Torah Portion:	Ki Tavo
Synagogue:	Moorabbin Hebrew Congregation
Walking time from home my sister’s:	Almost 50 minutes
Reason for going:	Something different
Kiddush:	Sit down kiddush with Cholent

After a lovely family Shabbat dinner at my sister’s house, I stayed over partly so that I could go to a shule I hadn’t yet been to, for this penultimate blog. I’ve been meaning to go to Moorabbin shule for quite some time and had intended to walk from home, but this opportunity seemed like a good one.

The shule in Moorabbin has been there since the mid-60s, and once inside, that is fairly evident because much of the décor probably hasn’t change a lot since then. Wood was clearly an architectural material of choice for interiors, because everything from the pews, to the ark, to the walls, to the Bimah and even the window panes is made from it. The inside looks dated, but still very functional and maybe that is partly why there is still a community in that area. Many of the regular congregants have been coming for years, irrespective of where they live, whilst some of the newer members have moved to the area recently because of relatively cheaper housing in the surrounding suburbs.

The rabbi too has been there for a long time. He started out as one of Melbourne’s youngest rabbis but now quarter of a century later, he is one of the longest serving. But he and his wife are still appreciated by the congregation so they are still there. He told me that pre-Covid, on a regular Shabbat morning with no celebration there used to be about 30 men each week but those numbers have never quite recovered to the same level. This week there were about 20 men, half a dozen women and even more kids. It felt very homely and communal, especially because the rabbi and his wife knew everyone by name.

In a shule like this with numerous congregants but not so many religious people, the rabbi takes the reins for most parts of the service. He led the service, read from the Torah, made all the announcements and also spoke words of Torah. But for many years he hasn’t been giving a traditional sermon. Rather than make a speech after the Torah reading as is traditional in most shules, his preferred method is to inform the congregation between each of the seven readings. And because he knows all the congregants, it becomes an interactive session. He raises an idea from a reading, asks one or two people about it and then provides an explanation or an anecdote to expand on his ideas. It is actually a more engaging way that wouldn’t work in most other places, but subtly gets people more interested and involved, and is fun and educational too.

In a shule like this also, most people come to participate in the service communally rather than on their own, and therefore although most people arrived more or less on time, even the latecomers joined with the congregation. In some shules, those who come late catch up on their own and might be sitting when the rest of the congregation is standing because they are not up to that part, or vice versa. But not here. At this shule everyone was on the same page throughout the service, literally, and it felt very respectful. There was a little bit of chatter at times, but it was not distracting.

The shule was built with a hall and a kitchen upstairs, but no elevator. Most weeks the kiddush is in the hall next to the kitchen and the process is seamless. This week there was a congregant in his mid-80s with a walker who comes occasionally and can’t climb the stairs. Often he doesn’t stay for the kiddush, but when he walked in and was asked if he would stay and the answer came back in the affirmative, the rabbi’s wife and a few of the kids with one or two others decided to move the entire kiddush downstairs into the foyer just to accommodate this one congregant. It made the kiddush a little squishy with not quite enough room for everyone to sit, but it was very respectful, and not surprising in a shule that is generally so accommodating to its congregants. It was great to see.