I was uncomfortable in a synagogue for the first time in my life. I felt like a woman in a bar getting hit on by a drunk guy who won't take the hint. In the middle of Friday night Shabbat services, the Chabad rabbi who claimed to be the rabbi of the synagogue wouldn't stop pressuring me to come to the Chabad house after services.
He wanted to know where I was from, my name, how long I was in town, if I read Hebrew – all while the service was taking place, being led not by him. At one point, I decided that if the rabbi was allowed to chat in services and figure out who I was, turnabout was fair play.
"Where are you from?" I asked the whitey white man about my age with the beard, paiyes, black hat and black caftan.
"Mumbai, of course!"
"So, you were born here?" I asked with incredulity. I know BS – I smell it on the streets everyday – literally.
"No, I was born in Israel. I was sent here for the mission."
"And how do you like it?"
"Mumbai, or the job?"
"Both."
"Mumbai, I don't care for so much. The job, I like. I like the mission to improve things here," he said.
"We were in Israel recently. Where are you from? Jerusalem?"
He responded, but I didn't recognize the town name.
"Where is that?"
"Near Ashdod."
"I know Ashdod, we were in Israel in August…"
He then didn't want to talk to me. It seemed like he didn't want the conversation to turn to him. He had been much happier asking the questions.
Emily had been banned to the upstairs gallery for women where she sat, displeased with being treated second-class in her own religion.
Meanwhile, downstairs…I was none the happier. This was the first service I had ever been to with men and women separated and I didn't like Friday night service without my wife next to me.
But more than that, I didn't like this Friday night service. Besides my distinct impression that "the mission" centered heavily on trying to bring Jews into the Chabad fold, the service was a speeding bullet of prayer.
I had a prayer book. I'm perfectly capable of reading it. I couldn't figure out what was being said 75 percent of the time because someone was always chanting at light speed, working through the service like it was a sprint.
In fact, the service started with a guy walking up to the pulpit-style bimah in the middle of the sanctuary of this large Sephardic-style synagogue and just launching into a prayer. No greetings, no page number, no "let's begin". The gate opened without a buzzer and the lead dog was running. The rest of the pack needed to catch up.
So, in the confusion of the speeding prayers, I decided to instead take in the amazingness of the synagogue itself.
It was built in the mid 1800's by the Sassoon family who had immigrated from Baghdad to British Bombay. They're involvement in business and in particular in the opium trade made them incredibly wealthy and got them in good with the British.
The family built two synagogues in Bombay – one being Keneseth Eliyahoo Synagogue where we were. It embodies the styling of a traditional Sephardic synagogue with a wooden bimah in the middle and seating surrounding it. The glass, chandeliers, arches and woodwork were clearly once stunning. Now, cheap, high-gloss light-blue paint covers the building inside and out. White paint covers the trims and sometimes a little beyond the trims where painters did a noticeably sloppy job. In arches and over windows, paint has chipped off and window shutters have warped.
The Chabad rabbi hadn't been completely forthcoming about his status. He is the rabbi for the Chabad House. However, since it was severely damaged in the Mumbai bombings of 2008, it's sanctuary remains shutdown. He participates with Keneseth Eliyahoo in the meantime.
Keneseth Eliyahoo has its own caretakers and they are the ones who lead the services. Their community has shrunk dramatically in the past hundred years and there are only about 100 Baghdadi Jews left in Mumbai and about 4,500 left in all of India. Like the synagogues we saw in Istanbul and the little one on Crete – a small group of dedicated Jews work hard to keep their congregations alive.
These people do what they know how to do. There are no sermons, no explanations, no breaks between prayers. Friday night services are conducted with the dedication and zeal of the regulars – but absolutely void of spirituality and with little community.
At one point, at the end of "Licha Dodi", the prayer welcoming the sabbath, the prayer leader got all the men – about 15 of us – to join hands and move in a circle as we chanted. I was a little taken aback, but went with it. Emily relished it from above. It was the one communal moment of the service besides shaking hands at the end.
As the service came to a close, the Chabad rabbi was back on me, introducing me to a few of the people who would be joining the Shabbat dinner at the synagogue and then heading to the Chabad House. They could show me the way. I said several times that I would need to confer with my wife – but that didn't seem to compute. There was no mention of Emily being invited, just repeated and frequent requests that I not just attend the dinner, but then spend the evening at the Chabad House.
I was looking forward to dinner with a local synagogue, but I was weirded out by this very cultish-feeling Chabad rabbi. I've never been a big Chabad fan and this experience only furthered that feeling.
Over the course of the evening, I came to realize just how different much of the world practices Judaism. Separate floors for men and women, racetrack pray-a-thons – this was not the Conservative Ashkenazi Judaism in which I grew up. This was not time with family and friends. This was not reflection and spirituality. This was not the warmth of community I associate with my synagogue experiences growing-up or in the past two years when going to Valley Beth shalom with my family by marriage.
In the end, I decided this was just not for me. So, at the conclusion of the service, we left and got some good vegetarian Indian food of our own.
As we left – just as when we entered – one thing was shocking and unique to any synagogue I've ever visited. Indian police officers line the front and side of the synagogue and manned an armored tank. At the corner of the building, they had erected a small sandbagged bunker in case of bomb or fire.
In order for the 30 or fewer people inside to have a Friday night service, 15 or 20 officers and an armored tank had to be outside. While I expected the metal detector and security guards at the entrance, I never expected that.
Despite the horror of the necessity for protection, the Indian government and police earned my respect. It's nice to see that a tiny minority within a giant and poor country gets the support to practice their religion freely. I hope that one day, Keneseth Eliyahoo will not need an armored tank in order to welcome in the sabbath.
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