Kehilat Hadar

Hospitality is central to the Jewish tradition, something I was pathetically grateful for when I found myself in NYC with no clothes, no hotel room, and no desire to drive back to Connecticut at 1:30am. I had met Asia and Amitai across Rebekah's Shabbat dinner table. When they offered me their couch for the night, it was with one was jesting caveat - I had to attend Kehilat Hadar with them in the morning.

Kehilat Hadar holds its services in the basement of the Second Presbyterian Church of New York. The walls had a mural of drably colored rainbows and balloons, and the floor was institutional linoleum. It was raining outside, and the peeling paint of the basement gave the same impression indoors. Until the sheliach tzibbur began to sing.

Kehilat Hadar is closely linked to Yeshiva Hadar, and the voices around me where trained, strong, ecstatic. Here too, as at Romemu, there was pure joy. But without expression through dance and yoga, it burst directly from the mouths of the congregation, in the strongest recitation of liturgy I had ever heard. Harmonies echoed off the walls while the prayer leader held the melody, standing in the middle of the congregation, directly to my right. I stopped trying to follow along, and stood with my eyes closed. When we reached the Kedushah the congregation held and harmonized the final note of each phrase. Again, as at Romemu, there was a sense of meditation, but also flavors of organs, and orchestras.

The D'var Torah was short, but evocative. Our speaker, a former IDF patrolman, recalled scenes from his time in the force - of doors of Palestinian homes welded shut for security reasons, forcing the family to enter and exit through windows, of 2:00am invasions of terrified households. He likened the Israelis and Palestinians to Isaac and Ishmael, brothers who can only come together to grieve. If not reconciliation, he called at least for tears. Walking out into the rain, towards the Jewish Museum on 93rd, I thought about how much of Jewish history has been filled with tears. And was all the more grateful for the joyful voices of this shul, and the kindness of the friends who had brought me there.