Synagogue

The first thing that I found that was interesting was where they store the Torahs. The curtain that there are stored behind is a beautiful clothe with the names of the twelve sons of Jacob. I liked the symbols of the brothers. Also I liked the fact that they had more than one Torah and that they use them at different times if they need a certain pray, instead of looking for it every time that they needed it. I really like that we actually got to see a Torah and hear it be read. I thought it was interesting to actually see one.

Another part of the synagogue that I found interesting was the kitchen. I know that they had to keep things kosher, but didn’t know how they went about doing that. I really liked how our tour guide explained that it isn’t just in the church that they keep things separate, but actually in their own homes how they have to keep things separated. I also found it very interesting when our tour guide said that if you to cook a dairy in a meat pot you could not eat the food and also you had to throw the pot away. That would really make you never want to mess that up. Also in the kitchen how they had it written on the pots which were dairy and which were meat. The tour guide expanded on that farther by saying that blue towels where for dairy and that red towels were for meat, which is a tradition that has been pasted down.

A different part of the synagogue that I found really interesting was that the synagogue really wasn’t that dressed up like the basilica we saw. The synagogue was very plain and simple. It did have its little dressed things, like the Torahs and the curtain that the Torahs were behind, another then that I didn’t find the place to be overly dressed up. I know that the tour guide said that they could be even less than they already were, but had very small and simple things that set off those, such as the candle above the ark and the roof where the natural night came from.

All in all I found the synagogue a very nice place.
Catherine