House of worship highlight: Beth Torah

 

I was greeted first with a big, smiling, “Shabbat Shalom!” and then with tables full of food; Beth Torah begins every Sabbath with a shared meal. After a few introductions, I was treated like an old friend, encouraged to enjoy dinner and drawn into conversation. “This is not a typical Sabbath,” Henri, my volunteer guide and teacher for the evening quickly informed me, “this is Simchat Torah, the last holiday in our big holiday season. We always have the meal, but tonight’s service will be very different.”

Simchat Torah, which means “the joy of the Torah,” is the annual celebration of the Torah, their Holy Scriptures, which includes the books of Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy. They read through the Torah throughout year, and this day marks finishing the Torah and beginning again.

The service began outside the sanctuary with readings from members representing Adam and Eve (written by Rabbi Vered Harris), and Eve’s lighting of the Shabbat candles. As we then made our way into the sanctuary for the continuation of the service, a few people stopped at a table in front of the entry to light their own candles. Henri encouraged me to light two Shabbat candles, and so I did, my heart swelling with this act of inclusion. After I had lit my candles, another congregation member who had befriended me laughed and said, “Now you’re a Jew!” It’s not nearly that easy, I know, but I still felt as if I had joined them in the encircling arms of a great embrace.

The service was, indeed, a celebration of the Torah. Three times during the service Beth Torah’s four Torah scrolls, which are each about the size of a first grade child, were paraded around the sanctuary as the musicians played joyful music and we all, children and adults, clapped and danced around the room. Between the dancing rituals were readings from Abraham, Sarah, Jacob, Isaac, and Moses, as well as readings from the Torah. Three groups of people came forward for a blessing: those celebrating their 18th year of membership in the congregation, those who wanted to say “here I am,” to the presence of God in their lives in the upcoming year (I went forward for this one), and those who wanted to increase their participation in the congregation.

The final reading was from the last words of the Torah, when Moses looks into the promised land that he will never enter and then dies. Rabbi Mark Levin told us that the end is not the end, that Torah, like our lives, is circular as God continues to create, as God’s people discover new truths, and as we, too, gaze on the promised land.

The service embraced ancient traditions while feeling new and progressive, showed great respect to the faith of ancestors as well as an openness to a present faith that questions and changes. The congregation seemed joined by a strong common bond but did not need to recite a creed or subscribe to one way of thinking and believing to create this.

After the service, we gathered outside the sanctuary for Oneg Shabbat. A table had been filled with small cups of wine and two loaves of challah bread. Everyone took a cup (juice for the children) and we drank together. After the bread was blessed, the loaves were passed around so that everyone could tear off a chunk to eat. Who is welcomed at this table? Without having to say so overtly, they communicated “this table is for all family members, and if you’re here, you’re family.” There was no question of belief, heritage, or belonging.

The evening ended with dessert and coffee. “We love to eat,” Henri told me. They must have discovered that a shared meal is one of the most profound expressions of community and that it makes sense to begin and close every sacred time with food. This also serves to remind us that every shared meal is sacred time.

Congregation Beth Torah
6100 W. 127th St
Overland Park, KS 66209
913-498-2212
www.beth-torah.org
Rabbi Mark Levin