Big Tent Judaism

An Uncommonly Welcoming Boston Prayer Service

The term “back room” can have various connotations depending on the cultural context in which it is used. It often refers to something clandestine, a place to meet when perhaps skirting the law. Images of cigar smoking and private poker games for high rollers come to mind. As was confirmed for me once again the other day when I was in Boston, however, the back room can also be a place where remarkably positive things occur. While browsing at the Israel Book Store, the clock struck 2 PM—time for mincha (afternoon prayer services). Obviously not the first time that I have been asked to participate in such prayer services, I was invited to the back room of the store to join a small group of men—mostly those who worked in the Brookline neighborhood—who quickly worked their way through the afternoon service, making sure that there were enough to say Mourner’s Kaddish since one among us was still observing the period of mourning and there is a requirement of at least ten for Kaddish to be said. (I realize that women were not invited, but I believe that my point is still valid.)

The brief service was led by a local Chabad rabbi. Those who assembled represented various levels of affiliation and traditional observance—even a couple of youth group boys who happened to be in the store at the time. What impressed me most, as it has anytime I have joined a “pick-up minyan (prayer quorum)” was that no-one asked who I was or where I came from or how observant I was. We were all there together in the back room forming an improvised community; I was there to participate in the creation of a kinship through prayer and therefore I was made to feel welcome. True, taking part in this makeshift mincha demanded a level of literacy. There were no page numbers on the prayer books, nor any announcements to inform those who might not know what to do next. But those are minor quibbles compared to the positives that came from joining in the services with this ad hoc minyan. That day in Boston, I once again learned the pleasure of being welcomed into a community of strangers who simply wish to share a spiritual moment—and that good things can happen in the back room.

Comments

No comments yet.

Leave a comment