Rosh Hashanah in Shanghai

Today, I went to a synagogue in Shanghai to participate in the High Holiday services for the 2nd day of Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year. I am going to try and write this so all readers can understand the situation. The name of the synagogue is the Shanghai Jewish Center. I went with a co-worker, Noah, who is originally from Boston. We got there to find a traditional orthodox setting. This means the men and women are separated by a barrier so the inferiors, don't interrupt or distract the men while they are doing important things like praying or studying Jewish laws.

Before I begin, you need to know I do appreciate the continuity and strength of the religion. After 5,000 years, everywhere around the world, people are hearing and saying (we call it chanting) the same prayers. Through wars, persecution, destruction, attempted annihilation, the religion stands strong so I can walk into a synagogue anywhere including Shanghai to hear the same prayers I heard as a young boy in NYC.. This is true of Jews anywhere in the world. Of course, I am choosing to explore this with a sense of humor so enjoy that.

When we entered there were four men busily praying while we shuffled in to a wave of greeting from one of them. They were very welcoming. I quickly realized this was only the pre-service crowd because in the Jewish religion you need to have ten adults to begin a service. (Yes, the less strict group includes women in the count, but not these boys.) I indicated to Noah that this was warm-ups so we didn't need to do anything and told him why I thought so. He quickly agreed so we settled back to take it all in. The bustling crowd grew to seven men when the praying ended and one guy immediately held up three fingers indicating we needed three more men before we could start. There were people upstairs who were summoned to join us so the prayers could begin. The rabbi came over and asked a us if we knew why the 11th person was called the "Pisher". (Note: "Pisher" is Yiddish for bed wetter.) Of course, we knew a joke was coming so we waited. He told us that ten men are required not only to start the prayer service, but also to remain in the sanctuary to allow it to continue. So if only ten were there and someone needed to go to the bathroom having an 11th person in the room meant that the services could continue while the person in need could go do his business. Otherwise, they would have to stop the service and wait for the person to return from the restroom before continuing. (Sorry folks, this is Jewish humor.) Kind of like this Joan Rivers quote, "I'm Jewish. I don't work out. If God had wanted us to bend over, He would have put diamonds on the floor."

Anyway, the services take off with nary a word of English except for an occasional shout-out of the page number. The congregation peaks at around 18 men, which is fewer people than the CHORUS at our synagogue in Westboro, MA, not to mention the 5,000 person membership that my brother, Howard, is a part of in Houston. They race through the service chanting Hebrew at breakneck speed I haven't heard since the 1970s in NYC. The service hasn't changed much in the past 5,000 years, so I was able to actually recall a lot of what they did and keep up. Noah, on the other hand, was losing interest in a hurry but we agreed to stay to hear the sounding of the shofar. This is a traditional part of the service where the rabbi blows air through ram's horn to make sounds based on certain Hebrews words. From Wikipedia... A shofar (Hebrew: שופר‎) is a horn, traditionally that of a ram, used for Jewish religious purposes. Shofar-blowing is incorporated in synagogue services on Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur.



During the service, Noah and I were each given the honor of opening the Ark. (The Ark is a receptacle, or ornamental closet, which contains each synagogue's Torah scrolls.) This is considered an honor. In most synagogues, it the highest ranking members who get these honors (or the biggest donors, hey, we ARE Jewish.) The Ark is probably opened and closed 20 times during the service plus there are a few other honors for attendees to do, so you had to figure the odds were with us that we would be asked to do something, which is an honor so you never refuse. Of course, they didn't ask us to dazzle them with our Hebrew reading skills either.

The moment came to hear the shofar. I leaned over to Noah and said, "You don't think the Rabbi is going to give a sermon, do you?" My kids know how I am especially disdainful of preaching from the Jewish pulpit, but that's a story for a different day and usually exercise my religious and personal freedom by leaving the building when this is about to occur. Of course, Noah said, "I'm sure he won't, there are only 18 men in here." So we sat and listened to him ramble on for 10 minutes about whatever the Torah reading for the day was. Something about God not letting someone die in Israel, but having her die in the desert so the Jewish people would be able to have someone to pray to when they got exiled again from Israel, blah blah blah. Now wait a minute, if these are your chosen people and you know they are going to be exiled and you are God, don't you think you could do something about this? Then I wouldn't have to listen to this made up story 5,000 years later. Come on God, do your job, too. (You can tell that I'm deeply moved by this religious stuff.)

Okay, so the story of Rachel dying in the desert was over so we could move on with the shofar service without further ado. Since, I've been in around eight different synagogues for the High Holiday services, I know that generally, everyone in all synagogues stops their chatting and shuffling, the kids pay attention, the yentas pay attention, etc. The rabbi did a pretty good job of getting all the sounds out correctly and on time. I'm not saying this is easy and I have attended some services where the shofar blower, who is not always the Rabbi, couldn't get any sound out, so this was a successful shofar event.

After this was concluded, we decided to exercise our religious freedom and retire to a local restaurant for Kung Pao shrimp and Chongqing chicken, the chicken was a bit too spicy for me but I watched Noah dip his pieces in some kind of hot sauce, I'm glad I didn't have to be around him the rest of the day.

Of course, there's a Seinfeld Kung Pao reference you can find here.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PJIZo9DA-5g (you have to copy and paste this link)

After that, we parted ways with Noah headed to the U.S. tomorrow. I ended up walking for two hours a sweating like a pig but since this is a Jewish themed post, I'll just say I was shvitzing, best explained in this quote from the NY Times...
"I, on the other hand, am shvitzing. That’s Yiddish, of course, and therefore the best word in any language for this slippery situation brought about by heat and humidity."