Synagogue Reflection

The rabbi began the service fairly casually, greeting the congregation in English. After the English greeting came a more traditional greeting in Hebrew, and then a song to greet the Sabbath, or Shabbat, which is the word that was used at the synagogue. The Hebrew might have been strange to me, but there were English translations for just about everything in the prayer book, along with the prayers and songs written out in Hebrew. My personal favorite part of the service was the singing. There were two singers, one male and one female. All of the songs were beautiful, and caused me to consider the fact that many religions use songs and music in order to convey their messages. I believe that this is a good practice, because music is a common language, one that everybody can understand regardless of whether they speak Hebrew, or any other tongue. Although I’m

At the front, there were three Rabbis; two male and one female. This was the first evident sign that this temple was reformed, on the grounds that in Orthodox and some Conservative Judaism, leadership by a female is not permitted. Each of the three rabbis wore the talit, and one of them was the Cantor. He played a guitar and sang a song and the style reminded me of the praise and worship songs we sing at my church. He continued singing as people found seats. The service started with some singing in Hebrew. The lighting of the candles for Shabbat occurred next along with the reading of a blessing. Some more readings and songs followed that. A decent amount of the service was in Hebrew, particularly the singing, however there were also times that English was also spoken. Since the books were in Hebrew, which reads from right to left, the books opened in reverse. This took some getting used to; however, there were English translations. The following segment of the service is what I describe as a parade of the Torah. The Torah,

On the rotating table there were open books and the men would turn the table and without any hesitation continued to sing. Around 9:30 is when the church began to fill up and that is when the Priest and two Bishops came out. The Priest wore his stole, which is like a long scarf, around his neck and hanging to the floor on either side of him. The Deacons wore their stole vestments across their body diagonally. There was also a group of 4 boys that helped on the Alter whom also wore robes and they would enter and exit through the Angel Doors also known as Deacon’s Doors. Each time they went through the doors they kissed the icon on the door. There were times when the church would stand and times when everyone in the church would sit and these motions were all dictated by the Priest that made gestures to the crowd.

Throughout the world, there are billions of people that profess belief in a religion that most adequately answers the questions that most people ask regarding the origination of life to the self-purpose. Furthermore, within society their holds many people that believe in different religions that can cause for people to become biased and ethnocentric when evaluating certain aspects of a different religion. Due to this task of delving into research of a religion outside of your own, I chose to further my understanding through observing a service at an Orthodox Jewish Synagogue. In being that I am a Christian, I will be observing from a perspective in which I am informed about some of the scripture, but puzzled when it comes to many of the

common room. On days of worship the scroll of Heaven and Earth or that of the

After the service, members shared grace over the message. Michael, Elim prayer ministry leader shared, " It seems paradoxical being

Before the meeting started, the group all bowed their heads in prayer. This prayer was led by RH Brown from WCBI News. This is normal during these meetings, but I know in many other settings this may have been avoided to keep from offending anyone that was not Christian. The meeting began with the secretary, Ceolia

There was a lot of singing and shouting done in these secret meeting places. Shouting had two basic forms regular shouting and ring shouting. The “ring shout” a ritualized group activity clearly of African origin, which gained momentum in praise houses. Shouting is experienced when the Holy Spirit fills and empowers the worshipers so that they are unable to remain still. Much like today, when the Holy Spirit takes over your body, you can’t hold still and the Holy Spirit jumps from one person to

peculiar sounds it was noted in that during prayer they also broke out in uncontrollable laughter and

Torah Scrolls: This object is the most significant to the Synagogue, which is made up of the five books of Moses hand written by a pious scribe. The scrolls are kept inside an Ark of each synagogue and are read aloud in all synagogues four times a week.

My ancestral background belief is focused on spirituality and prayers hence, this lecture was a reinforcement towards my daily practice of prayers in my life.

     I also observed many paintings in this gallery. One painting that caught my eye was titled, “The Mocking of Christ” by Hieronymus Bosch. It was an early 16th century, oil on wood painting. Christ was seen in the upper right next to Pilate and was surrounded by figured who looked more like friends than enemies that would crucify him. These so called friends of Christ were holding weapons and wearing bizarre headgear. In the painting, Jesus had a saddened look on his face while the others looked jollier. Another painting that I observed was a painting by Defendate Ferrari which showed the enthroned Virgin Mary breastfeeding the baby Jesus with Saint John the Evangelist, Catherine of Alexandra, Anthony Abbot, and a saint reading a book. I was attracted to this painting because I would never have thought to have seen a picture of Mary feeding Jesus in that way. This painting was originally an oil and gold on wood and was transferred to canvas. There were so many

When the service started it began with prayer, during the service there were moments of prayer, and the service ended with prayer. Something that I found very entertaining was the form of worship that they used which was singing. They sang a lot of different songs that worshiped God. You could tell who went to church a lot because they knew all the songs by heart. For those like me that didn’t know the songs, the words were projected on to the wall so you could sing along with everyone else. There was also a live band that played the music to sing to. This part of the service was really entertaining to me and I really enjoyed it.

pray to God. As well as functioning as a House of Prayer, or 'Beit ha

One day in class with the professor Joseph Hoolbrok, I was thinking about which essay would be easier to do, but then I thought about how interesting would be to know about other religions, costumes and different traditions. One friend of mine works in events in a Jewish temple and I asked him if I could go there to do a site visit. The Jewish temple I went is called “Dor Dorim” and is ubicated in Weston, Florida. As Christianity is my religion, in this site visit essay I am going to talk about the Jewish ceremonies, their sacred days and their traditions.