Jewish American Heritage Month

Posted By admin on May 29, 2021

Rabbi Moshe Hauer, Special to the USA TODAY Network Published 12:41 p.m. ET May 28, 2021 | Updated 12:41 p.m. ET May 28, 2021

Like every other aspect of society, we in the religious community are grappling with the challenges of reopening. Yet while debates rage about complete, partial, or no return to the physical business office, communities of faith must not settle for anything less than the real thing. We must return to our houses of faith.

The pandemic introduced the faith community tovirtual meetings, movingmany of usto develop a new model of remote religious services that in many cases reached and engagedwider audiences no longer defined by geography. The positive is that thismodel expanded the reach ofourservices and ministries, both in numbers of attendees and hours of participation. The benefits and advantages of that expanded reach to so many who had not previously engaged, prayed, or studied at that level must be creatively maintained post-pandemic.

But remote access is simply not enough and sooner than later we must all safely return to the unparalleled experience of in-person participation in religious services.

Many hundreds of our Orthodox synagogues that had closed their doors to in-person services last March have been back together in a limited, safe, and COVID-19-compliant manner since last June. The limitations we all put in place due to the pandemic have certainly curtailed the experience in some ways, but they have made our reopening safe and have redoubled our commitment to the value of being together.

For Orthodox Jews, in-person communal prayer is the norm. Traditionally, Jewish law requires the physical presence of a prayer quorum, aminyan, to formally and publicly read from the Torah and to recite critical prayers such as theKaddish. The quorum must be in a shared physical space and may not even be divided between two adjacent structures within earshot of each other. The remotevirtualminyancertainly does not satisfy these requirementsand thus limits our ability to experience the full prayer service.

The Talmud teachesusthe value behind this emphasis on communal prayer in ways that can be appreciated by all faiths. First, praying together as a group creates a participatory devotional community where we do not sit back to listen and observe but lean forward and raise our voices together in prayer and song. Additionally, a community that comes together in a space dedicated to G-d makes that space truly a House of G-d, a place of more immersive and tangible spirituality. In fact, there is nowhere that the Hebrew Bible is more detailed and explicit than in its instructions with regard to the construction of the Temple, thus underscoring the value of having a unique and carefully designed physical space to encounter G-d.

Returning home to the house of faith:: What will the future of religious worship look like?

Whilethese are some of the spiritual and religious benefits of praying together in a dedicated sanctuary, there are other fundamental advantages to the experience that accrue to our benefit as individuals and as a society.

In our time of division, alienation, and fracture, communities of faith are a critical place where we care for each other. Faith brings together the wealthy and poor, the thriving and the struggling, in a community formed around ideals and the striving to do and to be good. In a world where we bowl alone, the synagogue, church and mosque are places where we come and care together. This is an immense value for each and every one of us, but exceptionally so for the elderly, the ill and the lonely, and all those who benefit from the vigorous social safety net provide by faith communities.

This fundamental value of the in-person prayer community has generated the known phenomenon of densely populated Orthodox Jewish neighborhoods.For an Orthodox Jew who observes the religious law precluding driving on the Sabbath and wishes to attend a synagogue on the Sabbath to participate in the basic rite of communal prayer, there is no choice other than to live within walking distance of the synagogue. Hence the Orthodox Jewish neighborhood is more of a practical necessity than a sociological choice.

The sun shines through the Star of David on top of the Congregation Ahavas Israel on Van Houten Avenue in Passaic on Saturday, April 3, 2021. Passaic has a large Orthodox Jewish community and houses about 20 Orthodox synagogues.(Photo: Anne-Marie Caruso/NorthJersey.com - USA TODAY NETWORK)

But those neighborhoods have created in turn a social dynamic that nurtures its members very powerfully. A physical community of neighbors who share spaces of religious prayer and study has spawned in turn a powerful web of friendship that approaches the level of family, and a range of caring services to meet a wide variety of needs that benefit all members of the surrounding community.

We must return to our houses of faith, safely and comfortably. These are the places in our lives that while not immune to the fractures around us remain the islands of mutual commitment and social bond. These are the places where we feel G-ds presence, feel each others presence, and strive together to be better people, to care for each other and to build together the future of our blessed country.

Rabbi Moshe Hauer, Orthodox Union Executive Vice President(Photo: Orthodox Union)

Rabbi Moshe Hauer is the executive vice president of the Orthodox Union, the umbrella organization for American Orthodox Jewry.

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Not even remotely close: It's time to return to our houses of faith | Opinion - NorthJersey.com

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