Guide to the synagogue

G UIDE TO THE S YNAGOGUE FOR INTERFAITH C OUPLES AND F AMILIES Introduction \ 2 What happens at a synagogue? \ 3 Daily Prayer \ 4 Torah Reading \ 5 Special Prayers For Holidays \ 6 Lifecycle Events (But Not All Of Them!) \ 7 Study \ 9 Other Community Activities \ 10 What Kind of Synagogue Is it? Jewish Denominations 11 Reform \ 12 Conservative \ 12 Orthodox \ 14 Hasidic Orthodox \ 15 Reconstructionist \ 16 Glossary \ 17 2 Introduction There are many aspects of Jewish life that require a community Synagogues as institutions provide social organization and a space for thes e activities, including group prayer and study Jews organize synagogues, ra ther than the other way around as in some other religious traditions Thr ough synagogues, congregations hire religious teachers and leaders and make communal activi ties happen Synagogues can therefore be great places to get to know Judaisme ven the parts of Judaism you only do at home 3 What happens at a synagogue? Many authorities on Jewish life have asserted t hat the most important rituals in Judaism take place in the home, not in the synagogue This is mostly true, but not the whole story Just about anything peo ple do in a synagogue they could do in a home or any sort of building, but there are a lot of as pects of Jewish life that require a community Synagogues as institutions provide social organization and a space for these activities, including group prayer and study Jews organ ize synagogues, rather than the other way around as in some other religious tradi tions Through synagogues, congregations hire religious teachers and leaders and make co mmunal activities happen Synagogues can therefore be great places to get to know Judaismeven the parts of Judaism you only do at home 4 Daily Prayer Historians used to believe that Jews di dn't have synagogues until after the Romans destroyed the Second Temple in Jerusalem in the year 70 CE Archeological evidence now suggests that Jews built synagogues for nonsacrificial worship while the Temple was still standing, and possibly even during the B abylonian Exile This shows that there was a tradition of congregational prayer that was concurrent with the practice of animal sacrifice Since Jews only sacrificed in this one central temple, they must have wanted to have a place for prayer nearer to where they lived After the Temple was destroyed, the rabbis who wrote the Talmud worked on creating a standard set of worship services These servic es, codified in the siddur or prayerbook, were named after, and timed to correspond with, the sacrificial services in the Temple In this way, rabbinic Judaism replaced anima l sacrifice with prayer There were three services a day during the week: the morning service, called Shacharit in Hebrew, the afternoon service, Minchah, and the evening serv ice, Ma'ariv On Shabbat and holidays, the priests in the Temple used to have an additional sacrifice, so the siddur included Musaf, meaning additional service Though services always included occasional prayers, liturgical poems and im provisation, the siddur provides a structure, a schedule and a set of guidelines for when a congregation is needed Though Jews can pray anywhere and don't require a sanctified space, the synagogue is a good place to gather a minyan, or minimum number of adult Jews required to form a congregation required for Torah reading and so