Jewish Observation Report

On Friday November 4th I visited the Congregation Sha’are Shalom, a Jewish synagogue in Leesburg, Virginia. The religious service I attended was Shabbat and I made the visit by myself. I was there for about 2 hours, 6:30 PM to 8:30 PM.
Trying to decide what religious service to attend was hard. The U.S. is a religiously diverse country where people can practice any faith freely. I started doing some research and found a Jewish synagogue nearby, about 4 miles away from where I live so decided that was the place I wanted to go. I wrote an email to the administration of the church to see if I was welcome to attend, if they were open to strangers. Later that day I received a very positive response from the Rabbi saying that I was welcome to attend

During Fridays religious service I learned several thinks I thought I knew but where completely wrong and misguided on. This lead me to learn about myself that I thought I knew more about the world in general but I actually don’t know much. When walking around the synagogue with the Rabbi he told me a story about how his family and him live in a Jewish community in Maryland and how he commutes every day. The moment he said “family” I was surprised. I had to google it to see if Rabbi’s could actually marry and start a family. Research showed that not only can they marry, they are obligated to do so because “Being fruitful and multiply” is a command to all Jewish people. I was amazed that for many years I thought Rabbi’s couldn’t marry and so I kept researching and realized that catholic priests are among the minority where their religion doesn’t allow them to marry, it was very surprising to me. The second thing I didn’t know was how their religious service is mostly in Hebrew. It was important for me to realize that I don’t know as much as I thought I did because for many years during conversations with other people I acted as if I knew everything about the world and many times they would get annoyed. It’s good to know because every time more and more people lost interest in talking to me due to my attitude which led me to miss out in many occasions on communication. My objective now will be

The moment I knew I had to attend a religious service that was different from mine I felt annoyed. I hated it because that meant I had to do research and get information about places I had to go and I knew I would have to go somewhere where I didn’t know anyone. I didn’t know why I hated that and realized after the assignment that it is because I don’t like getting out of my comfort zone. To me, being in m comfort zone is the best thing in the world because I simply feel comfortable in it. It was very important for me to realize this because at some point in my life I will have to leave my comfort zone and move on. Just thinking about this scares me. Since I moved to the U.S. I’ve tried to keep myself comfortable by not going out of my “safe zone”. This is having so many negative effects in my life because I am missing out on communication and life. I’d rather stay at home and chill than have to go out with some friends and practice communication. To get out of my comfort zone the first thing I will do is stopping denying my friends invitations to go out and start going out. Every Friday that they invite me and I will say yes and go out with them. I will do this for four weeks and after four weeks I will analyze my experience and see if I need to extend the time. Ice 4 was a great experience I will cherish forever. It gave me the opportunity to learn multiple new things about myself. Although