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Report on the visit to the Glasgow Reform Synagogue

February 24, 2007

This visit was one of the many inter-faith events organised each year by the Churches Agency for Inter-Faith Relations in Scotland (CAIRS).

The visit was arranged by Andrew Sarle, the CAIRS Education Officer in conjunction with Rabbi Nancy Morris.

Our Christian Group joined Jewish worshippers at the Reform Synagogue in Newton Mearns for their Shabbat daytime service. This is the only Reform Synagogue in Scotland, and has been in existence for over 80 years, and has over 350 members. Unlike Orthodox Worship, men and women sit together through the service.

With so much familiar, yet so much different, it is difficult to briefly summarise such a powerful encounter with the faith that we have such a close relationship. The atmosphere was relaxed, almost informal, throughout. Many members of the congregation, both men and women, had important roles to play in the service. The sanctuary light burns in front of the Ark containing the Torah throughout.

The congregation were encountering a new prayer book for the first time on this morning. Rabbi Nancy expertly guided us all through it as she sought to make clear for her Christian visitors the meaning of the Liturgy. In the new Book, the Hebrew was transliterated into Roman script, alongside English translation. This made the service easy to follow. One was swept along in the wave of energy generated by the worshippers, led by the Cantor, the Rabbi in this case, leading the prayers and texts. Think of  80% of our prayers and scriptures being sung and you can imagine to atmosphere in the service.

At the end of the service visitors were welcomed into the Hall to join the congregation for the Shabbat lunch, followed by an interfaith discussion. We were slightly apprehensive about this phase of the event as we pulled up chairs to form a large circle around the hall. We needed not have worried. We were in expert hands of Rabbi Nancy, supported by Andrew Sarle. Rabbi Nancy had produced three pages of Jewish jokes for us to read and discuss. All inhibitions left us as we shared our experiences of our own faiths and those of our Jewish and Christian neighbours. The joke about the Reform Rabbi who does nine rounds of golf on Yom Kippur morning - where God intervenes, causes the Rabbi to get a hole in one, and receives the punishment of not being able tell anyone, works just as well for a golfing bishop. With the skilled facilitation of this session, every comment was given space and respect, and one felt to be entering into real dialogue, particularly when dealing with more controversial topics. Our Jewish friends do not have the same view of Christ purging the Temple! It was good to listen to both sides.

CAIRS are to be congratulation on making this event happen. On their website is the Sharing of Faiths Prayer, which seems particularly relevant when thinking about Jewish-Christian relations over 2000 years:

Almighty ever-loving God, Lord of the Universe and Lord of our lives, we praise you. You have created us to be your people, drawn from all the rich variety of the world's families and the world's faiths. We confess that we are prisoners of prejudice, bound by the chains of yesterday's wrongs and tomorrow's fears. We pray that you will forgive the wrong we have done and set us free from our fear of one another, free to celebrate our beliefs and our liberty as one universal family under God.

Geoff Sage