February 16

Salutations,

This Friday a group of twenty of us went with our Judaism teacher to a synagogue in the city. It was a reform synagogue, so boys and girls could sit together, but we tried to disperse ourself through the crowd in groups of two or three so we wouldn't make a huge, silent block.

It turned out to be a youth day, so music was provided by six shaggy-haired sixteen-year-old boys with guitars. The psalms, hymns, and prayers were led by a couple of girls--Laurels, essentially. This meant a lot of singing. Our prayer books had transliterations of the lyrics, but there were no written notes because the songs and prayers can be sung to any melody. It was super hard to follow along, and when we finally caught on to a chorus and were able to belt it out, it felt great. At one point everybody stood up and turned towards the entrance to welcome in the Sabbath Queen.

The music was all in Hebrew, with haunted-sounded folk-y melodies. Momma would have loved it. The feeling during the meeting was vastly different that any Christian church meeting I've gone to, but afterwards, when the meeting was over and everyone milled around and talked, it felt exactly like the milling-around time in the halls after church.

I enjoyed the experience a LOT, but I do want to go to an Orthodox synagogue sometime and see what those feel like.

-Stella