High Holy Days
I recently read a post in one of my comms asking what our local services are like. And I'm pretty sure no one reads my friend pages, much less my own, so I figured I'd post here all the same; just so that you get a hint for how far off teh deep end I've gone. ;)
We are coming to the end of the Jewish calendar, so I figure this is an appropriate time to finally explain just what a Messianic synagogue looks like.
We have an erev Shabbat service on Friday nights, and a Torah service on Saturday. With slight variation, each one opens with a prayer, and then we recite the sh'ma and the barchu, in Hebrew and then English; although we append a line on our barchu, "whose glorious kingdom lasts for ever and ever."
Since Friday night is the start of the sabbath, one of the married couples goes forward to light the candles, pray, and say kiddush (The Blessing Proper. The wife lights the candles, and blesses the sabbath. The husband has the liberty to say what's on his heart (Last night Jonathan recited Psalm 27), and then he blesses the wine and the bread.
On Friday night also we pray for Israel. One of the elders pays some attention to the news, so he says a few words about current events, both bad news and good, and then prays for the nation of Israel.
After this the worship team starts up. And worship goes for near 45 minutes; we don't have a dance team; anyone who has been to class is allowed, encouraged to join in. Then someone gives a message.
The Torah service inserts itself between worship and the sermon. The Torah is broken into sections, called parashas. It is a Torah-in-a-year scheme, the liturgy cycles each year. The Sages have paired each parashas with a reading from the Prophets, called the haftorah. The parashas are read in order, but the haftorah do not coincide with the Torah portions in a linear fashion, they are jumbled up.
We all stand, and recite the blessing over the Torah. Each week a different person reads from the Torah, and it is the reader who leads the blessing. This morning the reader stumbled over the blessing, twice; reminding us that he still never gets through it. I expect some folks would be upset with the lack of gravity we display while reading. We do stand out of respect or humility. But I do not see a mechanical approach to it all.
Then we read the HafTorah. Usually a different person will read this, and recite the accompanying blessing.
Since we are Messianic there is a third portion to the service, the Brit HaDashah; the New Testament reading. Curiously we do not recite any blessing over the NT portion.
The sermon, on both Friday and Saturday, usually goes about an hour.
This routine gets broken up frequently by quest speakers, leaders being our of town, Bar/Bat Mitzvahs, special services or burdens for prayer or healing, and, since it is a synagogue, holidays.
Now this coming fortnight is a busy one. Rosh HaShanah is this coming Thursday, Sept 9. It is not a feast, but the day is proclaimed in the Torah. Nine days later, Sept 18, is Yom Kippur, perhaps the most important day in Judaism. It is commanded in the Torah, and Israel's failure to place their hearts in it, rather than just their lips, is related throughout the OT.
I mentioned the Torah service because it shows up in the New Testament at least twice, as an example of Jewish practice of the day, which still continues today. Jesus opened his public ministry just about this week, near the year 26. Matthew tells us that a literate Jesus stood to read the book that was given him to read. He read from Isaiah 61. It was a scroll, not a codex, so he would not have been flipping pages to find it, remembering of course that there were no chapters or verses demarcated yet. And they would not have handed him a random scroll, Isaiah 61 is a part of the haftorah portion for parashas Nitzvaim-Vayelech, which is today's Torah portion. Jesus declared the kingdom of God the week before Rosh HaShanah.
The other place this practice shows up is on Paul's journey to Antioch in Pisidia with Barnabbas. We read that his first sermon was given in response to the rulers of the synagogue asking if they had a word of exhortation. This is after the congregation has read from the law and the prophets.
Today's Jews, Messianic and otherwise, still do this. Although I do not believe they ask strangers to get up and speak freely like this. I suppose modern America is more distrustful. I also suppose we probably have good reason to be.
God Bless you all
-K
We are coming to the end of the Jewish calendar, so I figure this is an appropriate time to finally explain just what a Messianic synagogue looks like.
We have an erev Shabbat service on Friday nights, and a Torah service on Saturday. With slight variation, each one opens with a prayer, and then we recite the sh'ma and the barchu, in Hebrew and then English; although we append a line on our barchu, "whose glorious kingdom lasts for ever and ever."
Since Friday night is the start of the sabbath, one of the married couples goes forward to light the candles, pray, and say kiddush (The Blessing Proper. The wife lights the candles, and blesses the sabbath. The husband has the liberty to say what's on his heart (Last night Jonathan recited Psalm 27), and then he blesses the wine and the bread.
On Friday night also we pray for Israel. One of the elders pays some attention to the news, so he says a few words about current events, both bad news and good, and then prays for the nation of Israel.
After this the worship team starts up. And worship goes for near 45 minutes; we don't have a dance team; anyone who has been to class is allowed, encouraged to join in. Then someone gives a message.
The Torah service inserts itself between worship and the sermon. The Torah is broken into sections, called parashas. It is a Torah-in-a-year scheme, the liturgy cycles each year. The Sages have paired each parashas with a reading from the Prophets, called the haftorah. The parashas are read in order, but the haftorah do not coincide with the Torah portions in a linear fashion, they are jumbled up.
We all stand, and recite the blessing over the Torah. Each week a different person reads from the Torah, and it is the reader who leads the blessing. This morning the reader stumbled over the blessing, twice; reminding us that he still never gets through it. I expect some folks would be upset with the lack of gravity we display while reading. We do stand out of respect or humility. But I do not see a mechanical approach to it all.
Then we read the HafTorah. Usually a different person will read this, and recite the accompanying blessing.
Since we are Messianic there is a third portion to the service, the Brit HaDashah; the New Testament reading. Curiously we do not recite any blessing over the NT portion.
The sermon, on both Friday and Saturday, usually goes about an hour.
This routine gets broken up frequently by quest speakers, leaders being our of town, Bar/Bat Mitzvahs, special services or burdens for prayer or healing, and, since it is a synagogue, holidays.
Now this coming fortnight is a busy one. Rosh HaShanah is this coming Thursday, Sept 9. It is not a feast, but the day is proclaimed in the Torah. Nine days later, Sept 18, is Yom Kippur, perhaps the most important day in Judaism. It is commanded in the Torah, and Israel's failure to place their hearts in it, rather than just their lips, is related throughout the OT.
I mentioned the Torah service because it shows up in the New Testament at least twice, as an example of Jewish practice of the day, which still continues today. Jesus opened his public ministry just about this week, near the year 26. Matthew tells us that a literate Jesus stood to read the book that was given him to read. He read from Isaiah 61. It was a scroll, not a codex, so he would not have been flipping pages to find it, remembering of course that there were no chapters or verses demarcated yet. And they would not have handed him a random scroll, Isaiah 61 is a part of the haftorah portion for parashas Nitzvaim-Vayelech, which is today's Torah portion. Jesus declared the kingdom of God the week before Rosh HaShanah.
The other place this practice shows up is on Paul's journey to Antioch in Pisidia with Barnabbas. We read that his first sermon was given in response to the rulers of the synagogue asking if they had a word of exhortation. This is after the congregation has read from the law and the prophets.
Today's Jews, Messianic and otherwise, still do this. Although I do not believe they ask strangers to get up and speak freely like this. I suppose modern America is more distrustful. I also suppose we probably have good reason to be.
God Bless you all
-K