I should clarify what I said to Revenant Threshold. If you took Communion in a Catholic Church because you didn’t understand the theological difference between this and, say, another denomination’s Communion, then I would of course not consider this disrespectful. On the other hand, if you did this knowing the Catholic belief about it, then this would be quite rude.
I beg your pardon; I was most unclear. It was the Catholic Archbishop saying it was a sham.
Perfectly all right. It’s basically a meetinghouse. No LDS sacred ordinances are performed there.
In fact, if you’re ever in Salt Lake City, make sure you do two things. One: Take the Tabernacle tour. Totally imressive. Two: Look for a Tabernacle Organ Recital, usually held in the early afternoon during the week. The sound of that magnificent old instrument is not to be missed.
Dredging up fuzzy memories of growing up in a very Jewish area in the early teen years, when there was a bar/bat mitzvah every weekend, and how my “religious identity” was all sorts of confused as I was forced to go to Catholic mass a few times a year (don’t ask).
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In a normal Jewish service there are a number of prayers where you’re required to stand. IIRC, non-Jews were expected to stand as well, out of respect. (I have no idea if there’s some unifying theme of these prayers or what; last time I was in a synagogue was over two years ago and I left the actual service halfway through [again, don’t ask]). OTOH, when I was taken to Catholic churches, my grandmother always told us to just stay sitting as they did the stand/kneel/stand thing. I don’t know if this was just Crazy Grandma talk, or what was really expected of us.
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Another Jewish one (possibly): I recall there being some holidays in which the Torah scrolls were sort of paraded around the congregation, carried by the rabbis. Some people would reach out with either their prayer shawl or prayer book and touch it to the torah. I think I remember non-Jewish friends being told to abstain from this.
Does anyone actually have an idea what I’m talking about?
As a matter of fact, though I’m baptized and confirmed Catholic, I don’t take the Eucharist on the rare occasion that I attend a Mass (the last time I went to one was for my cousin’s wedding four years ago) because I no longer believe the doctrines of the Church. To my thinking, to deliberately go up and participate in the Eucharist when you’re in a state of disbelief is to show a great deal of contempt for the beliefs of your fellow Mass-goers.
I don’t know about Jewish traditions, but Catholics tell me that as a non-Catholic I stand with the congregation but sit when Catholics kneel.
Orthodox churches don’t allow non-Orthodox to take communion, either, and if the priest has never seen you before it’s likely you will be quizzed before being given communion.
There are also occasionally things such as annointing the congregation with oil, and distributing blessed bread and wine (not the Eucharist) – in more traditional churches, non-Orthodox aren’t allowed to participate in these, either. When in doubt as to whether to participate or not, it’s probably better to refrain – those who allow non-Orthodox to participate won’t be offended, while those who don’t would be quite upset.
I thought that all men wear a yarmulke in temple, whether or not they are Jewish. And I thought this was widely known, as I’ve always seen gentiles in movies donning yarmulkes when they enter. Is it different in an Orthodox temple?
I’ve never heard of this “requirement.” To the best of my knowledge, people in a conversion class are expected to be progressively more observant, and I would expect an Orthodox Jewish class to be as observant as the rest of the community. It is against Jewish practice to require or order a non-Jew to perform work on Shabbat.
To answer some other questions:
In Jewish services, generally stand when everybody else does. We stand for:
- Certain prayers in the morning preliminary service. Don’t sweat this point, most Jews below Orthodox aren’t at services this early, why would you be?
- The call to prayer in the morning and evening service.
- The standing prayer (Amidah) in the middle of every service.
- Taking out the Torah, lifting it at the end of the reading, and returning the Torah to the Ark. (Certain morning services, especially Shabbat and holidays.)
- The Aleinu at the end of every service session. (I say “session” because on Shabbat and holiday mornings, the Aleinu is at the end of the additional service, after the morning service and the Torah reading.)
The unifying theme of 2 and 5 is that we bow during these items; for item 3, “Amidah” comes from the word “'amod,” “to stand;” item 4, to honor the Torah. (Item 1 is a bit more complex.)
Every man, of all ages, wears a head covering in a synagogue; this also applies to women in egalitarian shuls. (A married woman always keeps her hair covered in public out of modesty. All those ultra-Orthodox women? Wigs, all of them.)
When we take the Torah out from the Ark and when we return it, we carry the scroll around in a processional. It is customary to gently touch the Torah with a prayer book or prayer shawl, then kiss the item – but not to touch the Torah directly, even while it’s in its mantle. I would discourage non-Jews from doing this out of concern that they may accidentially commit some disrespect to the Torah, but this is just my nsHO.
I’m glad I wasn’t imagining this. Sorry for the hijack, but, since we’re all here: Why is this done? IIRC, Judaism is far more into things being symbols (the Eternal Light, the menorah, etc) than things actually having power themselves. So why the touch/kiss thing?
Also, why the processional at all? I certainly appreciate that Torahs can be really visually stunning, with all the elaborate metal bits and the covers and all. But for some reason I thought that the reason why they were always kept in a closed ark was to resist the temptation to treat them as objects to be worshipped or celebrated, as oppossed to worshipping the contents. (Again: it’s entirely possible I’m complete wrong; haven’t been in a synagogue for years, was always the kid who got kicked out of hebrew school classes, etc).
You’d probably be discouraged from participating in a Bris. :eek:
I attended an Orthodox 40 Day memorial service and was forewarned not to participate in the Eucharist (being RC myself, I wouldn’t have tried). Then, at the end, there was some other sort of bread being distrubuted, I think it was literally while we were leaving the church. I kept trying to avoid the bread, thinking it might be the Eucharist Part II, but my Orthodox friends insisted that this bread was okay for non-Orthodox. Was that the “blessed bread” that you mentioned, and what does it mean, exactly?
Cutting yes. But, every passerby is invited to come and share the joy of a tiny Israelite getting his shmeckie snipped. It’s considered a good deed for any stranger to attend.
Re Torah Processions
The torah is one heck of a symbol in Judaism. “It is a tree of life to those who hold fast to it”, the special ink never quite dries as a symbol that this is the living word of G-d. Tradition holds that every letter in the torah is exactly as dictated to Moses by G-d. The torah also contains our contract with G-d. By kissing it, we thank G-d for holding up His end and promise to keep up our end.
Also, it’s fun and gets kids involved. Judaism is generally big on being jubilant and on getting the kids involved early. On Simchas Torah, when we reach the end of the scrolls and rewind them, we give the kids flags and have them parade around the synagogue.
I’d advise gentiles to be extremely careful around a torah. Some Conservative congregations, and nearly all Orthodox ones, hold that the torah is defiled if a woman touches it. That’s one of the reasons why we kiss a prayerbook and touch the book to the torah. Torahs are written on special parchment, with special inks, by scribes using special quills. They aren’t cheap.
On the upside, any prayer that involves ‘la da da’ ‘heida hieda heida’ ‘lum diddy diddy bum bum’ etc is an opportunity for everybody to join in without needing to know Hebrew.
RE Yarmulkes
I never agreed with this. Judaism is big on respecting the stranger. Forcing gentiles to year yarmulkes always seemed to go against this. If I attend Christian wedding, nobody makes me take off my yarmulke.
Regarding the prohibition of non-Roman Catholics taking communion, I’d like to offer a personal anecdote, which I hope is relevant:
Though my background is Baptist, and I am now an atheist, I attended Catholic schools from first grade through high school. In junior year, my high school religion class went away on retreat, and I went along. The retreat was run by an order of priests (I don’t remember which order.) On one occasion, one of the priests asked why I was not taking communion. I told him I was not Catholic, and he invited me to take part anyway. I declined, feeling it would be hypocritical of me to do so, since I was already a non-believer. (I didn’t tell the priest that part, I just declined without explanation.)
This would have been in 1976 or 1977. Was this kindly old priest encouraging me to do something horribly wrong in the eyes of the Church?
As someone else said, you don’t have to go up; when I would attend Mass with my inlaws I would remain in the pew (and sit when they kneeled). I believe I’d read that if you choose, you can go up and cross your arms in front of you to receive a blessing instead.
I was married in a Catholic church, and my side of the family isn’t Catholic. About half the church stayed seated for Communion, and I didn’t take it since I’m not one either.
:smack: I forgot the most important detail. I declined communion by saying “I’m not Catholic, Father.”
Actually, sacred ordinances are performed there. As indicated above, the Tabernacle is a meeting house. So, the Sacrament (communion) is held there and so are blessings and naming of children, ordaining membes to offices in the Priesthood, just to name a couple. What are not done there are Temple Ordinances.
I can’t remember the name of the book (I have it in storage back in California). The book describes a fair number of denominations/religions and their rituals. It also gives excellent advice to those of different faiths visiting those denominations/religions. The advice is “templated.” In other words, it’s a list of basic questions, such as “Can I record the proceedings?” or “May I take communion if I am not a member of that faith?”
Does anyone recognize this book?
There are several ways blessed bread is given out. One is at the end of the service, as you saw – it’s the remainder of the loaf of bread that the host is cut from, and is for people who have taken communion to get any last bits of the Eucharist out of their mouths, and for people who haven’t taken communion to share in a bit of its blessings.
At the litiya or artoklasia, done during vigil services (vespers + matins) the night before a major feast, bread, wheat, wine, and oil are blessed by the priest and distributed; the faithful take some bread soaked in wine, and are annointed on the forehead with the oil.
The artos is a large loaf of sweetened bread that is kept before the altar during Easter week; on the Sunday after Easter it’s distributed to the faithful.
Those Orthodox using a western form of worship don’t have any of the above, but have rather revived the custom of pain benit, where a separate loaf of bread is blessed at the offertory and distributed to the faithful at the end of mass.
More traditional Orthodox churches (mainly Russian and very traditional Greek parishes and monasteries), as well as many places in the old countries, will only distribute things like mentioned above to Orthodox; the principle is that these things are part of the life of the Church, and so are only meant for people who are in the Church. Most parishes in America, though, will allow anybody to partake of them, reasoning that since these things are not sacraments there is no harm in allowing heterodox to consume them.