Checking out the neighborhood

Now that the friends about whom I spoke in this post have unpacked a bit, we paid a visit to see them, their new apartment, and their new neighborhood yesterday. Aside from the fact that their neighborhood is not within walking distance of a subway, it’s a good place to live.

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One of our friends' chief criteria in choosing a new home was that they need to have food stores that are within walking distance, and they’ve chosen pretty well, in that regard. There’s a supermarket, a kosher butcher/take-out place, and a kosher fish store within a few blocks. There’s also a Judaica store, a kosher Chinese restaurant, a kosher delicatessen restaurant, and at least one kosher dairy restaurant within walking distance.

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The synagogue situation is considerably more complicated. My girlfriend made one thing clear: Though there are quite a number of synagogues of various stripes in the neighborhood as a whole, the neighborhood is pretty spread out, with the result that where one chooses to live must really be based on where one wishes to pray. In plain English, if we choose to live near our friends, we’ll be choosing to attend their Modern Orthodox synagogue, because the egalitarian Conservative one will not be within easy walking distance.

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We got a quick tour of their synagogue yesterday evening. To our pleasant surprise, the main sanctuary was open and some lights were on. So, of course, I had to check out the women’s section. The mechitzah, while not glass-topped, is lower than some that I’ve seen and divides the room into side-by-side sections (rather than men-in-front and women-in-back sections or sections with the men in the middle and the women on both sides). In addition, the amud (lectern), Torah-reading desk, and Aron Kodesh (where the Torah scrolls are kept between readings) are all on a bimah/platform that's high enough to make everything on it easily visible from the women’s section.

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I did pick up an interesting trick when we went to the daily Minyan room to say Minchah and Maariv (Afternoon and Evening Services)—it turns out that, if you sit right next to the mechitzah, your view of the amud/Torah-reading desk, which in this room is in front of the mechitzah (though on the men's side), is limited, but the farther you get from the mechitzah, the less the mechitzah obstructs the view. While this didn’t make too much difference during the praying, since I was too buried in my siddur/prayer book trying to keep up with the congregation anyway, it made the short study session between Minchah and Maariv feel more inclusive, because I could see the rabbi who was speaking.

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My girlfriend tells me that she’s seen some women wearing tallitot/prayer shawls there, so she’ll probably go back to wearing hers. I’ll have to ask her to find out whether any women who show up for weekday Shacharit/Morning Service wear tefillin, as well. I’m happy to say that this synagogue holds a monthly Women’s Tefillah Group.

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I’ve known this particular girlfriend for longer than I’ve known my husband, so I wasn’t surprised that she knows me well enough that she said I’d never be completely satisfied in my choose of synagogue. She's right: Orthodox synagogues are, by definition, not egalitarian, while Conservative ones tend to fall somewhat short in creating a sense of community and in maintaining religious standards. I might be able to live with her synagogue, if I won’t get the fish-eyed stare for wearing tefillin.

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Eventually, when my husband's ready to retire from his tax and accounting practice, we'll have to decide where we're going to live. (We can't leave our current neighborhood until he gives up his practice, since the majority of his clients are within walking distance.) Let's hope that we can afford to move to our friends' neighborhood.