Aufruf

We attended a friends Aufruf ceremony today - the ceremony where he and his fiance read from the Torah, or before the Torah. I'm still not quite sure what went on, but it was really touching to have been invited to such personal & family-oriented occasion. I suppose it's much like announcing your impending marriage before God, before your family, your friends & the community you grew up with.

Social activites such as the one today are completely draining. I'm so fearful of inadvertantly offending someone that I rarely actually enjoy the event. But then I was able to think back to my own wedding, and it occurs to me that I was way too preoccupied to care what other people were doing. Nevertheless, when I got home, I was ready for a nap.

Today's ceremony brought me back to the idea of community. I can see how it's very possible that there is no community like the Jewish community, at least from what I can tell from my brief interaction with it today. It definitely seemed like a very large family. Very tight, very personal, very interactive. I understood very little of the service - but one thing was very apparent: there was a great deal of love and support for our friend & his family. And I wonder - is this community feeling particular to this one families' experience, or one congregation's experience, or it is fairly common among all the congregations? Is it the shared bond of persecution and adversity? Or does that have nothing to do with it at all?