By Giles Tuffin

“Roll up, roll up,” the jovial Rabbi said. “Session starting soon, buy your popcorn.”

That is how the affable and irrepressible Rabbi Dovid Freilich welcomed Catholic visitors to the Menora Synagogue on Thursday, April 26.

In an evening as fascinating as it was entertaining, 60 participants from as far afield as Kwinana, Kalamunda and Southern Cross joined organiser Father Tim Deeter – Parish Priest of St Paul’s, Mt Lawley – to imbibe the knowledge offered by one of Perth’s most senior religious leaders.

Throughout the night, both Fr Deeter and Rabbi Freilich placed great emphasis on the common ground between Judaism and Catholicism, a passion shared and studied by both men.

“Jesus was raised in a synagogue,” Rabbi Freilich said, referencing the Jewish heritage of Jesus, his family and disciples.

Many of Christ’s teachings are ones Jews shared, the Rabbi said; “love thy neighbour”, for example, can also be found in Leviticus in the Old Testament.

The tour began with explanation of the synagogue’s key features. Synagogues are not necessarily identifiable from outside, Rabbi Freilich said, and are frequently  entirely indistinguishable from surrounding buildings.

The Star of David has no official religious significance to Judaism, despite the Menora synagogue’s entire ceiling being dominated by a giant Star of David representation.

“The architect wasn’t Jewish,” beamed the Rabbi.

Most synagogues face Jerusalem, the Rabbi said. A cupboard known as the Ark of the Covenant is the focus of worshippers.

This, the holiest part of the synagogue, contains the Torah – Judaism’s holy law books which, to this day, are beautifully handwritten on scrolls.

On top of the Ark is a light representing the menorah, a seven branched candle used by Moses in the wilderness and later in the Holy Temple of Jerusalem.

For any synagogue, the Rabbi said, a table or lectern must be positioned in the centre, with the Torah placed on top and read to the congregation while surrounded by the people, emphasising that the law belongs to all.

As with Catholicism and Latin, most Jews do not understand Hebrew, so prayer and songbooks are written with English alongside the original wording. However, the songbooks do not contain written music, and must be learnt and remembered by heart.

Services are joyous affairs with much singing and chanting, of which Rabbi Freilich gave a beautiful example.

The Jewish Sabbath begins on Friday evenings, and there are strong rules about appropriate conduct.

These include not cooking, not operating anything electrical, and not driving.

Consequently, all food must be prepared prior to the Sabbath, and electrical devices must be already switched on if they are used.

Restrictions on driving mean that practising Jews must walk to Temple and, consequently, live close by.

While these restrictions may seem inhibiting, Rabbi Freilich emphasised that they were in place to keep Jews focused on the importance of the Sabbath – worshipping God and spending time with one’s family. “Everybody needs a day to be with their family,” he said, to much agreement from his guests.

Unsurprisingly, the visitors asked many questions about these restrictions, including whether elderly Jews could drive themselves to the synagogue on the Sabbath if they were unable to walk.

Rabbi Freilich responded that the realities of human life came before all else, noting that Jesus had said “Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath” [Mark, 2: 27].

He also noted that simply observing the rules of the Sabbath does not make one a good Jew. “If you’re not a good human, forget it!” he said.

The Rabbi said synagogues were only secondarily places of prayer and that their primary role was as places of learning where Jews are taught culture and law so as to know how to behave outside Temple.

“The main synagogue is the world,” Rabbi Freilich said. Synagogues are not quiet places, but instead are full of chatter and discussion like any classroom.

It’s not uncommon for debates to become quite spirited. “I certainly wouldn’t say it’s tranquil,” he said.

The Rabbi spoke openly about the role of some Jews in Jesus’ death, but emphasised that Christ had been killed by fanatics – corrupted by greed – who had turned the Holy Temple in Jerusalem into a market.

Many Jews of Christ’s own time had supported Jesus. Fr Deeter concurred, noting that present day Jews could not possibly be blamed for something that happened so long ago.

The evening was one of constant wit and banter between the two religious men.

Noting that Pope John Paul II had called Jews “our dearly beloved older brothers”, Rabbi Freilich expressed his great affinity with Christianity and Jesus’ teachings. “If I was alive back then, I’d be a Christian!” he said. “No,” replied Fr Deeter, “you’d be dead.”

Rabbi Freilich concluded with a story from the final days of the Second World War. A Christian couple approached a local priest in Krakow, Poland, asking for a Jewish child in their care to be baptised as his parents had been killed by Nazis.

But the priest learned that the child had relatives who wished to raise him a Jew and bluntly refused to baptise him, saying that the child must be raised according to his heritage.

The priest, a hero to many Jewish people, went on to become Pope John Paul II. Rabbi Freilich was visibly moved when retelling the powerful story. “He’s a saint, I tell you,” the Rabbi said.