Religious Service

For my last response paper, I decided that I wanted to attend a Jewish service. Since I had missed the pre arranged field trip to go with the school, I decided that I would grab a friend, and make a day out of driving up to Park City to go to the Temple Har Shalom. We set off on our forty minute drive, and finally came upon the Temple. The temple itself was very intriguing to the eye, it was a mix of brick and what looked like maple wood, the architecture was interesting and had a very modern feel to it. The inside was beautiful, and very spacious. There were chairs set up and tables, and fire places, of course there were Israeli flags hanging from different locations. When we first got in, we first just walked around and marveled at how modern and clean the temple felt. People were starting to come in, and greet each other. It was obvious that the community was very close; everyone seemed to know one another. My friend and I were immediately picked out as being visitors, and so some people came to us and wanted to know who we were, and what we were doing there. Upon hearing my reason for being at the temple, a man kindly offered to first explain to us a little about what was going on. First of all he began to tell us that every synagogue must have three things in order for it to be considered holy. One of these things is the Ark, the cabinet where the Torah scrolls are kept. The second thing is a “sanctuary lamp” or an altar lamp; a light that shall burn continuously. The third thing he mentioned was a 7 branched candelabrum, or menorah. We walked into where the service was being held, and considering that this specific temple is one of the largest in the state, the room was huge. I was told that the congregation was made of over 300 Jewish families, and there was room for everyone to be comfortable. The pews were set up, and they were all blue behind the rows of pews, blue single chairs were set up. The chairs were all set up to face the ark,