In much of the Jewish online world, a blog post about someone enjoying Shabbat services would either be mundane, or, at best, a delight for some parental types. But on Heshy Fried’s blog, such a post attracted 224 comments and counting. Some of them chastise the blogger “Your people contribute to Judaism’s death by assimilation that has spiritually destroyed as many, maybe even more Jews than the holocaust”; some laud him “I think we all need a chance to step out of our own boundaries and share ideas”. Why the hullabaloo? The service in question was Reform, and Fried’s blog, Frum Satire, has a largely Orthodox readership.
via The Renegade – by Hadara Graubart > Tablet Magazine – A New Read on Jewish Life.
Interesting bio of Frum Satire, Heshy Fried. I sometimes find his humor a little juvenile, but he’s certainly an interesting guy and glad to have him in the blogosphere. The minyan link referenced above refers to the Isabella Freedman center.
I davened with a reform minyan and loved it!
May 26th, 2009 · 224 Comments
The title is misleading, because technically there wasn’t a minyan, since there were only about 7 men and twice that in women.
I spent this shabbos at the Isabella Freedman center in northwestern Connecticut, and had a lovely time, partially and I know people are going to bitch and moan right now, due to the fact that Congregation Beth El a reform shul in Park Slope was renting out the retreat center. My friend is the mashgiach there and in the past I had a friend who did the Adamah fellowship (of which I contemplated doing many times – but never could get how I could afford to just not make anything for 3 months)
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I could go all Frum Satire on you and explain to you why these people were enjoying the service so much. They could wear whatever they wanted, I was in shorts and a nice shirt, they didn’t have to daven the whole thing, they sat together (outside of orthodoxy its not really a big deal) and they had good singing rather then rushing through a bunch of prayers with mumbling. In frum shuls everything is so routine and done all the time that we hardly notice, I would be willing to bet that these people rarely make it to shul. No one was talking and the kids present were good and quiet, such a rarity.
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