The Congregation & Me

Background:

This is hard to explain to people who don’t know the local culture of Israel.  Israel is a secular society and a religiously observant society.  Between those two contrasting colors are many shades of grey.  My family is considered masorti or traditional.  We don’t drive on Shabbat, we keep kosher, we observe the Jewish holidays, we attend the national religious schools (except me when I went to a special ed school in 10^th grade. There is no national religious special ed school that I know of.)

I live in a village that is comprised of secular people except for me and my family. So people from outside our village are surprised that we have a working synagogue.  In Israel when you are secular, you don’t go to synagogue. We don’t really have a strong conservative or reform jewish presence in most of the country.  There are pockets in cities and towns where there are lots of Americans and other anglos where there is some diversity. But mostly the synagogues are orthodox – as is ours.

The reason we have a working synagogue and always have, is because the senior citizens along with a few people in their 40’s and 50’s come to pray every at our synagogue for Friday night and Saturday morning services. The reason the senior citizens come seems to be some kind of connection to their faith. They also seem to enjoy the social aspect a bunch of men getting together to pray, chat, share stories and on Saturday to eat and drink at the Kiddush.  On rare occasions, the regular members of the minyon (those who participate) manage to convince or bribe or persuade their children and grandchildren to attend.  This helps bolster the minyon. 

To pray fully there has to be a minion. Meaning, there must to be 10 men over the age of 13. If someone prays alone there are prayers that can’t be read. Usually we are the minimum of 10 for a minyon.  The only time children come out of their own will is for holidays.  And the only time a lot of adults come to the synagogue is when there is a special prayer for the deceased which takes place three times a year. It seems that even people who don’t want to go to synagogue feel some kind of obligation towards their deceases relatives.

My Part:

I and my brother are the only young people who have been coming to the synagogue on a regular basis since we moved here 16 years ago.  In the early years, I went because my parents made it clear that this is the way it was.  Over the years I got used to it.  I also made a friend there.  He used to be youth leader in the UK.  He’s now a grandfather but he talks like a young person and shares his life and endless stories with me as I sit next to him in synagogue each week.

We don’t have a formal rabbi. The person who reads from the Torah and gives a talk on the Torah portion is very learned but isn’t a Rabbi. He is a cheese farmer with goats, cows and water buffalo from which he makes cheese.  He now also consults to cheese farmers around the world.  He doesn’t make it to synagogue on Friday nights because he has to milk.  There was usually some kind of argument about who would lead the service each Friday night.  That is, until they had the bright idea to ask my brother to lead. My brother, Shmuel, went to a yeshiva high school which is a boarding school where you learn all the Torah subjects in addition to the regular ones.  I didn’t go to a yeshiva because at the time I was in oblivion and couldn’t handle the pressure.

Shmuel started to lead the congregation on a regular basis. A while after, he and I shared the job until he left a month ago to study kung fu at the Shao Lin Temple school in China.  Then I became the leader of the congregation.

While my brother was the main cantor, he brought a variety of melodies for the prayers that he had learned in school. Curse him and his melodies. Those tunes have made the job uncomfortably difficult for me. I can’t sing well, and I can’t stand that, even though the other people in the congregation don’t care. I still have to sing the melodies as much as I can because my damn brother stuck the music into their heads. The reason I keep leading the congregation, is because I know it’s a good thing to do for them. If I quit, they’ll go back to bickering.  So it’s a mitzvah. Of course I am aware that it is also an honor and a privilege.  They really appreciate that I come so consistently and that I contribute significantly.  So even though I can’t sing, I guess I make them happy – and that’s a good thing.

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