Ahhh... Sukhot.
A unique Jewish holiday in that it doesn't commemorate someone failing to wipe us out.
Sukhot is a harvest festival. It's supposed to take place in a tent outside the synagogue but we had a downpour last night and sensibly moved the festival inside.
We feasted on Eastern European style Jewish food, some of it cooked by Mrs. Stroock as her family is basically right out of Fiddler on the Roof, and had a small service commemorating the end of the yearly Torah reading.
The Torah was taken out of the Ark and paraded around the sanctuary, festival style. This is two large scrolls, decked out with silver, in which the entire Old Testament is written in Hebrew, unchanged since at least the Dead Sea Scrolls which date back to about 100 AD. We're talking serious biblical firepower here, real Charleton Heston type stuff.
Yes, every time they open the Ark we suppress the urge to not look at it. For a secular, post-war, Reform Jew, Steven Spielberg really captured the wrath of the Hebrew god.
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