Torah Portion:	Ki Teitzei
Synagogue:	Yeshivah, Chabad
Walking time from home:	10 mins
Reason for going:	I woke up late
Kiddush:	Large Kiddush with cake and cholent

This week I genuinely didn’t know where I would go to shule when I woke on Shabbat morning. Sometimes I plan these things in advance, and sometimes I just play it by ear. The one relevant factor however was that I missed my alarm and woke up later than expected, meaning I had to choose either a later starting shule, or a closer one, or both.

Several months ago I had wanted to go to Yeshivah – one of the old traditional shules in Melbourne – but I got sidetracked and ended up at Young Yeshivah, one of multiple shules on the campus. This time as I walked in I discovered that there was another celebration at Young Yeshivah that some people were going to, but I stayed in the main shule for the duration of the service. In a sense, I wanted to come to Yeshivah because it brought back some memories of my childhood. It is a shule I used to come to occasionally when I first started going to shule. Unlike for others, those memories were always positive and stepping through the gates always fills me with a certain level of nostalgia. But the synagogue I remember is not the institution of today. Or at the very least, I am looking at it now with very different eyes.  

For one thing, the service felt less communal than almost any other shule I have ever been to. Though there was a Chazan, he was barely audible above the noise emanating from the room. It is not that most people were talking – though there were some muted conversations throughout – it is simply that even within a shule and within a service, many people prayed at their own pace and at their own volume. The most charitable thing I could say is that it is a community of individuals. In a sense, this is very commendable, especially within an institution where so many of the males dress and look so similar to others. They wish to express themselves, and what better way to do so than to stand out in a crowd? Sure they are there to be part of the service, and a few times during the service there was near silence, but mostly there was a cacophony of noise and an overwhelming sense of chaos. Added to that was the fact there there were no announcements throughout and no breaks in procedure, so that every element of the service seemed to blend into the next. In most shules it is very clear when one section of the service ends and another begins, but not here.

The shule currently doesn’t have a senior rabbi. The only short break was just before the Torah reading when one of the communal rabbis gave a short speech about a story related to the portion of the week. In truth, it was more about the story than the lesson, but even during that interlude, some people continued to chat and continued to pray. Though they were in the service, it looked like some were annoyed that communal things were happening around them.

This sense of chaos continued into the kiddush. For one thing, unlike in most shules where one person makes kiddush on behalf of the community, here there were cups set up for anyone and everyone to make their own kiddush and then to take food as they pleased. And just like during the service, there wasn’t a single woman in sight even at the kiddush. Though worse than that, there was equally no respect. On this occasion there were two speakers – one celebrating a birthday and another commemorating a loved one. But even after multiple calls for silence, both speakers had to shout to be heard and even stopped a few times in an attempt to quieten the crowd, but those attempts were essentially futile. Someone even said to me that he didn’t come for the speeches.

Visiting Yeshivah was nostalgic in a sense, but for me at least, it was also a bruising and chaotic experience. Many people clearly love it and go there, but it might be a while till I come back.