Welcome - God's Image Is In You!The Rabbi's Comment
Welcome - God's Image Is In You!
I have always felt at home in a synagogue. As a young boy, I remember being greeted by the warden at synagogue with a smiling and friendly: "Shobbus lobos" every week. This clearly helped set a positive scene for me and made me feel at ease. No matter what was going on at home or at school, that friendly greeting with its smile and kind words meant that I would always feel at home in my synagogue.
As time went on, I grew to feel at home in most synagogues. I tend to feel most comfortable when there is a friendly greeting to welcome me but I am (relatively) at home in most synagogue settings. Being familiar with the basic format of any synagogue service obviously helps me.
Being comfortable with the Siddur (prayer book) is a major factor and of course it can take time to find one's way round a book we are unfamiliar with. Some prayer books are more user-friendly than others. For the last 31 years we have been using a pretty good Siddur but our new one, just produced by the Movement for Reform Judaism, has many excellent features and some very interesting additions.
The
new Siddur, Seder Ha-T'fillot (Forms of Prayer), reintroduces some
traditional material we have not used for a while and introduces some exciting
new material. It has new prayers for various life events, e.g. on leaving home,
for parents when a child leaves home (you'll have to read it for yourself to see
if it's a prayer of relief or sadness), on retirement, during depression and for
animal companions. There is also an expanded section of communal prayers for a
wide variety of situations.
It contains more meditations; more study passages and more options for our daily, Shabbat and occasional services. Seder Ha-T'fillot also introduces transliteration in key sections of the Siddur to help those who struggle with Hebrew to participate more easily. I still strongly recommend that you learn (more) Hebrew if you do not find it easy to read, but the transliteration helps the accessibility to the service and key prayers.
Whether you want to use our new Siddur in the service or at home, I recommend you enjoy some time browsing through it to see its richness. I will be offering an opportunity to explore Seder Ha-T'fillot on Sunday mornings over the next few months and look forward to welcoming you to do this.
This brings me back to my title, 'Welcome - God's Image Is In You!' We are all made in God's image! We are told in Genesis (chapter 1, verses 26 - 28): 'And God said: "Let us make humankind in our image, after our likeness" … And God created humankind in God's image; … male and female God created them.'
As we are all made in the image of God, we should all be treating each other with respect, recognizing and embracing that spark of God in each of us. As a community this should be 'emanating from the centre' and, as individuals, all of us should aspire to be living in this way.
Although we are a friendly community and there is normally someone to greet those who arrive with a smile and a warm welcome, I am not sure that everyone feels welcomed and valued when they walk into our building. I think this is something we must improve upon.
How do you feel about the ambience of SDRS as you walk into the building? Anyone who walks into our synagogue should be able to feel at home. How do you feel and what would you suggest?
In addition to the opportunity to explore our new prayer book together, I am offering a new Sunday morning look. Starting on Sunday, 21st September 2008, on Sundays I am in Southend, we will have a short creative Morning Service (at 9.45am), a 'Bagel Bar' (from 10.15am) with a 'drop-in' and an 'Ask the Rabbi' session (or explore the new prayer book), followed by a Hebrew lesson at 11.45am for those who want to improve their Hebrew. Please see our ‘Calendar’ for further dates.
You will be made very welcome and you can pop in for as much or as little as you want. Who knows, we may even get to discuss the idea of God's image in us!
I wish you and your family a very good and sweet New Year.
September 2008.
