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What Will It Take for Me to Go Back to Synagogue?
BY GARY ROSENBLATT
WHEN I WAS very young,
what motivated me to go to
shul on Shabbat morning was
the fire station two houses away
from the synagogue.

My dad was the rabbi of the
only congregation in Annapolis,
Maryland, and shul attendance
was a family affair. If I behaved
during services, my big brother
would take me to the fire station
afterward, and sometimes the
firemen let me sit at the wheel of
the hook and ladder truck. That
made my week.

In recent days I’ve been
thinking a lot about my various
experiences with shul attendance
over the years. The sad truth is that
though I am fortunate enough to
have received my second COVID
vaccine more than a month ago, I
haven’t been back to shul, and I’m
not sure why. But the weather is
getting warmer and I’m running
out of excuses.

It’s ironic because these last
few years I’ve really enjoyed
shul — the services, the rabbis,
the people, the singing. In my
early years, not so much.

As kids, learning to read
Hebrew and becoming familiar
with the prayers, the goal at
services was to be the fastest.

When I was about 10, I
attended a family wedding in
New York and stood in awe
as I took in the sight of what
seemed like hundreds of men
in black hats and dark suits
swaying fervently as they
recited the afternoon Mincha
prayer. I zipped through the
silent Amidah and was waiting
for the service to continue. A
few minutes went by and then
a few more minutes until it
seemed everyone had finished.

I asked my brother what the
holdup was, and he pointed to
a very short older man, eyes
closed, still in fervent prayer.

“That’s Rav Aharon Kotler, the
head of one of the biggest yeshivas
in the world,” he told me.

“What’s taking him so long?”
I asked. “Can’t he read Hebrew?”
As I got older, I learned about
the importance of kavanah, or
intention, putting one’s heart
and mind into the words we
were saying as we prayed. But
during my teenage years, prayer
for me was associated more
with obligation than choice.

Starting when I was 11, I
attended a yeshiva in Baltimore
through high school and lived
during the week at the home of
my maternal grandparents. My
grandfather, a European-born,
Yiddish-speaking Talmudic
scholar, had his own shul on the
first floor of the large cottage
house. I lived in the attic, and
once I became a bar mitzvah, I
was needed most mornings to
help ensure a minyan of 10 men.

I’d know my presence was
required because one of the
shul-goers would ring a loud
buzzer and hold it down for what
seemed like minutes while I got
up, less than enthusiastically, and
dressed in a hurry. I attended out
of a sense of duty, and I admit
that if an 11th person showed up,
I was tempted to go upstairs and
back to bed.

The association of annoying
alarms and shul attendance
continued when I got to Yeshiva
University. I soon learned that
loud “minyan bells” were rung
every weekday morning in the
dorm to wake us up for services;
attendance was mandatory. The
first couple of weeks we would
wake up with a jolt from those
bells. But somehow, after that we
didn’t seem to hear them anymore.

One teenage bit of mischief
came about in Annapolis on
Rosh Hashanah when I was
about 15. The shul was packed,
and my friend Michael (whose
father was the cantor) and I
chose an arbitrary spot in the
service and stood up from our
front-row seats. There was a
rustling and stirring behind us
as, gradually, the entire congre-
gation of several hundred rose,
following our lead. As soon as
everyone was up, we sat down,
and they did the same. We did
this a few times before my dad,
seated facing us in his white
robe on the bimah, subtly
signaled his displeasure
Over the years as an adult,
with shul attendance no longer
coercive, I have been blessed
to have belonged to three
synagogues (in the three states
where we lived) that were true
houses of prayer. Each in its
own way was special, but they
all had active and devoted
members committed to Torah
and led by learned, exemplary
rabbis. And in each of the shuls,
what I have enjoyed most in the
service is when our joined voices
blend in song, stirring a kind of
transcendent feeling of collec-
tive prayer and community.

Those peak moments make
the shul-going experience
something to cherish.

Then came COVID. Houses
of worship were closed, the
virus was all around us, and we
had no choice but to stay home.

I missed the rhythm of walking
to and from shul on Friday
evening and Shabbat morning,
feeling part of the spirit of the
kehillah (congregation), and
often lingering after services to
catch up with friends.

But I became accustomed to
staying home, and that had its
own pleasant pattern: sleeping
later, praying at home, spending
more time with my wife and,
when the weather allowed,
meeting up with friends — six
feet apart — on a bench outside.

I know I’m not alone in
my ambivalence about going
back to shul now. I’ve talked to
friends about it and they, too,
seem a bit mystified about what
keeps some of us home. We
know that going back would be
good for the congregation, and
probably for us, even though
the prospect of COVID-limited
attendance, singing and social-
izing is less than appealing.

Are we just lazy or fearful
of becoming sick? Or have we
become dependent on the safety
and security of keeping close to
home? What would get me back to
shul? No, it’s not the prospect
of visiting a nearby fire station
after services. It’s the chance
to ignite a spark of faith and
commitment, and time to take
the next step back on the long
path toward normalcy.

So there I was, on Saturday,
back in synagogue. Sitting
alone, at least six feet away from
others, and wearing a mask, felt
isolating at first, like praying
alone in a room despite the
others around me. But gradu-
ally the mood lifted and the
familiar comfort of the prayers
— and the warm (if muted)
greetings from fellow congre-
gants — made me feel at home
again. I could get used to this. l
Gary Rosenblatt is the former editor
of The New York Jewish Week.

Peace a Dream Until Palestinians Accept Israel’s Legitimacy
BY CURTIS PONTZ
WAS ISRAEL JUSTIFIABLY
and justly created as the place
to which the Jewish people
were able to return in 1948
to reestablish and perpetuate
a Jewish state? This is the
critical issue if one believes,
as I do, that the very fact of
18 MAY 13, 2021
Israel’s existence has served
as the impetus for the rejec-
tion by the Palestinians of the
seemingly countless efforts
toward conflict resolution.

Yet those involved in the
peace-making process have
failed to take into account the
underlying obstacle to reaching
a meaningful accommodation
JEWISH EXPONENT
between the two sides: the
well-documented historic
refusal of the Palestinians
to accept the legitimacy and
existence of the sovereign
Jewish state.

Without acceptance by the
Palestinians of the legitimacy
and existence of Israel, there
can be no practical path to a
negotiated peace. For them to
do so the Palestinians must
first be convinced that the
establishment of the modern
state of Israel was both
justifiable and just.

Why do so many of those
interested in formulating a
See Pontz, Page 38
JEWISHEXPONENT.COM