My Touro Synagogue Experience

Rabbi Alexis Berk of Touro Synagogue

Before coming to New Orleans I had never really heard or investigated about Reform Judaism. I had always been taught the Ashkenazi traditional Judaism that my father taught me and had a pretty good understanding of the Sepharadi traditions too. In my country Reform Judaism is non existant and people sometimes even frown upon this modern branch of Jews. I had mixed feelings about going to this synagogue as I thought I might feel like they were going against everything I had been taught and, in a way, I thought their practices may even be "disrespectful" to the Judaism I was used to. Fortunately, I was wrong. The service of the Sabbath started as usual, with the lighting of candels, the blessing of the wine, the welcoming of the Sabbath, Lecha Dodi, etc. The Rabbi was a woman, which at first shocked me but later (as I heard her spoke) gender became unimportant because her words were as intriguing and thoughtful as any other Rabbi I had seen. The book of prayers that we used were also different as they not only showed the Hebrew and English readings but also showed the Hebrew pronounciation of the prayer in English alphabet, which would help anyone (like me) who is not fluent or cannot easily read hebrew. One of the things I disliked, however, was the fact that some of the prayers (like the Amidah, which is one of silent prayer that my father told me was perhaps the most important) were ignored or skipped over. Altogether, though, I felt like this experience was very beneficial to me as it opened my eyes to a new option of Judaism, and one where I felt more comfortable in because I could tell that this Judaism was, to me, more "realistic" as it gave a modern approach of the Torah and one that was not too literal.