Friday Night Services

Doing Jewish History, I'm running into a funny place. Although I grew up with a fairly good understanding of Jewish Culture from my family and I have a good working knowledge of Modern Jewish History, I am lacking pretty severely in an understanding of the actual religious practice. Spurred by both this whole in my knowledge and my own desire to know more about my Jewish roots, I decided to attend Friday night services.

I attended at Temple Beth El in Aptos, CA. I had heard nice things about their services (Reform), and one of their rabbis had performed High Holiday Services at UCSC last fall. I remembered bits and pieces from the last Shabbat I went to almost 20 years ago, which saved me with some of the Hebrew. Honestly, I was surprised by how much of the service was conducted in Hebrew and I plan on attending Fri night services led by Hillel here to see how they compare. Overall, I liked the message (English translation was provided), and loved the music. I like the Shabbat ritual and the text tended towards "Eternal One" and references to the promises of Moses and Miriam, rather than the "God, our Father, who is so big" heavy anthropomorphic language that I have heard in the Christian services I have attended most recently (my in-laws are Christian). I think it is a service and cycle that Luke would also like, but I frankly see the Hebrew as being a major turn-off and issue with approachability.

I liked the rabbi's "preview" of the Torah portion, in which he was exploring the issue of child labor today and what the Torah has to say about it. The way in which he applied a consideration of the past and what the Torah and Talmud have to say about a current social problem, and how to reconsider and apply that thinking, appeals very strongly to me. It is not the same as looking into the Bible for solutions to present problems, and then following blindly, but looking with a historical perspective to issues that have plagued human history for centuries and becoming involved in that debate/conversation as a means of debating as to how to alleviate suffering and injustice today. I am interested in attending a Sat morning minyan to hear the discussion of the weekly Torah portion. That will likely be my next goal.

I also made Challah for the first time from scratch without a bread maker, and it came out very well if I do say so myself