Visiting Sha Ar Zahav Analysis

Visiting Sha’ ar Zahav was definitely like visiting a synagogue like no other. The first thing that you notice right through the door is that someone has been posted to specifically greet everyone who comes in and explain what type of synagogue they are. Out of all the synagogues, I felt the most welcomed in by Sha’ ar Zahav. Everything from how they pray to the way the torah is covered has something to say about their ideology. It is clear that they don’t follow Halakhah nearly as strictly as the previous Orthodox Synagogue. One of the ways in which I felt particularly welcomed at the Synagogue was that the speaker actually called out the USF students in the audience, asked them to stand up and asked everyone to welcome us. Everyone, from that point on, made sure that we felt welcomed. It should also be mentioned that one of the people who had asked us to stand up was also a woman and I don’t believe she was even an ordained Rabbi. She was a member of the congregation. This was definitely something that none of the other synagogues were practicing. The fact that the synagogue allowed a plethora of people to speak about the Hebrew bible was definitely something that shows how they have a certain meta halakha while also addressing the clear gorilla in the room. …show more content…
One prayer that was made during the service talked about the concept of Tikkun Olam. The speaker asked us all to pray about how we would fulfill our own visions of this concept. Most notably, in the prayer book there were sections where portions of the prayer were replaced with different pronouns for god besides “he”. In addition there was even a section for nonbelievers that I read after the service. The section started out with a quote from Albert Einstein and recited a prayer about science and how everything is