Torah Portion:	Vaeira
Synagogue:	Spiritgrow (Chabad lite)
Walking time from home:	25 minutes
Reason for going:	Late start and sit down kiddush
Kiddush:	Hearty lunch with lots of variety

After nearly two weeks in New York, it was good to be home, although it is still the summer break and some shules have not yet re-opened or are not yet back to full capacity. As such, I chose to go to a shule that I knew would have a decent crowd, and also promised a sit down Kiddush lunch. Moreover, it started at 10am, which gave me an opportunity to sleep in.

Spiritgrow is unique in the landscape of Melbourne synagogues. Though nominally Chabad, and with a Chabad father and son rabbinical combination as the spiritual leader and director, it has established itself as a place of meditation and spiritual nourishment. Services on Shabbat or during the week are just one small element of what Spiritgrow does and offers. For many regular attendees, it is the place they go to grow – physically and spiritually, and they do so by learning, meditating, and to building their Jewish understanding. Prayer is just one element, with some achieving growth through food and others achieving it through yoga or other similar exercises. Spiritgrow offers all that and more, and always in a very professional and inviting setting.

As a result of this kind of philosophy, the service on Shabbat sometimes make me feel like I am in primary school because the very engaging rabbi regularly stops the service to explain what is going on or what a particular prayer means. This is great for people unfamiliar with the services, but sometimes feels like an interruption for those who attend weekly. There is also at least one meditation during each service. Nonetheless, I greatly appreciated this approach during the Torah reading. Rather than give a sermon about a particular element of the reading, the rabbi gave a fairly lengthy explanation between each reading about what the reading means and how we can relate to in in our modern world.

For instance, one of the sections of the portion of Vaeira is about G-d hardening Pharoah’s heart. The rabbi explained that the usual perception is that the Pharoah is supposed to come across as an imbecile or a fool. After all, why would he continue to let his nation endure the plagues? But the truth is that neither he nor his people knew how many plagues there would be or that Moses would succeed in his request to let his people go. It is only in hindsight or with the knowledge of what comes next that we can see what was really going on. In his time, Pharoah probably thought he was doing the right thing and was going to defeat Moses. The point is not to feel sympathy for Pharoah, but to realise that there are numerous ways to read the story, and that the Torah – like many other episodes in life – need to be seen in context.

For me this was not quite a revelation, but it was not something I think about all the time, so coming to this shule on this day was a wonderous experience for me. It comes on the back of my trip to New York, which was largely about seeing things differently and thinking about Jewish leadership in new ways.

The service finished with a sit down lunch, which they do monthly, on the Shabbat preceding Rosh Chodesh (the new lunar month). Though there was no speaker or formal sermon, the lunch was also an opportunity to speak to the rabbi and to other congregants about the portion of the week, but also about modern day America, Australian sport and summer holidays. All in all, it was a great way to spend my first Shabbat back in Melbourne after a very emotive and fascinating time away.