Journey Through Judaism

Today in our adventure to Madison, Wisconsin we had the pleasure of touring and deepening our understanding of the Jewish religion at the Beth Israel Center. Upon our arrival we were immediately greeted by Elizabeth Copelovitch, our fantastic tour guide and leader of Jewish religious education at the Synagogue. Our journey then began in the actual prayer space where the Jews conduct their services everyday. In an question/answer session with the Rabbi of the center we were able to learn a great many of Jewish traditions.

Some of these traditions included the intense course study necessary to become a Rabbi. The usual course study includes a University degree and commonly five to six years of seminary school. In this specific Rabbi's case eight years of seminary school was attended due to his love of study. Other qualification would include the ability to speak and understand Hebrew, Aramaic, and English. There are also four different classifications or movements of which Rabbi's can be apart. These four classifications are Left-reform, Conservation (of which our Rabbi is), Orthodox, and Reconstructionist renewal. Other important facts that he covered were that Rabbi's can and do get married and have children, as well as be both men and women, gay or straight. These rules do change depending on which movement they are in. Although his time with us was short, I thought the Rabbi did a wonderful job answering our questions and shedding light upon the many of the specifics and common inquiries of the Jewish Religion.

Due to his need to leave the synagogue for a previous engagement Beth took over. Through this we moved from questions to a tour of the synagogue itself and the Islam center. She began with a description of the the Jewish Sabbath. This day of prayer begins on sundown Friday night to sundown Saturday night. This celebration is fashioned around the seventh day of creation of which God rested. In our modern understanding of resting, Jewish people believe that they are not allowed to create anything such as light, food, operation of vehicles, etc. She explained this to be a very interesting occasion because everything must be prepared before hand. The most interesting thing I found about this process was the escape they received from society. Although they spend a majority of the morning in prayer and worship, the afternoons are completely open to spend time with each other and their family.

Another aspect unique to the synagogue would be the everlasting light that must be located in the sacred place, in this case above the sanctuary. Also, the sanctuaries must face towards Jerusalem or the promised land. The sanctuaries in Jerusalem are located on the western wall. They also have in these sanctuaries the Torahs. These Torahs are full of the five books of the Torah. These religious books are handwritten on scroll of parchment. Due to the sensitivity of the book, worshipers are not able to touch it with their hand so they use a decoration stick called a "Yad" or pointer.

All in all, I found this journey extremely enjoyable; from the wearing of the Yamikas to respect their place of worship to the tour of the kitchen and lesson on kosher, I learned a great deal. I now appreciate the Jewish religion a lot more due to their dedication to tradition. It was a red letter day and I look forward to the next adventure.