A Night with Kesher
I went to one of the nicest Shabbat services I've been to in a long time tonight. Okay, so technically I missed the actual services. But it was still one of the nicest Shabbat experiences I've had lately. It began to rain as I headed towards Chabad, so I decided to stop in at the Bronfman center in search of services (and free food). There, I stumbled upon a dinner hosted by Kesher, the Reform group. There was a handful of kids representin' for the Jewish Identity Today class, but most of the people there were new faces. Everyone was really friendly! (Having gone to an NYU seder the past two nights, I had something to compare it to.) They seemed genuinely happy to be there as opposed to seeming disinterested, like they were only there because they had to be. A lot of the people there had plans for later that night; seeing a movie or visiting a friend across town. I know a lot of people would see this as a bad thing. One person at the seder last night refered to Reform Judaism as having a lack of religiousity. However, I think it says a lot about the religious commitment of the people there that even though they had other plans for the night, they set this chunk of time aside to come together as a community.
After dinner was a sing-along. I usually hate the tishes held Friday nights. Everyone sings songs in Hebrew that they learned at Yeshiva with no songbooks to follow along with (or if there are books, no one bothers to really shout out page numbers). In contrast, the Kesher tish was extremely user-friendly. Their songbooks had Hebrew, Transliteration, and English and they made sure everyone new what page the song was on. (Great job, Mike.) Anyways, it would be nice if all three sects at NYU could make their weekly services as unimposing to anyone who happens to come by that night.
posted by Kimberly Bastin @ 7:44 PM
3 Comments:
Reading your blog made me really happy. I often don't attend meetings like that for the very reason that everyone seems so a part of it that "outsiders" can't follow along. You make me feel like maybe I should give the whole participation thing another shot.
I can't resist commenting.
I'm so glad that you had a positive experience last shabbat. This also makes me really happy. :)
I'm actually having a lot of trouble trying to articulate what i want to say, but the jist of it is, you're right on!
One of the issues that Reform minyans face at many campuses across the country is that in terms of quantity, we're often times competing against many other factors. Especially in New York City, there are manys things to do on a Friday Night asides from attend Shabbat Services. What we as the Reform Community try to do is provide the ability for Jews to have a Jewishly spritual experience on Shabbat, in whatever form they wish. Some students will come just for services, and then leave to meet up with friends and enjoy the nightlife, and some will stay through all hours of the night. The key is that we are all Jewishly religious, the differences between us, have to do with ritual observance. Personally, i make my Jewishly observant choices based on what i've learned about the ritual, and whether i can connect to it as a Jew.
In response to Randi's comment - I can totally relate to the feeling of "outsider." Unfortunately, i'll be the first to admit that we don't always do the best job at welcoming in the stranger. What Kimberly exprienced this past friday night was actually an experiment, based on the fact that the Reform Community was the only group observing shabbat on campus - we wanted to try and do things "our way," and in doing so we tried to be very conscientious about those students who may not have done something like that before. Apparently it worked, and i definitely think that we need to look into how to make this work with all of the denominational communities.
Ok i think i babbled enough - in conclusion, this may be the best post i've seen in this class, and i'm glad that we were able to provide that warm experience...if only it would be possible to do that on a larger scale.
OMG, you have a blog??!!?
just kidding... kinda, this is the first time I read it. I didn't know blogs could actually be insightful. Especially since I just went to a tisch this past friday night. I did get them to sing some English songs, but they were mostly those geared to 8 year olds. And yeah, they do need things written down and organized.
Post a Comment
<< Home