Torah Portion:	Chukat-Balak
Synagogue:	Shnei Ohr Chabad
Walking time from home:	15 mins
Reason for going:	Guest speaker
Kiddush:	Small but lovely sit-down kiddush

Before I started this blog, I had been to probably every shule in Melbourne, but sometimes only for Friday night or for other special services. One of those was Shnei Ohr, which has been around for 15 or so years in the middle of Caufield, but I first discovered it about a decade ago in another context. 

The rabbi at Shnei Ohr started a shule, but more importantly, also started an organisation called Smile on Seniors, which brings Judaism to Jewish residents at non-Jewish old age homes. They don’t compete with Jewish Care or Emmy Monash. Instead, they work only with residential aged care facilities in and around Caulfield where they know Jewish residents also reside. About a decade ago I volunteered to help out for a session they were running, and following that, the rabbi invited me to a Friday night dinner at the shule. I have attended a number of dinners since then over the course of the last decade, and I started following the shule and the organisation on social media. During this past week, I discovered that a guest from overseas was due to speak in shule and at the Kiddush, so this seemed like a good opportunity to visit the shule on a Shabbat morning. 

Although Shnei Ohr is on one of the most prominent corners in Caulfield, since it meets in a converted house that only has a small sign on the front, many people don’t even know about it and don’t realise that it is actually there. To some extent the shule uses that to their advantage because there is only space for about 20-25 on the men’s side, and probably half that on the women’s side. This week, even with a guest, there were probably only about 25 adults in total, plus a few kids. It will likely never attract a particularly big crowd, though it does have a fairly large following on social media and apart from Shabbat services, has an active program of classes and activities during the week. Not to mention of course the senior’s program, which works hand in hand with the shule.

Unsurprisingly, the shule feels very homely and welcoming in a true Chabad house style. The guest was a Chabad rabbi from South Africa who grew up in Melbourne, and some of the other visitors either remembered him from his time in Melbourne, or are South African émigrés who remember him fondly. He spoke specifically about the second of the two portions read this week, and focussed on Balaam’s journey. After Balak hired the sorcerer Balaam to curse the Jews, Balaam had to find a way to go with them and to become part of them in order to be able to curse them. He of course blesses them in the end, but the first time he asks to go, permission is denied. Only the second time permission is granted.

The rabbi explained that in the English translation, the phrase is translated almost the same each time: ‘Don’t go with them’, or ‘Go with them’. But in Hebrew, there is a subtle difference between the two phrases, which has a significant impact. In simple terms, it is the difference between integration and assimilation, and this still has repercussions in our days. Jews are permitted and in fact encouraged to integrate into the societies in which they live, and in many countries, Jews have risen to very high positions within government, business and society. But what the phraseology of the text suggests is that Jews should do all this without assimilating, and without giving up their Judaism or forgetting their history. In many ways, this was a typical lesson to hear at a Chabad shule, but still one that resonated.

Shni Ohr is one of the smallest shules in town and doesn’t have any aspirations to be anything it is not. The guest knew his audience well and continued on this same theme throughout the kiddush as well. As a rabbi in South Africa, he is there to assist Jews to still be Jewish despite all the turmoil around them, and to there for them if and when they choose to leave. He knows his duty, and this shule knows its place.