Well, we will certainly remember this…
Joe decided he really wanted to go to synagogue for Yom Kippur. Partly he just couldn’t see not doing it; partly he wasn’t sure how he could manage the fast if he wasn’t stuck in a synagogue most of the day.
We decided to do services with the Union Libérale Israélite de France (http://www.ulif.com/ -- website, but not services, in both French and English). While “liberal” Judaism in France is roughly similar to “reform” in the U.S., this particular synagogue presented itself as moving towards being more traditional. So more like conservative. It is also extremely large – 4500 members. That meant its services would be in two venues: the regular synagogue on rue Copernic and the Palais des Congrès. The latter seats over 2700, so Joe thought there might be tickets and the ones at the back were much more affordable than alternatives he found. He also had checked out its seating arrangement and it looked very nice – good sightlines even way back and not up in a balcony that might be scary if you didn’t like heights (as with some other options).
The rue Copernic synagogue is famous for a good reason – it’s a central synagogue for Parisian Judaism, apparently the synagogue for various famous intellectuals like Simone Weil – and a scary reason: it was bombed on Simchat Torah in 1980, an attack that killed four members. This was the first of a series of attacks on European Jews, and it has affected the attitudes of the Parisian Jewish community. In our previous post we mentioned that one synagogue that we called would not tell us where the services would be held until we bought tickets. This is a major reason why. (We still didn’t want to choose that synagogue without knowing where we would be going, which is one reason we went to ULIF).
So on Wednesday Joe found his way over to Rue Copernic, in the 16th arrondissement, to buy tickets. The facility was a bit like what we saw in Venice: rather than a visible stand-alone synagogue, it looks like one in a series of large rowhouses, and the sanctuary itself is hidden behind the set of buildings. It was also very busy, with lots of people tromping up and down stairs, kids’ programs, etc. After waiting a while Joe got to see the harried ticket guy and explained best he could that he wanted the less expensive tickets in the Palais. It took a while for the man to find three tickets together. Joe asked if there was a schedule for the parts of the service and was told nope, they didn’t have anything like that. This was an omen.
Joe’s schedule didn’t allow us to get to Kol Nidre on Friday night; instead we had spectacular challah and chicken soup and boeuf bourguignon (instead of brisket) prepared by Sydelle. So we headed off on Saturday to get there at the beginning of services, at the remarkably civilized hour of 10:30 a.m. on Saturday, according to the tickets. We arrived about fifteen minutes early, and went through serious security – we took everything out of our pockets and so on. Then we walked in, and there was nobody there. Well, maybe 25 people in the 2700 seats. Our seats were way the heck at the top of the auditorium, and you can see from pictures that there was hardly anyone between us and the altar (bimah). And not much of anyone on the bimah!
Hmm, we thought, this is strange. A nice gentleman walked up the aisle towards us and said something in French. We looked puzzled so he switched to English and invited us to come down lower. He said that few people would be showing up for quite a long time. We asked if the service really started at 10:30. He said not really, the congregation was on French time. Maybe 10:45, perhaps. And added that, having been the rabbi for 36 years, he was used to it! We asked if he had a schedule for when the various parts of the services, such as Yizkor (the memorial service for the dead, which was one of the main reasons Sydelle and I were there) would happen. He said only vaguely; they would be going from whenever they started to sundown and try to stretch the services out to last that long, but sometimes they stretched it out too much and then had to rush at the end. He reiterated his invitation to come down, saying that if people showed up we should just move over, because the place wouldn’t get really crowded until late afternoon.
“What a nice rabbi,” we thought. But we didn’t come down because we were uncomfortable with the idea and besides, I wanted to stay with “our people” – the ones who couldn’t afford the expensive seats! At that point, all twelve or so of us. So we sat there for the next three hours or so, during which at peak there might have been 400 people there. It was rather amusing seeing them parade the Torah, before its reading, around this massive hall (they used two, so at least it didn’t take as long as it might). The cantor had a great voice and the choir was very good and the accompanying organ was OK (Sydelle didn’t like it, Abby did, Joe was indifferent) and the sound system really good (they have rock concerts there). But the tunes were all different from what we were used to (which could happen in the U.S. as well) and sort of French-y sounding (for those of you who are Jewish, try to imagine arrangements by Berlioz) and so the music was not satisfying. They also did the service mostly in Hebrew (this is reform?) and only I much understood the occasional French. I thought they did some good things (some nice opening psalms, if an hour or so can be “opening”; and at least we didn’t do the Amidah prayer eighteen times). But often when they did read the Hebrew they would have a long sung section, with the usual repetition, and then just race through the reading as if it were an orthodox shul and everyone knew it by heart.
By a little before 2:00 p.m. we were ready to leave and so did, thinking, “hmm, that was strange” and “where the heck was everybody, anyway?” Abby was glad to be allowed to stay home for the rest of the day, but Sydelle and I went back and got there around 5:15, since Rabbin Williams had said Yizkor might be around 6:00 pm.
What a scene. After going through the security again (see picture) we walked in and there were a lot more people. (see picture) And they just kept coming in. The Torah service was going on, then the Haftorah, and people kept coming in, stopping to say hi to their friends, giving the two cheek brush or, occasionally, smooch. The smooch could be distracting when it was nearby; we’d be listening to the service as best we could and then: baruch atah adonai (smooch) eloheynu (smooch)… A family was visiting with each other in the row above us and it was really irritating. Admittedly they probably felt they were so far from the bimah that it didn’t matter, and I couldn’t really understand what they were saying in the service anyway, but part of going to services, for me, is to participate in the feeling of prayer, and there was none of that. Nor was there a sense that we were sharing an important common story; the afternoon torah portion actually is a clunker, but the haftorah is Jonah, a cool story worth reflection, and I thought it deserved more respect. Two nice ladies read the French translation, and they got ignored, too. (Gender egalitarianism turns out to be the main “liberal” aspect of the service, I guess. In this case, equal opportunity rudeness).
Just before Yizkor someone (not the rabbi) gave a talk about terrorism related to the 30th anniversary of the bombing (they’re doing a big conference about it in October). I didn’t understand much other than a reference to a crazy pastor with a church of very few members in Florida, but then again I couldn’t hear it well anyway because of all the chatter.
Even Yizkor was not solemn. They did some readings, and named the deceased members of the congregation for the year. But then they just raced through the mourners’ kaddish as if they had to go somewhere. And some people were still visiting.
We left after that. It was close to 7:30. And we discovered hundreds of people milling around in the corridors outside, visiting, displaying their new babies and so on. Between the people in the corridors and the auditorium itself, they really did have close to a full house. Some of the people were dressed quite stylishly (and some of the women seemed to be about a size 1 ½ to boot); some not so much. But they all were having a good time, which seemed to have little to do with the services.
I would be very curious to know what was going on. Did they all come late after the equivalent of Sunday dinner? Doesn’t sound right for Yom Kippur. Were they all meeting up to go out to the Brasserie Lipp or something afterwards? Beats me. Maybe they were copying the orthodox who spend so much time in shul they do a lot of chatting normally? Maybe, though in this case there was a lot more room for flirting than at an orthodox synagogue.
On the plus side, there appear to be a lot of Jews in Paris. Some of them are having babies, who appear to be as cute and well-dressed as all the other French children. The Palais seems like a really good place to go to a concert some other time. The congregation also has a music series in its regular synagogue, and with such a good choir and cantor it might be worth checking out. As Abby says, the rabbi was very nice. But we had no sense of the sacred, no sense of people considering how they were fitting into their ethical obligations, giving themselves a moral check-up. Maybe they were; after all, most people at any given time weren’t chatting. But these were supposed to be the Days of Awe, and Yom Kippur the most awesome of all, and I couldn’t feel that. Ah well. Those who know me might remind me that at least I can’t complain about the content of the sermon…
We headed home and broke the fast by having more of Sydelle’s great challah and chicken soup. Sydelle was full so only Abby and I went out for some Berthillon ice cream. Paris has its points, after all.
For any readers who also observe the holy day, we hope you had a good fast. And we hope all our friends and relatives have been written into the lord’s book for a good and healthy year.
Shana Tovah,
Joe and Sydelle and Abby
