Unattended Moments

Yesterday I was somewhere near Chesterfield co-leading a session on Jewish and Quaker ideas of prayer and worship at Limmudfest, which is a weekend-long Jewish event with workshops and sessions galore. This came about because Jonathan, my co-leader, contacted Friends House in London to ask if there was a Quaker who would be interested in leading such a session. The request went to the secretary of the Quaker Committee for Christian and Interfaith Relations (which I’m on), and she knowing my interest in Judaism, passed it on to me. Jonathan is a modern orthodox Jew who has one way and another become interested in Quakerism, and I’m Quaker who has one way and another become interested in Judaism. We decided that we would each share something of our personal journeys, and then move into a discussion of contrasts and connections between the two traditions, based around some texts on prayer and worship.

At Limmudfest there are quite a few different sessions happening at any one time, so we had no idea how many would turn up for ours. As it turned out there were about 20 people, and we had to move out of the small Sukkah¹ where we had planned to hold the session and reform our circle outside. The people who came were very interested in learning something about Quakerism, and we had a interesting discussion, which focussed mostly on the contrasts between the traditions (importance of words vs emphasis on silence, structure vs lack of structure in worship), though with an idea that they may be contrasting ways of approaching the same thing. One connection that I hadn’t previously been aware of was that both Quakers and orthodox Jews will not swear an oath (e.g. in court), but instead make an affirmation.

It was lovely to see unexpectedly some friends from the Ruach Chavurah - the Jewish renewal group that I was part of in London - who also came to my session.  I hadn’t been to a Limmud event before, and though I had heard about them I did not really know what it would be like.  Everyone was very welcoming, and I was left feeling that I would like to experience more.  After our session I had a chance to sit and chat and also listen to some live music before I had to catch the train home.

For interest, here are my preparation notes - I didn’t read these out so it’s not exactly what I said, however I wrote out what I wanted to say in some detail to give me an idea of where I was going:

Personal Journey
Quaker Worship and Prayer

¹A Sukkah is a temporary structure with a roof of branches and leaves, built for the festival of Sukkot, which remembers the years of wandering in the wilderness following the Exodus from Egypt