Torah Portion:	Vayikra
Synagogue:	Jewish Care Windsor
Walking time from home:	30 mins
Reason for going:	To be with my grandparents
Kiddush:	Small kiddush with Hamantaschen

In September of last year, my grandparents moved into residential aged care at Jewish Care Windsor. And not a moment too soon. At around that time my grandfather also turned 100 whilst my grandmother turned 98 a few months earlier. They had been planning to move into care for quite some time, but what finally precipitated the move was that in the weeks leading up to it, they both had quite severe falls and finally realised that they couldn’t stay home any longer. They moved into the new building at Jewish Care Windsor, which only opened during the pandemic. It was cheaper for Jewish Care to construct a new building than to refurbish an old one to modern standards, so my grandparents and all the current residents are the beneficiaries of new facilities. This includes a new shule.

I suspect that if you do a count of all the synagogue buildings in Melbourne, Jewish Care Windsor will not feature in that count. There is a synagogue on the premises to be sure, and it is new, large and lovely, but it is mostly used during the week as a multi-purpose room for talks, events, concerts and the like. It is a residential aged care facility with a shule, rather than a shule on its own. Nonetheless, there are services there every week, with a dedicated rabbi and a willing crowd.

Because of their falls, my grandparents weren’t very mobile when they first moved in. Eventually they got to their feet and can now move around, but only with the help of walkers and wheelchairs. As such, until just weeks ago they didn’t even know there was a shule on site. But this week, with Purim coming up, when the rabbi came to visit them, they had the idea to go to shule, and of course I was only too willing to join them. It had actually been a long time since either of them had been to a shule – the last time being Yom Kippur in 2019.

The rabbi had warned me that the shule starts early and goes quickly. I brought my grandparents down at the start time of 9am, but we were so early that there wasn’t even a minyan yet. Soon enough there were not just 10 on the men’s side, but closer to 15, and 5 women too. The vast majority were residents. The only ones who weren’t were the rabbi, two other Chabad guys, myself and another gentleman who used to come with his mother, but now comes on his own most weeks to say Kaddish for his late mother. It is not a shule that attracts a large crowd or many external members. As such, to speed things along, although the rabbi didn’t skip any sections of the service, he did truncate some bits and overall, it felt like a ‘no frills’ kind of service, which in this setting was nice and appropriate.

This week ahead of Purim there were readings from two Torahs, but it didn’t feel like the service was extended by too much. Most of those called up didn’t even come to the Torah since moving their wheelchairs or walkers would have taken extra time, so they just stayed in their place and recited the prayers from their seats. The only break in proceedings was when the rabbi spoke, but even that was not too long (for a rabbi). He talked about the start of the book of Leviticus, about remembering Amalek and about memory in general. When he took the Torahs back to the ark, he insisted on walking up to everyone, including all the women, and getting them to touch or kiss the Torah. It was beautiful to see, especially since I could hardly imagine a Chabad rabbi taking a Torah into the women’s section even a few short years ago. Maybe the elders are leading the way! Then, a few minutes before the end of the service, the rabbi swapped his prayer book for rubber gloves and started distributing plates and then food to the tables where people were already sitting. The kiddush was basic, just gefilte fish, herring and potato salad, but this week with Hamantaschen too for Purim. With the kiddush, the whole service lasted just under two hours, and though that was long for my grandparents, especially since my grandfather couldn’t move much in his wheelchair, they enjoyed it immensely, and so did I.