Rosh Hashannadox

Lisbon's synagogue is a gated community. Literally. A plainclothes security guard stands watch outside the entrance with two policemen nearby. The entrance is a flat wall with a Jewish star and the words "Shaare Tikva" in Hebrew and Portuguese. Beyond the wall you can see the top of the building itself but not much else. A few weeks ago we stumbled upon the synagogue in one of our many walks and learned the hard way that they don't just take in anybody. Sarah and I had enlisted Tomas to translate for us so we could find out when Shabbat services started and the guards were polite but stern.

"Who are you?" It took a lot of hand motions, Portuguese, and what we hoped were innocent faces to convince them to give us any information.

Fast forward to erev Rosh Hashannah. We knew we wanted to attend some portion of the services being held for Rosh Hashannah. We didn't get out of class and home before services had already begun, so we decided to postpone until the morning. That, plus we hadn't quite figured out when services were and we couldn't very well call the synagogue while they were busy sounding the shofar. So we had a quiet night. We successfully cooked dinner (again!) and had apples and honey with which we "toasted" to a sweet new year. Tuesday morning we found our way across town, conveniently forgetting our map and having to rely on pure directional sense. We made it there shortly after the beginning of services, spoke a little Portuguese to the security guard who then asked to see our passports to verify that we were in fact American students studying in Lisbon.

I was raised in the Reform practice, so you can imagine my surprise when the security guard said "Women upstairs" and closed the front gate on us. Raised eyebrows, hesitant breaths and then the inevitable question: Are we at an Orthodox synagogue? Yikes.

I mean, I'm all for new experiences and Lisbon has been nothing but full of them. And even when it comes to religion I'm open to learning new things and even trying out different customs. But if my Portuguese is awful, then my Hebrew is abysmal and I wasn't sure I could sit still and quiet for the several hours that the service would be.

We debated for a long time. We had peeked into the upper gallery and couldn't see anyone, realizing that most people probably wouldn't show up right on time. We weren't dressed for an Orthodox service. It felt like there were a million reasons to not go in. So naturally, we ignored all those reasons (I mean, it was a service. It's not like we were deciding whether to jump off a building...) and tiptoed into the room. A sign on the door had said "guests, tourists and non-members: please don't sit in reserved seats."

All the seats were reserved.

Luckily, including the two of us, there were only 6 women so we had plenty of seats to choose from. We stayed for an hour, most of which we spent craning our necks to see if there was even a full minyon (ten men) downstairs. A woman sitting next to us asked for our help in translating the Hebrew above the ark. Alas, no surprise, I couldn't translate. I'm getting so used to be hopelessly lost and confused. I can't decide if I'm happy about that or not.

Despite being underdressed, on time, and totally lost in the Hebrew chanting, it was an experience and I'm glad we went. Especially glad since we went for a walk around Lisbon and skipped into a pastelaria called "Venetia" and feasted on raisin biscuits and lemon iced tea framed by a mural of Venice--the obvious choice for the Rosh Hashannah feast.

We wandered around the city, for it was a beautiful day, and talked about home and tradition. It was the only time since I've gotten here that I have felt like I was really missing out on something. UT football season, starting junior year, living with my roommate in our apartment, being with my friends from across the spectrum...I've happily been able to let these things slide into the background and truly immerse myself here. But sitting in the dorm kitchen eating apples and honey under cold fluorescent lights just doesn't compare to being surrounded by family and friends and copious amounts of delicious home-cooked food. For a 24-hour period I really wished I was at home.

Sarah also did some research and discovered that the synagogue was Sephardic. For those of you non-Jews, this basically translates into customs and practices that I have never been exposed to. It's like everyday drinking your same cup of coffee and then going to a different coffee shop and discovering that your same coffee tastes different somewhere else.

That was a horrible analogy but I really can't think of a good way to explain it. Forgive me. I used all my creative energy trying to think of all the things that I will be able to do without embarrassing myself once I learn enough Portuguese. On the bright side, the rabbi at our service spoke Portuguese twice and both times I understood.

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How about that? Also, in my last post I believe I said that the only way life could get better is if the dorm installed a pastelaria downstairs. Well, guess what.

It opened yesterday. Ciao!