Length of Ceremony: 3 hours
Theme: Benny's Barmitzvah/Do the right thing
Entertainment Factor/Ceremony: At the scheduled start time the room was practically empty. Over the next hour, people slowly trickled in and greeted each other over the sing-chanting of the rabbi. Bizarrely, people were getting up and chatting with each other throughout the entire service...which made it seem pretty chaotic.
A large white marble cabinet (referred to as the ark) was opened to reveal a giant golden scroll (the torah) adorned in colorful cloth. A rabbi walked around the room with it and people touched and kissed it.
Two rabbis (both tone-deaf) took turns reading from the torah and sing-chanting in Hebrew.
Then, a boy named Benny stepped up to read and give a talk on "doing the right thing." He began his speech about helping disabled people with the words, "I love baseball." I burst into laughter. It was then I realized why they were handing out baseball, basketball, football and soccer ball yarmulkes (pronounced yah-mə-kə) at the door.
As it turned out, Benny had his Barmitzvah the night before and his participation in the day's ceremony served to further his ascent into manhood. Overall, it was a pretty good speech. He plays sports with physically challenged children. Nice kid.
Promise of Heaven/Salvation: Yes. Jews believe in an afterlife or, "world to come." Gehinom is a terribly unpleasant place that souls go to be purified. Unlike the christian concept of hell, you only spend a max of 12 months there!
Space: Big box, ark facing pews, an alter. The religious architecture book I bought on Amazon is in the mail.
Free Food: I attended on the wrong day. There was a pancake breakfast the next day.
Equity Policy: The phrase "social justice" was kicked around a few times
Community Involvement: The running theme "do the right thing" was in relation to helping others.
$$$$$(cost): Donations from this wealthy congregation are going towards building a new synagogue but no collection plate was passed.
Participants (looks, conversation, etc.): The women of Beth Israel, on average, look like Joan Rivers.
Which makes sense given the location of this synagogue (South Granville is pretty swanky).
What I don't get about these women is how they don't know when to stop with the surgeries. Don't they know that every time i look at their plastic surgery addled faces all I see is their bones being broken and reconstructed?
Also, there were a lot of cute guys, but their appeal faded when they kissed the torah as it was passed around.
Blind Faith Factor (BFF/WOW factor): 2
No comments:
Post a Comment