Torah Portion:	Terumah
Synagogue:	Beit Aharon (Gandel Besen), Orthodox, modern
Walking time from home:	Less than 20 minutes
Reason for going:	A farewell
Kiddush:	Relatively large kiddush with Cholent

Sometimes I come to certain shules for the uniqueness of the service or simply to attend a shule that I am not very familiar with, but sometimes I come for a reason. This week was one such occasion, and it was a special reason indeed. 

By rights, a shule like Beit Aharon (Gandel Besen) should not exist. It started close to four decades ago and thrived for a while, but like many small synagogues the world over, it soon lost many of its congregants to other larger shules. Plus, in a city like Melbourne, numerous other specialist, smaller shules popped up around it. In fact, within a five minute walking radius, there are at least three other shules, and that number exceeds greatly as you go further out. It is however unique in its own way. Though it sits on the Gandel Besen St Kilda campus of Mt Scopus, the congregants are generally unaffiliated with the school. The majority actually no longer have school-aged kids, and even the ones that do, tend to send their kids to other schools. The congregants therefore are generally a little older, a little more modern (in an orthodox sense) than many of the other shules in the vicinity, and they like the intimacy of a small shule where all the regular congregants know each other. This week a number of former congregants who have moved away, returned for the celebration.

One of those regular congregants for more than two decades retired from his working life at the end of last year, and together with his partner, have decided to move to Israel. This week was their farewell Shabbat. But he also wasn’t just a regular congregant. For a vast majority of his time at the shule, he was involved both on the board and as president of the board. It is not a stretch to say that the shule continues to exist and flourish today because of his efforts. Of course he would and did say that it is not just because of him, but even a functioning board needs someone who is the glue, and based on all the speeches after the service, he was always that person.

Obviously I was at this shule this week because of the farewell, but as soon as I walked in, I felt a sense of familiar déjà vu. I hadn’t been to this shule for over a year, but used to come fairly regularly. It is one I always liked because there is an overriding sense of casualness and informality. The people are there to pray and they take the service seriously, but there are also muted conversations throughout, some in-jokes amongst the regular congregants, and you get the feeling that everyone looks forward to the kiddush because that is the real time to mingle and chat. On top of all that, the rabbi always speaks in a way that people can relate to and can even make the most mundane topics or sections of the Torah feel relatable and connected to our modern lives. On this occasion, in the sermon he made the tabernacle of this portion feel like an indispensable element of the story of the Torah, whilst in his speech about the former president, he said that if he was going to any country other than Israel, he and all of us would have to try to dissuade him because of how much a part of this shule he has become. In fact, that was a theme of all the speeches.

I came to this farewell because of my previous connections to this shule, but also because of my previous connections to, and respect for, the former president of this shule. Several years ago he chose me to be Chatan Torah on Simchat Torah, despite the fact that I have never been a regular, and gave me free rein to talk about my dislike of the festival. It was a bold move on his part, but showed the measure of the man, and we reminisced about it at the kiddush over a bowl of cholent, that has become so synonymous with this shule. It was a lovely occasion to be part of.