During this week Krissy and I went to Greenburgh Hewbrew Center to observe a relgious ritual of Conservitive Judiasm. We went Friday night, November 2nd at from 8pm-9pm. In the Hewbrew Center there were just regular seats to sit in with plain settings, no stained glass or anything like that. The rabbi comes out and stands behind the bima. A singer stands off to the side singing all the pray songs. The torah is brought out covered by a sheet in an ark case, when they brought out the torah they said a pray in hewbrew. Rabbi then opens the torah to the part where he is speaking from that week. Rabbi walked through the temple holding the torah like a baby walking through the inside isle first then made his way to the outside. When he passed the people on the ends they either took a cloth or their bible, touched the torah then kissed it. When he was finished he faced the ark recovered the torah, kissed it and said a pray. To conclude the service he moved onto the temple community news.
The sides of the ark is decorated with flowers. The rabbi wore a tallits which was black and a scarf like material with hebrew writing. There were 30 or so people in the temple, mostly older people and young kids. Even though everyone was very welcoming and friendly I still felt a little out of place just because I wasn't use to the culture or the ritual and the language they were speaking. Some of the questions I wanted answered was the reason why they went through all of this, why they kissed the torah and why the torah was covered while being brought out. Overall it was a good experience for us though.