A Synagogue Essay -- Papers

A Synagogue A synagogue will look like any other building from the outside - the only sign you might get from the outside is the star of David which is called magen David in the Hebrew tongue. There may also be a sign outside stating the name of the synagogue. There are many names for a synagogue such as; shul - which means school in Hebrew, bet haknesset, which means house of assembly - this is only used by Sephardim, which is oriental Jews. A synagogue is primarily a place of worship but also functions as a community centre for the Jews. The building is so important that the whole Jewish community that worship there will revolve around the building. It is used as a teaching school for Jewish children where they will be taught the Hebrew alphabet, numbers of Hebrew and about their faith. This school is a Jewish equivalent to a Christian 'Sunday school.' If you now go inside you would see that the synagogue is rectangular and although you will not realise it, but the whole synagogue is built facing Israel, if possible, Jerusalem. There will be a sink where the congregation will wash their hands and feet before praying or worshipping. You will also notice that there are separate seats. This is because in orthodox synagogues, the men sit on the ground floor and worship and the women sit in the gallery. There is a good reason for this - and not because the Jews are sexist - but because in Judaism, the men take on the role of worshipping and the women are expected to look after the house and the children so if people were late (the women). This may be because they had to change the baby or something like that so instead of disturbi... ...yed and the hymns and songs are sung without the aid or backup of music. In a liberal or reformed synagogue however things would be very different, for instance, there is quite a large chance that a female rabbi would be conducting the service, the man and women are more 'equal' they sit together and worship together as one big mass. The bimah may be at the front which, in my opinion, gives a sense of preaching and I think Jews know their religion, they don't need to be educated about it they just want to worship god. There also may be an organ to accompany songs and hymns because music is permitted in reformed synagogues. There would also be slightly less Hebrew spoken. So this synagogue I have described to you is an orthodox synagogue. Orthodox translates to "right belief" and is considered to be traditional Judaism.