The Third Row

My slow crawl towards traditional Jewish observance began somewhere around age 16 (a story for another day), and for all intents and purposes continues to this day.  However there were a couple of milestones along the way that stand out in my mind... especially at this time of year.

For instance, several months after enlisting in the Navy... with basic and technical training behind me... I decided the time was right to 'come out' just a little bit about being an observant Jew.  There is an entirely different story I may share with you some day about reporting to my first ship and handing my orders to the captain... while wearing a kippah.  But that too is a story for another day.

Today I'd like to tell you how and why for the past 25+ years... no matter where in the world I've found myself... I have almost always gravitated towards the third row of the synagogue.

It all started in a place with the unlikely name of 'The Aloha Jewish Chapel'. 

The first time I heard the name of the place was about a week after getting orders for my new home port, Pearl Harbor Hawaii.  The name made me giggle because it sounded like a Las Vegas wedding chapel where Elvis impersonators presided over drive-thru nuptials.

However, to my surprise the first time I wandered over to see the place I found a relative rarity in the U.S. military; a Jewish chapel that did not share space with any other religion (picture a reversible Aron Kokesh (Ark) with a ghostly hand sticking out on either side to indicate the presence of an over-large crucifix nailed to the other side). 

In fact The Aloha Jewish Chapel was one of the only Jewish facilities in the U.S. designed and built from the ground up to serve the needs of the military Jewish community.

Upon walking inside I was impressed to see pictures on the wall of Rav Shlomo Goren (the former Chief Rabbi of the IDF) visiting the Aloha Jewish Chapel shortly after its completion.

The first Friday night service I attended there was an eye opener.  Far from being the only person silly enough to pass up on a night out in Honolulu, I was one of a large group of active duty military personnel, their families, and even some civilians from the local Jewish community who showed up!  A couple of Air Force SGTs (from Hickam AFB), an Army SGT from Scoffield Barracks and a Navy LCDR came over to introduce themselves and invited me to sit with them... in the third row.

It seems that a tradition had sprung up whereby the young, single military personnel (and their friends) gravitated towards the third row, to the extent that the Rabbi and the rest of the congregation often referred to the group by that name (e.g. "OK, but if we're going to plan a bake sale we should check to see if most of the third row will be around to help out.").

Sitting there in the third row  of the AJC I learned about Judaism.  I learned about being part of a Jewish community.  And most of all I began to learn a little about myself.  The 'High Holidays' in the AJC stand out in my mind because this was the first time in my life that I was going to services because I wanted to... not because I was expected to.  Not surprisingly, many of those original members of 'the third row' were also embarked upon their own journeys of discovery and perhaps greater observance.

After the navy I went to Israel to study at the Hebrew University, and I noticed with some amusement that each time I entered a synagogue, my feet took me unbidden to a seat in the third row.  Even after I returned to the US to complete my degree at Yeshiva University, I often found myself sitting in the third row of whatever shul I attended.

After we were married and had moved to Connecticut, I found to my consternation that I'd been assigned a seat in the second row of the synagogue.  I never said anything about it (it seemed a little nutty to demand a third row seat), but for several weeks it proved to be a real distraction.  But then I noticed a couple of seats set off at an angle in front of those I had been thinking of as the first row... which technically gave me a loose claim to still occupying the third row... so everything was OK.

Once we finally moved to Israel I was so overwhelmed with all the adjustment issues of aliyah (the term for moving to Israel), I never stopped to think about where I would be sitting in my new synagogue.  But when I asked the gabbai about open seats (I didn't want to accidentally take a place where someone else had become accustomed to sitting), I was told that a family had just moved to Jerusalem so I could have their seats.  A small smile crept over my face as he pointed out the seats next to the window... in the third row. 

I told him that these seats would be just fine.

I'm not exactly sure why I've shared this with you today... except perhaps as I said earlier, my memories of that original third row come back to me particularly clearly during the holiday season.  Thinking about the tunes I first learned and the rituals I first understood back then mostly bring me back... and I think about how all those intervening years were bringing me to this spot so far away (quite literally on the other side of the earth) from Hawaii... but in a small way to the very same place.

Here is the inside of my shul:

Walking towards my seat...

Sliding into the third row feels a little like coming home:

I can still picture what it felt like sitting in the third row of the Aloha Jewish Chapel.  When my mind would drift back then, I would wonder where this flirtation with observance was taking me.  Would it last?  Would it change me?  For the better?

I still think about these things as I sit in my third row seat next to the window in my Israeli synagogue and look out over a valley that still contains an ancient aqueduct which supplied water to Jerusalem during temple times.  When my mind needs a little vacation, I look across at the ridge-line opposite the one on which our community sits where there remains an ancient road along which Abraham walked with his son Isaac on his way to Jerusalem in order to sacrifice him.

So much of my life here is still new and unfamiliar.  But my seat in the third row of the synagogue is a link in a long chain of events that brought me here.  And though that slow crawl towards greater observance still continues to this day, I sit in my seat... looking out my window and realize I am finally home.

I hope that anyone to whom I have given offense this year will please forgive me.   May you all be sealed in the book of life for a healthy and prosperous year.