orthodox synagogue. It was important to me, however, to embrace this aspect of my past and to struggle with the question how Orthodox Judaism relate to my life and to the liberal Jewish community as a whole. As I walked home down Ussishkin Street, I noticed that all of the synagogues that were so vibrantly davening only an hour ago, were now quiet and dark. I knew I had made the right choice; I had fulfilled my promise to myself, and could not wait to see where I would be for Shabbat next week…
