Visting a synagogue in New York

On Yom Kippur, which marks the beginning of the Jewish new year and the end of a 24 hour fasting period, I went to a synagogue in New York at the invitation of one of my students, Salomon, who is a cantor, which is the person that leads the service through singing from the Torah. 

The synagogue is a couple of blocks from my hotel and not knowing anything about what to do, I decided to wait until I saw men with skullcaps and just follow them and see what they did. This worked well: I saw the men open their jackets to show themselves to the security people in front, and that's what I did too. They waved me in like I was a regular. 

Once inside, I saw that men went in one door, and women went in another door. I walked in the correct door and saw that the men had donned skullcaps and a white & black shawl. I got myself a skullcap (yamaka), but didn’t feel right putting on the shawl. I stood near a wall, trying not to be seen. Someone came over and handed me a Torah and pointed me to the right page. It was Hebrew on one side, and English on the other, with the pages going from right to left, just like Persian. 

Fortunately, today I wore a jacket, a white shirt, and black pants. This was amazingly appropriate because every other man was also wearing a jacket, white shirt, and black pants. Unfortunately, I also wore leather shoes, which I later learned is a no-no because men are supposed to avoid it (men wore canvas tennis shoes etc., women seem to not care, perhaps the rules don't apply to them). Women were seated in a separate (back) section, men in front. Honestly it seemed to me that women were largely excluded from the whole ceremony. 

After about 10 minutes against the wall Salomon saw me and brought me to a pew and introduced me to his congregation as his professor from Johns Hopkins. He then went to the center of the room and began reading from the Torah by singing it. Occasionally, the congregation would join him, signing and swaying their bodies. The rabbi, a young man, only said a few words to start the service, then opened a door at the front of the room where they housed the Torah in scroll form but then closed it after a couple of songs. The front of the synagogue was a wall of stained glass, mostly red colors. 

The service, which lasted about 1.5 hours, was entirely in Hebrew but I was able to follow it because of the translations in my Torah. The service was about asking for forgiveness for your sins and praising Hashem, which means “the name”, a reference to God. I imagined that this same service was probably performed 2000 years ago. 

We mostly stood throughout the service, and I tried to closely follow things by flipping my pages when I saw others do so. It was particularly lovely listening to Salomon’s amazing voice, who sings like an opera star. A couple of times his two sons joined him and sang with him. 

 As the service ended, men around me wished me a good year, and Salomon was surrounded by the congregation who shook his hand and thanked him. We then gathered outside the main room and there was a nice spread of bagels, cream cheese, salmon, egg salad, tuna salad, tomatoes, and cucumbers. I was very much at home with this kind of food. 

 I kept the yamaka.