Temple

About a year ago my wife decided that we should be better people than we are. That meant we should search for a congregation to belong to. The area we currently live in is practically saturated with synagogues meaning research was not very difficult.

The problem was that they are either sephardic, bucharian, orthodox or other kind but none of them was reformed and that what we were looking for. So we expanded our search and eventually found a very nice and prestigious temple in Manhattan, the Central Synagogue.

This one is open to the public and unbeknown to us at least not at the time of our choosing it is a replica of the famous Budapest Dohany utca synagogue.

So, in about April of this year we started to attend Friday night services. One has no need to join and pay a hefty fee, this is open to the public. The services are very interesting, they are in English and Hebrew as are their prayer books. That is a lot of help because my Hebrew is as good as my Sanskrit.

I remember back in the fifties, early fifties, we had to from school attend Friday services at the Dohany utca synagogue we never knew where to keep the prayer boys open because I couldn't read Hebrew. Now I feel the same way. It is a good thing that here the Hebrew version is also written phonetically. It is another story that I have no clue what the words mean.

But still, it is a good feeling to be there. And at my age I can use every help I can get.

This temple has a very ritzy congregation and because of that their staff is first grade. First, the congregation is Manhattan East Side crowd. All American, all English speaking.  Well dressed and a mixture of young and. It never ceases to amaze me how younger people are familiar with the mysteries of the Hebrew writings. They know how to read it, they know all the prayers, they know all the songs.

Where I come from, as far as I know my generation knows very little if anything about religion. We received almost zero religious education both in school and at home. Seeing all these people comfortably repeating the prayers after the rabbis and read the prayer books like I read a newspaper just enforces in me that we are coming from different worlds.

Here is a little personal comment.

Years ago the Pope issued an edict that latin would no longer be the language of the catholic church and masses would be held in every country on their own languages. And, God understood this.

Why jewish services still have to be held in Hebrew?