Secret Shul-Goer No 23: Bushey United Synagogue

Size of Community: 1000-1500 member households

I had a great aunt who loved funerals. She would travel the length and breadth of the country to attend a funeral. The minute a relative passed away, she’d ring round the cousins to ask for lifts, or get busy with train timetables. No matter how far, or how inconvenient, my great aunt would make sure she was there. There wasn’t a single family funeral that she missed.

Weddings, on the other hand, she didn’t like at all. She didn’t come to mine or any of my siblings’ weddings. And bar mitzvahs? Forget about it! Often, we marked her down on the ‘not coming’ list before we’d even sent the invitation, because we knew she’d never turn up. But a funeral? She was there in a shot.

The irony was, that at the end of every funeral or shiva visit, she’d take you by the hand, look you in the eye, pause, and say ‘Only at simchas’. Which was ironic, because in my entire life, I never once saw her attend a single simcha. In fact, what she really meant was “Never at simchas!”

She has herself passed away now. (There was a MASSIVE turn out for her funeral.) But to this day, it has become something of a family joke. Whenever my cousins or siblings visit Bushey and drive past the cemetery, we all shout (often to the bemusement of our children) NEVER AT SIMCHAS!

As luck would have it, on the morning of my visit to Bushey United Synagogue, there was a simcha! It was a barmitzvah in fact. And the shul was packed to bursting with barmitzvah guests. There was a really big crowd. Bizarrely, it seemed that every guest on the women’s side of the mechitzah was dressed in black. In fact, I didn’t spot a single woman in the bar mitzvah party who wasn’t wearing black. And to be clear, I’m not saying this to fashion-shame these women. I mention it purely to point out that it was very striking that there were eight or nine rows of women, on densely packed seating, all dressed in black. It was like a funeral scene in a Godfather movie.  (If my late great aunt had known this was possible, she might have made more effort to attend our family simchas.)

So what of the shul itself? Well, they say that forewarned is forearmed. And rather fortuitously, a good friend of mine visited Bushey Synagogue the week before I did. So, in a bid to save myself some of my usual pre-visit preparation, I asked her about her experience there. Now, it wouldn’t be fair to repeat verbatim what she told me. (Not least because I have no intention of doing myself out of a shul-reviewing job.) But she did give me one piece of advice, which was that I should avoid sitting in the upstairs gallery, where both seeing and hearing the service is, apparently, quite difficult. Instead, she strongly encouraged me to sit in the women’s section downstairs.

Now, obviously, you can’t rely on hearsay evidence. And as I took my friend’s advice and sat downstairs, I can’t tell you whether it’s difficult to hear the service from the gallery. What I can tell you, is that if the downstairs area is the better option, upstairs must be pretty ropey, because it was mighty tricky to hear what was going on from where I was sitting.

This was partly down to decorum. I’m sorry to say, it was really bad. There was lots of chatter throughout much of the service although, in fairness, near silence for the barmitzvah boy’s leyning.

It was also difficult to see what was going on because of the position of my seat, which was in the very back corner of the allocated space. The women’s section was absolutely chock-full, and I was wedged in between the wall and the mechitzah barrier. If you’re thinking ‘Serves her right for choosing to sit in the most awkward seat in the entire women’s section’, you’d be right. Only I didn’t initially choose to sit there. In fact, I ended up there because something happened at Bushey United that has never happened to me at shul before. When I arrived, I chose a seat in the middle of the row, a good few rows from the back. About an hour into my visit, I popped to the loo, leaving my siddur and chumash open on my seat, and my jacket on the back of the chair. When I came back, less than five minutes later, someone was sitting in my seat, using my books. I politely told her that she was in my seat, and she said “We don’t have set seating at Bushey” and carried on chatting to her friend, holding my siddur and leaning against my jacket.

I’ll be honest, I was more than a bit miffed at the time. And my mood wasn’t lifted by the fact that I spent the rest of morning rather hemmed in on the only remaining seat, which made following  the service more than tricky. (At that point, I wondered if I might have been better off sitting upstairs, after all?) My frustration was obviously shared by the lovely old lady next to me, who at one point closed her chumash and said “No point trying to follow. I can’t hear a thing!”

So, apart from Seatgate, and the loud chatter during the service, how did I find Bushey United?

Well, the building itself is light and modern. The décor has a nautical feel, with blue windows and a mechitzah that has a wave design. Which was more than a little ironic, as I sat there, not waving, but drowning.

Women and men sit on the same level, and there is an air of informality, especially on the men’s side, where there was a fair bit of wandering around during the service. Small groups of men were standing around and chatting together, especially towards the back.

The sermon, delivered by the American rabbi, Rabbi Elchonon Feldman, was thought provoking and very personal, by which I mean that the Rabbi shared with the barmitzvah boy his recollections of his own barmitzvah. There seemed to be a genuine desire on the rabbi’s part to connect with the young 13 year old in an individual and meaningful way. However, this was, in my admittedly cynical view, slightly overdone, in that the rabbi referred to the barmitzvah boy, by name, no less than 26 times. (Yes, I did count!) I don’t know how this was received by the boy himself, who was obviously the most important member of the audience. But to me it sounded like the advice you might find in one of those “How to Connect with your Audience” manuals, only the advice had been taken a tad too far.  You know the thing I mean.  “Horatio, on this special day, as you stand with your family, Horatio, and read your portion, Horatio, we wonder where you will be, Horatio, in another 13 years’ time, and Horatio, we give you our blessing, and we hope, Horatio, that…” (Just to confirm, the boy’s name is not Horatio.)

The musaf service was fairly quick, after which the congregation was invited to Kiddush in the shul hall. At this point, I experienced another secret shul-goer first. I decided not to go in to the Kiddush at all. I did try, but the room was absolutely heaving with people; it was clear from the doorway that it would have taken a fair amount of elbow shoving just to get in the room, let alone make it all the way to the tables. And to be honest, after an hour and a half stuck in the corner, I didn’t feel like pushing my way through the rugby scrum again.

It was as I was leaving the shul that I understood, for the first time, my great aunt’s ambivalence towards simchas. Without the heaving crowds and the noise, the service would no doubt have been a pleasant experience. Indeed, I was left with the distinct feeling that I’d be happy to go back to Bushey United. But NEVER ON SIMCHAS!

 

Warmth of Welcome 2*

Decorum 2*

Service 3*

Kiddush ?*

Read our first 22 reviews, of Edgware and Hendon Reform, Cockfosters and North Southgate, Finchley Reform, New London Synagogue, Hampstead Garden Suburb Synagogue, West London Reform, Radlett United, Kol Nefesh Masorti, Wimbledon Reform, St John's Wood Liberal, Dunstan Road, Lauderdale Road, Lubavitch of Edgware, Oxford Jewish Congregation, Kinloss, Brighton and Hove Reform Mill Hill United, Ilford, Shomrei Hadath, Woodside Park, Alyth and Barnet United. And read her end-of-year awards for 2017 here.