The Synagogue

Last night the family attended the first Friday night synagogue service we have attended in years. We went to the temple we used to belong to years ago, and left when we could no longer afford both membership there and in the humanist church we joined around the same time.

About a week and a half ago, maybe on September 7th or 8th, I had lunch in Burger King. When I was on the line waiting for my order, I saw a man I vaguely recognized, and thought he looked very pale and unwell. It turned out he was Alan, a man we'd known from the synagogue. He and his wife Maddy were there having lunch with their grandchildren. Actually it must have been on Tuesday the 6th because now I remember, I said to Maddy that the kids would be back in school in two days. She was pleased because the boy was being a handful and acting spoiled and whiny.

I sat down with them and asked how the synagogue was going. They were both enthused about it and said it had merged with a third reform temple and was now meeting in Boro Park. They encouraged us to come to an open house on September 11th. We talked about the possibility of reforming a youth group, about the women's group, the brotherhood, all sorts of activities there. They did say they needed more membership, well, what religious organization doesn't?

Anyhow Maddy and Alan were so friendly that I thought about checking the place out again. I also felt that it was somehow a sign from God that I should try the synagogue, or at least, putting something else in my path as I have been thinking about us leaving the humanist church.

We have been so angry and so negative about what is going on at the church that I've felt for some time now that we need to start dissociating ourselves from it. It is not spiritually enriching us, in fact right now it is just the opposite. It is dragging us down into negative emotions.

So it seemed like an illustration of the saying, one door closes and another door opens. I talked to Rick and he agreed somewhat unenthusiastically to try it out.

When we went to the open house, everyone was very friendly. Most of the people there were from the old synagogue that we belonged to (and in fact, Rick used to belong to the third syagogue where the congregation is now meeting, years before he met me). Maddy was there for a few minutes but left to visit Alan, who was in the hospital. I wasn't surprised as I'd been shocked by how pale he looked. She said it wasn't anything serious, just some arhythmia.

Last night after dinner Rick, Rick Jr. and I headed over to the synagogue. It's in a Hasidic area and lots of Hasidic men were strolling about on their way to services, clad in their black frock coats and fur hats. I often wonder why they don't die of heat stroke in summer.

When we reached the synagogue I immediately went into the ladies room. As I emerged from the stall I heard two women talking in horrified and grief-stricken tones about a man's death. Immediately I knew they meant Alan though I didn't hear his name. I came out, and one woman was crying in the other's arms. They apologized to me, since neither of them recognized me.

I said, "I think I know who you are talking about." Sure enough, it was Alan. He'd come home from the hospital but then collapsed in the house and either died in the ambulance or on arriving at the hospital.

This gave me an eerie feeling. Why should I have run into him again after not seeing him for so many years, receive encouragement from him and his wife to visit the synagogue again, and then never see him alive again? It seems like a sign and it seems like the last thing he was meant to accomplish. Since I don't believe in accidents I feel it had to be a sign to me. Also I had a strong premonition that he wasn't well and in fact, when I saw him, I thought to myself that he looked like a ghost.

At the service, I felt comfortable although I couldn't quite read Hebrew fast enough to totally keep up. Maybe a refresher is a good idea. I give Rick Jr. credit, he tried to follow along at least in English.

The brief sermon was interesting, basically the rabbi was saying that we shouldn't neglect our bodies because we are made in God's image and it is an offense to God to desecrate what resembles God. (I notice that to be politically correct they keep saying God instead of Him). The rabbi went further and said that our bodies don't belong to us but to God and we are just holding them as tenants and stewards and are expected to give them back in good condition. He also blamed the overriding religious traditions in America, which downplay the body as bad and to be transcended, for the amount of bodily neglect and self harm that Americans demonstrate.

Maybe that's what I needed to hear because I have been pretty bad with my diet ever since the wedding. I wonder if that would work as a thought to keep in mind when I am trying to resist gobbling junk food? Maybe it would, I can try it.

In any case it was strange to hear about Alan's death and feel as if I met him again at exactly the right time for something important to be accomplished in my life. I don't think the universe revolves around me and certainly he meant much more to his wife and family and his closer friends, but somehow if a person's actions send out ripples in a pond, his ripples reached me at the last moment in his life and have made a difference. In a way it is similar to the effect Richard had on me in his own last months of life.

At the kiddush after the service, Rick got into a conversation with a man who was a childhood friend of his father. Lester was saying that he has his doubts about whether God exists and he pointed to the situation with Alan, dying at the relatively young age of 70. Why should such a good man be taken, he asked. I wonder, if Alan hadn't completed all that he came here to do. And was getting me to check out the synagogue one of the last things he'd come here to do? What a thought.

I don't expect to join the synagogue at least not right away. I'm not ready for a relationship on the rebound. But I'll certainly go back from time to time. I do acknowledge synchronicity and try to follow the path laid out for me, and it seems that revisiting this synagogue is definitely on that path.

Going last night, the week before Mom's Yahrzeit, also gave me the chance to say Kaddish for her, which I have not done in many years. It has always been a curious thing to me, that the prayer for the dead, spoken by those in mourning, says nothing about death and loss but only speaks of God's goodness and greatness.