At Synagogue With Jesus / Part 1

(Note: my source for the prayers, Scripture, and order of service is Alfred Edersheim's Sketches of Jewish Social Life.) 

It is early morning on the Sabbath. For six days the family has labored, likely for twelve hours or more a day. Dad has worked outside the home, probably at a trade. We are in Capernaum on the sea shore of Galilee, so dad is likely a fisherman. Mom has worked at home just as hard, tending her house, educating her children, preparing the home each day for the return of the husband. He is a fisherman, so sometimes he toils all night.

But today is Sabbath and the family has risen and quietly eaten a breakfast prepared the day before. Now they have walked the short distance to the synagogue where others have gathered. It is a stone building, taller, more elegantly crafted than the other buildings in town. There are columns out front and a stone floor. Above the entrance is an intricate carving of the ancient pot of manna which the children of Israel had gathered and placed as a memorial inside the ark of the covenant ages ago. The stone carving is adorned also with an intricate design of vine leaves and clusters of grapes, representing the goodness and blessing of God.

Inside there is a foyer with two entrances, one on the left and the other on the right. Here the family divides with the women going in one door and the men the other. It is one single rectangular room with wooden benches. There is a partition in the middle dividing the men from the women. In the very back, in an isolated corner, there is a small section for Gentiles--strangers to the covenants of Israel. The tone is one of reverence. All seats face symbolically toward Jerusalem, and toward a central wooden platform called, then, the bima. On the platform, at the innermost part of the synagogue was an ark or chest in which were placed all the copies of the Law and the Prophets. In front of it was a wooden pulpit or lectern and next to that a seat. In front of the platform was a row of chairs facing the congregation. These chairs were the "chief seats" and were coveted for the air of importance derived from being one of the ones who sat in them. Mainly these were rabbis and scribes and members of the brotherhood of the Pharisees. As we arrive for the service these seats are already filled.

We take our places among the congregation. When everyone has arrived a priest steps onto the platform, walks to the lectern, and briefly faces the congregation until he has attained their attention. The congregation stands. Then the priest offers the first benediction:

"Blessed be You, O Lord, King of the world, Who forms the light and creates the darkness, Who makes peace and creates everything; Who, in mercy, gives light to the earth and to those who dwell upon it, and in Your goodness day by day and every day renew the works of creation. Blessed be the Lord our God for the glory of His handiwork and for the light-giving lights which He has made for His praise. Selah! Blessed be the Lord our God, Who has formed the lights."

The congregation then pronounces "Amen." The priest then offers this prayer:

"With great love have You loved us, O Lord our God, and with much overflowing pity have You pitied us, our Father and our King. For the sake of our Fathers who trusted in You, and You taught from the statutes of life, have mercy upon us and teach us. Enlighten our eyes in Your law; cause our hearts to cleave to your commandments; unite our hearts to love and fear Your name, and we shall not be put to shame, world without end. For You are a God Who prepares salvation, and us have You chosen from among all nations and tongues, and have in truth brought us near to Your great Name--Selah--that we may lovingly praise You and your Oneness. Blessed be the Lord Who in love chose His people Israel."

The congregation again pronounces "Amen." The priest then begins the Shema which is quoted simultaneously by the congregation:

"Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is one. You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might. And these words that I command you today shall be on your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise. You shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes. You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates.

"And if you will indeed obey my commandments that I command you today, to love the LORD your God, and to serve him with all your heart and with all your soul, he will give the rain for your land in its season, the early rain and the later rain, that you may gather in your grain and your wine and your oil. And he will give grass in your fields for your livestock, and you shall eat and be full. Take care lest your heart be deceived, and you turn aside and serve other gods and worship them; then the anger of the LORD will be kindled against you, and he will shut up the heavens, so that there will be no rain, and the land will yield no fruit, and you will perish quickly off the good land that the LORD is giving you.

"You shall therefore lay up these words of mine in your heart and in your soul, and you shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes. You shall teach them to your children, talking of them when you are sitting in your house, and when you are walking by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise. You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates, that your days and the days of your children may be multiplied in the land that the LORD swore to your fathers to give them, as long as the heavens are above the earth.

"The LORD said to Moses, 'Speak to the people of Israel, and tell them to make tassels on the corners of their garments throughout their generations, and to put a cord of blue on the tassel of each corner. And it shall be a tassel for you to look at and remember all the commandments of the LORD, to do them, not to follow after your own heart and your own eyes, which you are inclined to whore after. So you shall remember and do all my commandments, and be holy to your God. I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt to be your God: I am the LORD your God."

(Scripture references for the Shema are Deuteronomy 6:4-9; Deuteronomy 11:13-21; and Numbers 15:37-41. Every religious Jew knew these by heart and they were repeated twice daily by every Jewish male.)

After the repeating of the Shema another prayer is offered:

"True it is, that You are Jehovah our God and the God of our fathers, our King and the King of our fathers, our Savior and the Savior of our fathers, our Creator, the Rock of our salvation, our Help and our Deliverer. Your Name is from everlasting, and there is no God beside You. A new song did they that were delivered sing to thy Name by the seashore; together did all praise and own You King, and say, Jehovah shall reign world without end! Blessed be the Lord who saves Israel!"

Then the congregation is seated. The priest leaves the platform and is replaced by one of the leaders of the synagogue. In the case of the synagogue at Capernaum there may have been just the one, named Jairus in Mark 5:22. As Jairus ascends to the platform we take a break, but we will come back to the service at this point in the next post in this series.

Addendum: It is clear that it is to the Shema that James refers when he states in his epistle: "You say that you believe in one God. That's all fine. But know this, that even the demons believe that, but, unlike you, they tremble at the thought." (my paraphrase)