A regular Saturday Shabbat service starts at around 9 a.m. I arrived at Temple Beth Abraham at about 8:45 so I could observe what the lobby looked like and that I also could secure myself a seat in the sanctuary. The first thing that caught my eye when I walked into Temple was all the men dressing themselves properly to go in the Sanctuary for the service. It is a Jewish rule that all males wear yamakas, which is small head covering, and that all males that have been Bar Mitzvahed need to wear a talis around their neck, which is a scarf/-like article of clothing.

When I actually walked into the Sanctuary, it reminded me of Church in the way the seats were structured. There were about 30 rows of seats on each side of the Sanctuary, with one big

Most of the congregation does not understand what the Hebrew words mean, but are just taught in Hebrew school to memorize the prayers and the way they are chanted.

The longest part of the service is the beginning. There are a lot of prayers that lead up to the Torah being opened and closed. But, the rabbi will explain between each prayer what it means and why it is being said. For someone who attends Temple regularly, I can see this be annoying, but to someone like me who has never been, it was very helpful and it allowed me to follow along in the service as best I could.

The conclusion of the service was the quickest part. It was easy to tell it was the conclusion part because the prayers seemed to have a more upbeat rhythm to them and people seemed to be getting excited for the service to finally come to an end.

Next up was the stage, or as it is called in Temple, the bema. The bema is similar in size to a church, but different in its structure. Instead of just one podium in the middle of the stage for the priest to stand at, there are two podiums. One is placed in front of all the people sitting on the left hand side, and the other is placed in front of all the people sitting on the right hand side. The rabbi stands on the podium facing the left hand side and the cantor is facing the right hand side. This is because in the Jewish religion, text is read from left to ride, so the rabbi is standing left of the cantor since he is the bigger authority figure in the service. Also, behind each podium, there was a small bench where people on the Temple’s executive board sit during the service. As for the congregation, there is no assigned seating. Seats are first come first serve. Also, for the most part families sit together. Some children sat together in the back. But it seemed like they were for a Hebrew School class.

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