It's Bring Your Goyim to Shul Day!
"May curiosity always be reason enough to show up."
Shalom friends,
Before my dad writes in the comments that goy is not a nice term to describe non-Jews, please know I’m using it here with love. Besides, “It’s Bring Your Non-Jewish Friends to Shul Day” just doesn’t have the same ring!
About a month ago, a couple of my non-Jewish friends told me they would love to attend a Shabbat service. Excitedly, I picked a synagogue and marked a date on the calendar, and invited a couple more goyim for the ride. Get in loser, we’re going to synagogue!
FYI: “Shul” is Yiddish for school, and is commonly used in Orthodox communities. I say it because it’s fewer syllables than synagogue. ;)
I knew just the place I would take them to. See, I shul shop around NYC like it’s my hobby, so I am familiar with all sorts of services the city has to offer. I chose to take them to a Reform synagogue, because I thought its cathedral-like architecture and English services would make them feel at home (which is ironic because they’re French).
I enjoy the Reform service because it reminds me so much of my own services from childhood: a chill rabbi playing guitar on the bimah, Torah reading on Friday night, the familiar tunes (why is Orthodox Adom Olam so solemn?!). I also find it more personal when the rabbi gives the congregation a chance to say the names of those we’re mourning or praying for out loud.
So I was excited to give my friends a little taste of Shabbat, Reform style. I was also nervous too. Would they ask me questions I wouldn’t know the answers to? Would they be turned off by anything? Would the rabbi’s sermon be political?
Shabbat Shalom
We got through security and took our seats in the pews. I explained the evening’s itinerary: prayers, songs, reading from the Torah. Oh, and if you see people touch the Torah with their prayer book and then kiss it, that’s normal.
Candle lighting began, another aspect of the Reform service I appreciate in case I’m not coming from home directly and didn’t get the chance to light beforehand.
Once the band started playing and the cantor was singing her soulful, sopranic (which is a word I just made up) hymns, I started imagining the service through their eyes. It all felt incredibly churchy to me.
“This isn’t a typical Shabbat service,” I kept saying to my friends. But they seemed to be enjoying it. Also, who was I to say what was typical or not in Judaism?
As much as I enjoy Reform, I feel it misses the mark when it comes to prayer. I often feel as though I’m listening to a spiritual concert rather than having a personal conversation with G-d.
At one point, the cantor sang a prayer to the tune of “Rise and Shine” (and give G-d your glory, glory!) in honor of Parshat Noach. Of course, my French friends weren’t familiar with this American Sunday school deep cut.
Torah Time
Then came the rabbi’s sermon for Parshat Noach. The rabbi spoke of the flood, and how G-d acted with justice by flooding a world filled with חמס (violence, injustice) or “Hamas” (Yeah, you can’t make this stuff up. Genesis 6:11). G-d also acted with mercy by making a rainbow appear, a commitment to not destroy the world even when humans fail. 🌈
The rabbi related this to the Israel-Hamas War coming to an end, the new ceasefire that went into effect, and how Hamas immediately broke it. Israel had every right to continue the fighting once Hamas broke the ceasefire—there were still hostages’ bodies in Gaza after all. But with the war over, Israel had a choice to make: stoop to Hamas’ level (like it usually does, let’s be honest, not that I can blame it), or stand up to injustice? Noach teaches us that while justice is necessary to confront evil, mercy is necessary to rebuild the world.
Yeah… this evening wasn’t political at all!
“There are things that bring us all together.”
After a baby naming, blessings for a soon-to-be married couple, and blessings over the wine and bread, we went to a community dinner. I noticed how attentive I was to every detail, to ensure my friends had a good time and that we Jews made a good impression. Would the food be good? (It was, but they ran out of protein by the time we got some.) Would people be friendly? (They were, but I wasn’t even able to sit with my friends due to limited seating!) Would I drink a lot of wine and talk about circumcised penises? (You bet.)
So, did we make a good impression? Here’s a friend’s beautiful and honest words about his first synagogue experience:
I was raised in a mostly atheist family, with maybe traces of Protestant and Catholic values and rituals, but overall no strong religious influences. As a result of that (I think), I do not myself believe in God. However, in the past decade of my adult life, I have been more and more curious about other people’s faith – what it is grounded in, how they express it, how they apprehend the belief that there is a certain something driving how the universe works. Through travel and many discussions, I have especially been interested in learning how different religions honour their God(s). When I asked Miranda if she would bring me to a Jewish service, she was thrilled, which was a first discovery in itself: I had imagined Judaism as so rooted in community and tradition that an outsider’s curiosity might feel intrusive.
I didn’t really know what to expect from this service, on the spectrum of hour-long, sermon-filled Catholic masses to relatively quicker affairs like some of the rituals I have seen people perform in buddhist temples. The synagogue was Reform, I learned later, and apparently that explains that almost the entirety of the ceremony was composed of songs. Fun note: they also had actual instruments on stage, like in a gospel church (vs. just a very solemn big ass organ in Catholic churches)! The songs were catchy, but I didn’t understand much as most of it was in Hebrew.
What I especially liked was the emphasis on community, for example that moment when the rabbi was asking a string of questions along the lines of “Everyone who is mourning a close one, please stand,” to finally have the entire congregation standing up and realizing that there are things that bring us all together. In that same vein, the short ceremonies to introduce a newborn to the community or the groom of a soon-to-be-wed couple (who was coming from another synagogue), with again that tone of “This is the community, and today is the day you are being introduced to it”.
I came out of the service happy I got to be part of that community for an hour… and wondering what an Orthodox service looks like! Maybe that will be for another Shabbat outing with Miranda (well, on separate sides of the synagogue, that is). Until then: Shabbat shalom, and may curiosity always be reason enough to show up.
Last Shabbos, I spent Saturday morning services with my old Orthodox community, and the difference was night and day. I still love my Reform service like an old friend, but wow! The ruach (spirit) of communal prayers. The parsha class (and free coffee). The hora dancing in honor of a betrothed couple. I just might bring my friends here after all.
Shabbat Shalom! With “Rise and Shine” stuck in my head,
Love this! Would go with you anytime. :)
This was a really nice article. Your friends should also see a Conservative service -- sort of half way between Reform and Orthodox (depending on the congregation). We have a joke here -- many people having bar/bat mitzvahs for their kids invite friends, neighbors and work associates. For many of them, its a new experience to see a Jewish service. In the Conservative world, many Saturday morning services are almost 3 hours long, but people meander in just in time to start the Torah portion of the service. Of course, our non-Jewish friends don't know that, and they typically show up at the precise starting time. We joke that at the start of the service, there are as many Christians as Jews sitting in the room. All the best!