Primer on Jewish life

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Catherine Emanuel (front) plans to cover topics such as Jewish ritual objects, candle lighting on Friday nights and high holiday traditions.

Throughout his life, Elliott Saunders has never felt he's been able to ask about the reasons and history behind the Jewish rituals he observes.

"I didn't know why I was doing things when I went to shul (synagogue)," explains the 68-year-old West End resident. "I just did them because my father did them or my teacher did them.

Doing things "just because" isn't good enough for Jewish educator and part-time elementary school teacher Catherine Emanuel, who was inspired to develop a six-part class on the basics of Judaism for people like Saunders.

This primer on everyday Jewish life began last week at Temple Shalom, the Reform synagogue on Grant Avenue, and runs Wednesday nights until Feb. 9. Cost is $5 per evening.

"Anybody can benefit from the basic topics I'm going to be covering, even Orthodox or Conservative (Jews), because in many Jewish communities, people do things because that's the way they've been done. They don't know why," explains Emanuel, 30, who has an undergraduate degree in religious studies and another specializing in Jewish education.

Emanuel plans to cover topics such as Jewish ritual objects, candle lighting on Friday nights, high holiday traditions and even when to stand, sit or bow during a Shabbat service.

"I had in mind people who converted to Judaism or people who returned to Judaism after a break for whatever reason," says the mother of an infant daughter for whom the course is intended.

Temple president Ruth Livingston says the course is for people like her who grew up in a Jewish family that wasn't religious or affiliated with any synagogue. Understanding the ritual is important to her personally, and she hopes people who have married Jewish partners or are recent converts will also benefit from an education program like this.

"For them and the people they live with who have chosen to raise their children (in the faith), it's a level of knowledge about what they're doing," says Livingston, who celebrated her bat mitzvah at age 63 because she didn't have the opportunity as a teenager.

Livingston says she's especially interested in the final class, taught by temple member Sherman Lang, where participants will learn to bake challah, a braided egg bread served on Shabbat and holidays.

Although they may follow the weekly rituals or attend High Holiday services, most Jews have no religious education after their bar or bat mitzvah in their early teenage years, a phenomenon Rabbi Karen Soria calls "Jewishly 13."

"While they have university degrees and even post- graduate studies, their Jewish learning is not on a par with their knowledge in other fields," explains Soria, who commutes to Winnipeg from her Ottawa home every three weeks to lead services at Temple Shalom.

She says Jewish learning often takes a back seat to other demands, but she encourages Jews to deepen their understanding of their faith.

"We do want to know how we got here, why we do things and how customs and rituals develop," she explains. "And we want to know those things without necessarily taking away from the historical experience of being called by God to be the Jewish people."

As for Saunders, understanding why a mezuzah is attached to the door frame of a Jewish home is a first step in passing on his Jewish faith to his two grandchildren. A mezuzah is a small case holding a parchment inscribed with biblical commandments and is a sign of God's commandments and God's presence.

"I now have two grandsons that I'm very proud of, so if I'm going to teach them something, I want to know why it has to happen," he says.

brenda@suderman.com

Republished from the Winnipeg Free Press print edition January 15, 2011 H13