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Baby Naming (no, not ours...)
Aug. 31st, 2006 04:01 pmI had the pleasure this morning of attending a baby naming ceremony. Aside from being at the thoroughly crazy hour of 07h30, it was a very cool experience.
The Shaar Zion Synagogue is in Hampstead, about 8km from our appt. I was running a touch late because I worked for about an hour before setting off and got caught in conversation. It turned out this was a good idea, since Mount Royal is between there and my place, and I was otherwise planning on biking.
In the search for the entrance I met one of the relatives, who explained how to put one of the skull caps on and we found the sanctuary together. I think as part of the comparative religions bits in YRUU I might've visited a temple before, but I couldn't remember what the customs were. I found a place to sit that was out of the way about the time that they called everyone to worship. They asked people to turn to a page in a book that I didn't have, so I ran out and got one. I was glad I did: The group of teenagers in the row ahead of me didn't and looked mostly bored. The service was sung/chanted/spoken in Hebrew, but the book had both and Hebrew and English texts in it.
The service was quite unlike what I'm used to, and tolerated a fair amount of shuffling around, hugs, greetings and children running around. From what I can tell, the service was the standard morning prayers with the baby naming inserted in the middle. Some other time, I'd love to get a guided tour of what I saw so that I could understand what was happening. The whole occasion seemed so rich with tradition, but at the same time wasn't stuffy or boring.
When the service was done, I joined the group in the basement for breakfast. It was vaguely ironic that when I'm shopping, I usually look for Kosher symbols to help me tell if there's hidden dairy in things, but that breakfast consisted of largely non-vegan items (fish, eggs). I got to meet Glen and Sharlene's wonderful families and am very glad I went.
But it does feel like the attack of the baby things has truly started =)
The Shaar Zion Synagogue is in Hampstead, about 8km from our appt. I was running a touch late because I worked for about an hour before setting off and got caught in conversation. It turned out this was a good idea, since Mount Royal is between there and my place, and I was otherwise planning on biking.
In the search for the entrance I met one of the relatives, who explained how to put one of the skull caps on and we found the sanctuary together. I think as part of the comparative religions bits in YRUU I might've visited a temple before, but I couldn't remember what the customs were. I found a place to sit that was out of the way about the time that they called everyone to worship. They asked people to turn to a page in a book that I didn't have, so I ran out and got one. I was glad I did: The group of teenagers in the row ahead of me didn't and looked mostly bored. The service was sung/chanted/spoken in Hebrew, but the book had both and Hebrew and English texts in it.
The service was quite unlike what I'm used to, and tolerated a fair amount of shuffling around, hugs, greetings and children running around. From what I can tell, the service was the standard morning prayers with the baby naming inserted in the middle. Some other time, I'd love to get a guided tour of what I saw so that I could understand what was happening. The whole occasion seemed so rich with tradition, but at the same time wasn't stuffy or boring.
When the service was done, I joined the group in the basement for breakfast. It was vaguely ironic that when I'm shopping, I usually look for Kosher symbols to help me tell if there's hidden dairy in things, but that breakfast consisted of largely non-vegan items (fish, eggs). I got to meet Glen and Sharlene's wonderful families and am very glad I went.
But it does feel like the attack of the baby things has truly started =)
