Can A Non Jew Attend An Orthodox Shabbat Service

Synagogues, Shuls and Temples

Level: Bones

A Jewish "church" is called a synagogue, shul or temple
A synagogue is a place of worship and study, and a "town hall"
Synagogues are run by laypeople and financed by membership dues
In that location are several of import ritual items found in the synagogue
Non-Jews may visit a synagogue, only clothes and should behave appropriately
The Temple is the ancient eye of Jewish worship where sacrifices were performed

The synagogue is the Jewish equivalent of a church, more or less. Information technology is the centre of the Jewish religious community: a place of prayer, study and education, social and charitable work, as well as a social middle.

What's in a Proper name?

Throughout this site, I have used the give-and-take "synagogue," but at that place are actually several different terms for a Jewish "church," and y'all can tell a lot about people by the terms they utilize.

The Hebrew term is beit grand'nesset (literally, House of Assembly), although y'all will rarely hear this term used in conversation in English language.

The Orthodox and Chasidim typically use the word "shul," which is Yiddish. The give-and-take is derived from a German word meaning "school," and emphasizes the synagogue'due south role as a place of study.

Conservative Jews commonly employ the discussion "synagogue," which is actually a Greek translation of Beit K'nesset and means "identify of assembly" (it's related to the word "synod").

Reform Jews use the word "temple," because they consider every one of their meeting places to be equivalent to, or a replacement for, The Temple in Jerusalem.

The use of the discussion "temple" to describe modern houses of prayer offends some traditional Jews, because it trivializes the importance of The Temple. The word "shul," on the other mitt, is unfamiliar to many modernistic Jews. When in doubt, the word "synagogue" is the best bet, because everyone knows what it means, and I've never known anyone to be offended by it.

Functions of a Synagogue

At a minimum, a synagogue is a beit tefilah, a house of prayer. It is the identify where Jews come together for customs prayer services. Jews tin satisfy the obligations of daily prayer past praying anywhere; however, there are sure prayers that can only be said in the presence of a minyan (a quorum of ten developed men), and tradition teaches that at that place is more merit to praying with a grouping than there is in praying alone. The sanctity of the synagogue for this purpose is second only to The Temple. In fact, in rabbinical literature, the synagogue is sometimes referred to every bit the "footling Temple."

A synagogue is usually also a beit midrash, a house of written report. Contrary to popular belief, Jewish education does not end at the age of bar mitzvah. For the observant Jew, the study of sacred texts is a life-long job. Thus, a synagogue normally has a well-stocked library of sacred Jewish texts for members of the community to study. It is as well the place where children receive their basic religious education.

Most synagogues also take a social hall for religious and non-religious activities. The synagogue oft functions as a sort of town hall where matters of importance to the customs can be discussed.

In addition, the synagogue functions as a social welfare agency, collecting and dispensing coin and other items for the aid of the poor and needy within the community.

Organizational Structure

Synagogues are, for the most part, independent community organizations. In the United States, at least, individual synagogues do not answer to whatever fundamental authority. There are central organizations for the various movements of Judaism, and synagogues are oftentimes affiliated with these organizations, but these organizations have no real power over individual synagogues.

Synagogues are generally run by a board of directors equanimous of lay people. They manage and maintain the synagogue and its activities, and hire a rabbi and chazzan (cantor) for the community.

Yes, yous read that correct: Jewish clergy are employees of the synagogue, hired and fired by the lay members of the synagogue. Clergy are non provided past any central system, as they are in some denominations of Christianity. However, if a synagogue hires a rabbi or chazzan that is not acceptable to the key system, they may lose membership in that central organization. For case, if an Orthodox synagogue hires a Reform rabbi, the synagogue volition lose membership in the Orthodox Union. If a Bourgeois synagogue wishes to rent a Reconstructionist rabbi, it must kickoff become permission from the USCJ. The rabbi usually works with a ritual commission fabricated up of lay members of the synagogue to set standards and procedures for the synagogue. Non surprisingly, there tin can be tension between the rabbi and the membership (his employers) if they do not accept the same standards, for example if the membership wants to serve pepperoni pizza (not kosher) at a synagogue event.

Information technology is worth noting that a synagogue tin can exist without a rabbi or a chazzan: religious services can be, and oftentimes are, conducted by lay people in whole or in part. It is not unusual for a synagogue to be without a rabbi, at least temporarily, and many synagogues, particularly smaller ones, have no chazzan. However, the rabbi and chazzan are valuable members of the community, providing leadership, guidance and teaching.

Synagogues exercise not pass around drove plates during services, equally many churches practise. This is largely considering Jewish police force prohibits carrying money on holidays and Shabbat. Tzedakah (charitable donation) is routinely collected at weekday morn services, usually through a centrally-located pushke, but this coin is unremarkably given to charity, and non used for synagogue expenses. Instead, synagogues are financed through membership dues paid annually, through voluntary donations, through the purchase of reserved seats for services on Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur (the holidays when the synagogue is virtually crowded), and through the buy of various types of memorial plaques. Information technology is important to note, however, that you do non have to be a member of a synagogue in social club to worship there. If y'all program to worship at a synagogue regularly and you have the financial ways, you should certainly pay your ante to comprehend your fair share of the synagogue'southward costs, just no synagogue checks membership cards at the door (except mayhap on the Loftier Holidays mentioned in a higher place, if there aren't enough seats for everyone).

Ritual Items in the Synagogue

The portion of the synagogue where prayer services are performed is unremarkably called the sanctuary. Synagogues in the United states of america are generally designed so that the forepart of the sanctuary is on the side towards Jerusalem, which is the management that we are supposed to face up when reciting sure prayers.

Probably the about of import feature of the sanctuary is the Ark, a cabinet or recession in the wall that holds the Torah scrolls. The Ark is called in Hebrew the Aron Kodesh ("holy cabinet"), and I was in one case told that the term "ark" is an acrostic of "aron kodesh," although someone else told me that "ark" is just an old give-and-take for a chest. In whatsoever instance, the word has no relation to Noah's Ark, or the ark that Moses was placed in on the river equally a kid, which are the word "teyvah" in Hebrew. The Hebrew word "aron" is the word that is used for the ark of the covenant first described in Exodus 25.

The Ark is generally placed in the forepart of the room; that is, on the side towards Jerusalem. The Ark has doors besides as an inner pall chosen a parokhet. This curtain is in imitation of the mantle in the Sanctuary in The Temple, and is named for it. During sure prayers, the doors and/or mantle of the Ark may exist opened or closed. Opening or closing the doors or mantle is performed past a fellow member of the congregation, and is considered an honor. All congregants stand when the Ark is open.

In front of and slightly to a higher place the Ark, you will find the ner tamid, the Eternal Lamp. This lamp symbolizes the commandment to keep a light burning in the Tabernacle exterior of the curtain surrounding the Ark of the Covenant. (Ex. 27:20-21).

In improver to the ner tamid, you may observe a menorah (candelabra) in many synagogues, symbolizing the menorah in the Temple. The menorah in the synagogue will more often than not accept six or eight branches instead of the Temple menorah's seven, because verbal duplication of the Temple'southward ritual items is improper.

In the center of the room or in the forepart you will discover a pedestal called the bimah. The Torah scrolls are placed on the bimah when they are read. The bimah is likewise sometimes used equally a podium for leading services. There is an additional, lower lectern in some synagogues chosen an amud.

Nigh synagogues have memorial plaques honoring deceased members or members of their families. These tablets may announced within the sanctuary, outside of information technology, or in the synagogue lobby. The tablets and private plaques are purchased with donations to the synagogue. Plaques are often purchased in advance to reserve a spot, keeping family unit members together. You volition detect plaques marked "RESERVED" or something like that for this purpose. The plaques commonly give the decedent's name and engagement of death in both English and Hebrew, though sometimes it is only in one language or without the appointment. The plaques are surrounded past small calorie-free bulbs, about of which are normally loosened and unlit. On the Friday afternoon before the decedent's yahrzeit (anniversary of decease), bulbs to the left and right of the plaque (sometimes but on one side) are tightened to light them up and they remain lit until the following Friday afternoon. For days when Yizkor (a memorial service) is recited, all of the lights are on (they are tightened before the first of the vacation and loosened after the vacation is over).

Many synagogues also have a "Holocaust Torah," a scroll of Torah that survived the Holocaust. Many of them were kept in warehouses in Czechoslovakia or other places for decades subsequently the Holocaust, unused, piled upwardly and rotting. They are no longer suitable for ritual utilise, pages damaged and ink smeared, not kosher to be read from during religious services. But they have found homes with synagogues and other Jewish organizations around the world. They are unremarkably kept in a visible space, nether glass to protect them, unrolled a bit and then that a console of text is visible. They are a memorial, a retentivity of what we lost and what still survives despite all efforts to absorb it out.

In Orthodox synagogues, yous volition also notice a separate department where the women sit. This may be on an upper flooring balcony, or in the dorsum of the room, or on the side of the room, separated from the men's section past a wall or drape called a mechitzah. Men are not permitted to pray in the presence of women, because they are supposed to have their minds on their prayers, not on pretty girls. Run across The Role of Women in the Synagogue for details.

Finding a Synagogue

If you lot are interested in finding an Orthodox synagogue or minyan (prayer grouping) in your expanse, bank check out Get Daven, a searchable worldwide database of Orthodox minyans. Merely tell them where you desire to daven (pray), and they'll find yous an Orthodox minyan, complete with service times and fifty-fifty a map! Chabad, a division of the Lubavitcher Chasidic movement, too has a practiced Chabad Locator for their prayer and learning centers in the heading of their pages. Although Chabad is strictly and uncompromisingly Orthodox, they are very open to those at a unlike level of observance who are interested in learning.

If you would prefer a Conservative synagogue, endeavour the USCJ'due south View Our Network page. If you prefer Reform, try the URJ'south Congregation Directory. For Reconstructionist synagogues, try theit directory of Reconstructionist Congregations and Havurot.

Not-Jews Visiting a Synagogue

Non-Jews are always welcome to attend services in a synagogue, so long as they behave as proper guests. Proselytizing and "witnessing" to the congregation are not proper guest behavior. Would you walk into a stranger'due south business firm and criticize the decor? Only nosotros always welcome non-Jews who come to synagogue out of genuine curiosity, interest in the service or just to join a friend in commemoration of a Jewish result.

When going to a synagogue, y'all should dress every bit yous would for church building: nicely, formally, and modestly. A man should wear a yarmulke (skullcap) if Jewish men in the congregation do then; yarmulkes are bachelor at the archway for those who exercise not accept ane. In some synagogues, married women should besides habiliment a head covering. A slice of lace sometimes called a "chapel hat" is generally provided for this purpose in synagogues where this is required. Non-Jews should not, still, wear a tallit (prayer shawl) or tefillin, because these items are signs of our obligation to detect Jewish constabulary.

If y'all are in an Orthodox synagogue, exist careful to sit in the right section: men and women are seated separately in an Orthodox synagogue. Come across The Part of Women in the Synagogue for details.

During services, non-Jews can follow along with the English, which is normally printed side-by-side with the Hebrew in the prayerbook. You lot may join in with as much or as little of the prayer service every bit you feel comfortable participating in. You may wish to review Jewish Liturgy before attention the service, to proceeds a amend understanding of what is going on.

Not-Jews should stand whenever the Ark is open and when the Torah is carried to or from the Ark, as a sign of respect for the Torah and for G-d. At any other time where worshippers stand, non-Jews may stand or sit.

The Temple

When we speak of The Temple, we speak of the place in Jerusalem that was the center of Jewish worship from the time of Solomon to its devastation by the Romans in 70 C.E. This was the one and simply identify where sacrifices and sure other religious rituals were performed. It was partially destroyed at the time of the Babylonian Exile and rebuilt. The rebuilt temple was known as the Second Temple. The famous "Wailing Wall" (known to Jews every bit the Western Wall or in Hebrew, the Kotel) is the remains of the western retaining wall of the hill that the Temple was built on. It is as close to the site of the original Sanctuary every bit Jews can go today. You can come across a live picture of the Kotel and learn nigh it at KotelCam. The Temple was located on a platform to a higher place and behind this wall.

Today, the site of The Temple is occupied past the Dome of the Rock (a Muslim shrine for pilgrims) and the Al-Aqsa Mosque (a Muslim house of prayer). The Dome of the Rock is the golden-domed building that figures prominently in most pictures of Jerusalem.

Traditional Jews believe that The Temple will be rebuilt when the Mashiach (Messiah) comes. They eagerly expect that day and pray for it continually.

Modern Jews, on the other mitt, reject the idea of rebuilding the Temple and resuming sacrifices. They telephone call their houses of prayer "temples," assertive that such houses of worship are the simply temples we need, the but temples we will ever have, and are equivalent to the Temple in Jerusalem. This idea is very offensive to some traditional Jews, which is why y'all should exist very careful when using the word Temple to depict a Jewish place of worship.