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lethargic_manI've just been on a guided tour of my shul's new building—though I didn't see much I didn't see on Monday at the Ner Tamid lighting.
The Ner Tamid was lit by the rabbi's mother (who had paid for it). The rabbi carried a symbolic flame (actually an electric torch) from the shul in Frankfurt where his grandfather had been rabbi before the War, and which light remained burning after the shul had been trashed on Kristallnacht, to his own shul in Finchley; as the daughter of and mother of the respective rabbis, he gave his mother the honour of lighting the new light. As the light was electric, this turned out to be throwing a switch in the fuse cupboard. Afterwards, I complimented her on her en-fuse-iastic lighting.
The ceremony on Monday included maariv. More by accident than design, I ended up davening my first service in the new building out of one of the few (if not the only) first edition Singer's Prayerbook in the shul. (Superseded by the second edition in the 1960s, they're up to the fourth edition now.) I'm sure one can read from that a nice message about continuity and bringing the old and the traditional into the new building.
So, to the tour this evening. "This is the bridal room," says the guide. "What's a bridal room?" says I. "Where the bride goes to attire before the wedding ceremony," I was told. I think: They have enough weddings that they need a dedicated room for that? Aloud, I say, "I've never come this before; do other shuls have one?" "They're normally behind the women's toilets," someone else puts in. Well, I never: A female mystery.
Finally, I was amused to see in the beit midrash a row of computer monitors with at the end of the row a wooden shtender looking like some kind of steampunk equivalent:
The Ner Tamid was lit by the rabbi's mother (who had paid for it). The rabbi carried a symbolic flame (actually an electric torch) from the shul in Frankfurt where his grandfather had been rabbi before the War, and which light remained burning after the shul had been trashed on Kristallnacht, to his own shul in Finchley; as the daughter of and mother of the respective rabbis, he gave his mother the honour of lighting the new light. As the light was electric, this turned out to be throwing a switch in the fuse cupboard. Afterwards, I complimented her on her en-fuse-iastic lighting.
The ceremony on Monday included maariv. More by accident than design, I ended up davening my first service in the new building out of one of the few (if not the only) first edition Singer's Prayerbook in the shul. (Superseded by the second edition in the 1960s, they're up to the fourth edition now.) I'm sure one can read from that a nice message about continuity and bringing the old and the traditional into the new building.
So, to the tour this evening. "This is the bridal room," says the guide. "What's a bridal room?" says I. "Where the bride goes to attire before the wedding ceremony," I was told. I think: They have enough weddings that they need a dedicated room for that? Aloud, I say, "I've never come this before; do other shuls have one?" "They're normally behind the women's toilets," someone else puts in. Well, I never: A female mystery.
Finally, I was amused to see in the beit midrash a row of computer monitors with at the end of the row a wooden shtender looking like some kind of steampunk equivalent:
