Teaching Christians how we Jew fish

From time to time, some synagogues host visiting church groups who want to learn about Judaism. Sometimes they do come during the week and take a tour of the sinagogue and look at items in the little Judaica museum or display area there.

Often the rabbi take out the Torah so that they can see the form of the scroll. they are inform about the services and the way a scroll is written, and about how Jews chant the weekly or special portions.

Sometimes, they come on the Shabbat, wanting to experience an actual worship service. Since most services are in Hebrew, they have devised a way they can participe in part of the morning service, including the Torah service and then go with a congregant to get further explanation and ask questions. Then they join the congregation for the rabbi's teaching before the kiddush, which they are invited to share with them.

A couple of months ago a church group arraged for a shabbat visit in what i would call ( Sephardic synagogue). They came wanting answers to three questions. The questions were well chosen. they caused me to consider mh own beliefs and practices in light of how i explain them to non-jews who are deeply committed to their own faith.
The questions they wanted discussed were:
How does Judaism affect daily life; how do we celebrate Shabbat; and what makes something holy ( or not)?

The group attended our Shabbat morning service,coincidentally on the Shabbat of Hanukka last year. Thu they got a forceful impression of the service one that included Hallel, which although in Hebrew , they did enjoy, of course the liberal huse of the world 'hallelujah' gave them some idea of what was going on. They remained in the short service for part of the Torah reading, which continued to Joseph saga- a familiar story to all-- and then adjourned for a discussion of the issues that their questions had raised.

Shabbat rule are simple to explain in theory-.it seemed more important to stress Shabbat that part of it's the time for heavy reflection, for concentration on study and prayer. but how does Judaism affect daily life? wehre to begin? We ( hubby and me) gave them examples taken from a variety of commadments-after explaining that a 'mitzvah' is not mereley a good deed done when the spirit moves, but something incumbent on us whether its convenient or not.

We stressed that in Biblical Judaism there is no firm boundary between the daily and the sacred. For example, one should not open a business close to a similar one if it will detract from the original business. One must give charity, the highest standard being the act of freeing the recepient from the need to accept charity. In other words, don't hand out fish-teach the person how to catch a fish.

We talked about speech, and the critical importance attached to words and how they can destroy and creat. They learned the form of a brachach whereby weimply that God is present in the act we are about to perfom.

But the hardest part was defining what, in Biblical Judaism is or what makes something holy. Christianity has sacraments, they invest human acts with santity-marriage, baptism, comuninion,. We have no such sacramental tradition. So how to explain our approach to the transcendent?

Martin Buber taught that in Judaism the division is between the holy and the not-yet-holy. Everything can be holy if its potential of holiness is realized. Our role is to bring God into the world, to make the ordinary become holy throught our actions.

Thus it is not through a particular sacrament that holiness enters the world, but throught the actions of humankind. And unfortunately, what mankind defiles through action or through word takes holiness out of the world.

For centuries, Christianity saw Judaism as a barren, rule-bound, law-encumbered religion or faith inferior to the New Covenant of love. It is my hope that this brief encounter with us as a living people taught the visiting friends from the church group that Biblical Judaism is a vital religion and Christians have beliefs that, translated into action, can repair the broken world live in, and make the not-yet-holy a place of santity for all

Religious writer, Me