Jewish

“Take the risk of thinking for yourself, much more happiness, truth, beauty, and wisdom will come to you that way.” —Christopher Hitchens

This morning I awoke at around 3:30 am… I tried so hard to fall back asleep, I mean it was a Saturday after all! My mind was on fire and I knew the feeling well enough. I could either lay there staring up at the darkness for a few more hours or I could get up, make some coffee and watch a Minyan service. I chose the second.

A strange thing to say to someone, “I woke up before the crack of dawn and tuned into a Jewish service because what else was I going to do so early, still be sleeping? O and by the way I am not Jewish.” So is the life I lead I suppose.

So there I was curled up in my bed with a hot cup of coffee, hoping that it would wake me up some more so that I could look alive for this service. I wanted to be ever present for Minyan at the Congregation Beth Shalom but my head was still in fog mode and I found myself loathing itself for not being able to wake up even two hours later to watch this service. Could I not have woken up on a Saturday morning at say, 5:30 am?

But enough of my complaining as I was able to watch Minyan through a Facebook live video at the wee early hours of this morning. Now no worries, the Jews weren’t up at 3:30 am praying, singing and congregating. No, it was just me. I watched their Minyan video from a few days ago. (I’m sure they were all sound asleep, as any good person was that early.)

My only past anything to do with the Jewish faith was back in seventh grade. My teacher, Ms. Burton, whom I’m guessing was Jewish, had us all participate in the Passover Seder. “This ritual feast that marks the beginning of the Jewish holiday of Passover. It is conducted throughout the world on the evening of the 14th day of Nisan in the Hebrew calendar.” -Wikipedia

I remember us all sprawled out on the ground of our classroom forming a circle. She would explain what everything meant and we would try different foods. Most of the foods were foreign to me and I feel as though there was hummus involved. It may have been the first time I had tried hummus. I guess that’s something a person remembers, their first hummus on a cracker interaction.

So this is about the sum total of my Jewish experiences. Now if we go back to just a few memories I have growing up in my Mennonite traditional “Christian” church. I would say that it was all very confusing. We were taught that the Jews were God’s chosen people. I grew up learning about God using Moses to lead His people, the Israelites, out of Egypt and into the promise land. But the confusing part was that I remember the Jews being in this separate category, you know like all the other religions I’ve visited up until this point. There was us, the almighty Christians (I squirm in my seat as I write that), the Atheists, the Baptists, the Methodists and then there was the Jews.

My question, if they were God’s chosen people and they were such a big part of the Bible, New and Old Testament, then why was the message being relayed back to me that they were going to hell because they didn’t believe and worship the same way we did? One has to admit, it was a good question.

To be honest I still wouldn’t know how to answer that question to a wondering eleven year old. I think that through this whole personal journey so far and through watching Morgan Freeman’s Netflix series, “Who is God?”, I by all means do not understand enough to tell someone or a religious group whether or not they are going to heaven or hell or whatever after life proceeds this one. Who am I to decide? What size is my understanding compared to the great Creator of this universe? Maybe this is going to deep for a Saturday morning two cups of coffee mindset, but can people find God through any religion?

Well, with all those questions out there I suppose it’s time to start writing about the service at Congregation Beth Shalom.

The service was lead solely by Senior Rabbi David Glickman. This service was recorded a few days ago and according to him it was their first Facebook live recording. To anyone reading this years in the future and aren’t connecting the publishing dates with what was happening around the world, the city of Overland Park, along with other states, have officially called for a lock down in hopes to stop the spread of COVID-19. Some places are open but for the safety of all, places of worship are closed for at least the next month.

Rabbi Glickman started service welcoming everyone watching online, along with the five other people who were present for the service. He apologized that they had to close their doors to the general public and members of Beth Shalom because of specific orders from the government. He said that he received a few emails from members who were upset about this. (Now, as the days have progressed and more information has come to light, I hope that those who were angry now see how fast this virus is spreading and feels it right to take back any words said in anger. Just saying…)

But the service will prevail despite world epidemics! Rabbi Glickman started service with a morning blessing and then shared a few words from a book called, Living Each Day by Rabbi Abraham Taski. The focus to his words was that God can hear our prayers anytime and anywhere.

I will be honest, I won’t be able to relay all the little details and exact names of payers that Rabbi Glickman lead us in. Most of the service was in what I assume would be Hebrew. And for those of you who don’t know me, I speak Hebrew like I speak French, German and Swedish… all of those being nadda!

The service was a continuous variation of prayers, readings and moments of silence. Occasionally Rabbi Glickman would reference certain pages, page 36 now, page 55 now, top of page 89 now. I believe at times he was reading from the Torah.

When it came time for page 79, Rabbi Glickman and the five in person attendees sang. The second go around Rabbi Glickman asked the people there to speak up so that those watching from home could hear them better. It reminded me of my elementary music teacher who would encourage us to sing louder. “Louder…. grandma in the back row can’t hear your voice little Stefan!” She would yell.

Once the ceremony came back to English I could understand what was being said, well a little better. (haha) Rabbi Glickman announced that it was custom to pray for Israel, the state of Israel and the front line people in Israel dealing with COVID-19. The prayer was beautiful and I too bowed my head in prayer.

After prayer, Rabbi Glickman asked Richard to go on stage and open the ark. In Jewish synagogues the ark holds sacred Torah scrolls used for public worship. The camera turned, as it wasn’t facing the stage the whole time, and there was a beautiful wooden ark. Then the Rabbi read a list of names. I think that they were people that needed prayer. He then asked each person sitting there in the crowd if they had names to add. After they finished he asked anyone on Facebook if they had names they wanted read out loud and if so to put them in the comment box. No other names were added and so Richard closed the ark.

The service was coming towards and end and Rabbi Glickman thanked everyone by name on Facebook live for attending. There was even someone tuning in from Morocco. It is kind of wild to think of who can attend via the internet. Wow, technology!

After watching the service at Congregation Beth Shalom I didn’t exactly jump into writing all about it. Usually I watch a service, or attend a live one (O, how that seems like forever ago) and then write about my experience right away so all the details are fresh in my mind. But this morning my eyes hurt just a little too much to do so. I watched the service, then went about procrastinating as much as possible, plus I was also really tired. I looked up what a praying shawl and the tefillin straps were that Rabbi Glickman and Richard both wore were. Somehow I found a list of the best looking Jewish actors and found my love, Mr. Jake Gyllenhaal was at the top. All the sudden Jewish men became a whole lot more attractive to me. Also, I didn’t realize how many men in Hollywood were Jewish. An important fact I came across today, very proud of that! I listened to some Taylor Swift and then finally when my eyes could take no more, fell asleep watched a part of Morgan Freeman’s, “Who is God?”.

As I finally woke back up a few hours later to the sounds of my upstairs neighbor’s dog scratching at the door, I realized that I still have little knowledge on the Jewish faith. Maybe because most of the service was read in what I think was Hebrew. I didn’t feel like I ended this service with too much greater knowledge on the faith than how I started the service. I also realized that people study the Jewish faith for years and years and years. That like my own faith, there is always something new to learn or a new enlightenment to come across. I can’t by any means come to understand this faith in an hour but what I can do is see the people behind this faith. The ones showing up for something that they believe in. Knowing that people were tuning in from Morocco to be apart of this service. Wow! That is pretty amazing if you ask me.

There are thousands of Jewish people all over the world and to have entered into just a small part of it today was such a blessing. I am so very curious of this faith, these people and Israel the Holy Land.

I end this post with more questions still about this faith than answers but I can deal with that. I want to understand more, I want to listen intently, I want to connect more people’s names and faces with new religions. To see their passion is encouraging to me and my own faith. We all have to start somewhere, a jumping off point if you may, and this is my jumping off point.

“If you ask me who God is, I would say there is a bit of the divine in all of us. There’s God in you, there’s God in me. The God in me is who I really am at my core. The God in me is the best version of me. The God in me is who I strive to be… who I was meant to be.” -Morgan Freeman