Bismillaahirrahmaanirrahiim.

Today some of the students and teachers of the Darul Arqam youth classes (DAYS) and some of the DA staffs as well, went to visit a synagogue ( just for our info, it’s the place of worship for orang2 yahudi). Budak2 tu tak excited sangat tau, tapi teacher2 ni yang excited. Hihi. I mean, how many time do we actually pass by a SYNAGOGUE? Church ye la, but a SYNAGOGUE? I didn’t even know it existed. I know, sorry. How ignorant I was kan.

Let’s hope that Khatim will pass me the pictures soon so we can all see the details of the place, hokey? It’s very very interesting tau:)

Anyway, our host for the trip was this 20-year-old lad from New York. His name is Khanaya (or was it Khananiya?). He’s here for this some sort of an attachment that his college arranges for its students (he’s from a Jewish religious school). The students will be sent to places all over the world as long as the KHABA (i do not know the spelling, but that’s how it’s pronounced) association of the Jewish is there. They’ll be posted for about a year before they go back to their own countries. Cool kan? Some sort of a global outreach programme. Maybe Islamic universities can consider doing something like that in the near future? :)

Shalom shalom (the Jewish greeting. Sounds similar? :) ).

So Khanaya was briefing to us roughly on what is Judaism and he was answering our questions, when suddenly a brother put up his hand and asked ” what is your concept of God? “.

“Ah. I think it would be difficult to answer your question. The thing is, God isn’t a human. We can’t see Him, and I can’t tell you to go like, right or left, across the traffic light and you’ll see Him. No, it’s not like that. But we know He exists. And Because God is so superior and well above us, that we humans with our limited minds will never be able to fully comprehend what form God is or something like that. What we do know is, He has given us His commandments and that is what we should abide by. We should fear Him, yet establish this form of strong love between us and Him.. Ah.. I hope that answers your question.”

Isn’t that strikingly familiar and something we can all relate to? That reminds me of a verse:

“If you ask them, who created them (the non-muslims), they will certainly say, Allah. How then are they deluded away (from the Truth)? “ Surah Az-zukhruf, verse 87. And there are many other similar verses which can be found in the Quraan.

 He-who-must-not-be-named (no, bukan Voldermort.)

And then, as he was explaining to us about this parchment of, like, verses of the Torah which they will put at their doors (he said it’s a cheap security system for them. hehe), he pointed to these three alphabets on the paper. “Shim-dal-yu (those are hebrew alphabets),” he said. “That’s the name of our God, which I cannot mention.”

“Why can’t you mention the God’s name?”

“Yes, we can’t. We can only spell it out, or write it, but we can’t mention it, we can’t say His name out loud.”

“But why?”

“Because He is so Holy, and His name is too, so much so that we can’t mention His name.”

“Then how do you address Him then?”

“Oh, we have one or two names that we can call Him by. Like, Hasham, or  simply the One above”.

Which reminds me of another verse in Quraan :

“The most beautiful names belong to Allah. so call on Him by them” (7:180)

The Torah.

Guess what, EACH Torah costs about USD $15-16K! Why? Because it is painstakingly handwritten by a holy man (usually their rabbi). And everytime they had to write the name of God, they would have to immerse themselves in holy water. No wonder it takes them about 1-2 years! And they do it everyday until the whole thing is complete.

Khanaya told us that they usually have one or two Torahs in a synagogue because it is so expensive. And it is usually the rich people who would donate the Torah to the synagogue. And the thing about Torah is, it MUST be handwritten. The printed ones are like.. I didn’t quite get what he said but it’s like, it’s not the real deal. And they are very stringent in ensuring the quality of the Torah. So much so that even if so much as a dot is missing or they found a small hole in the parchment, the whole Torah would have to be discarded (but they can’t simply discard it – they would have to bury it).

So he later brought us to the holiest part of the synagogue – the place where they store the Torah. Dia bukak je bilek tu semua orang went “waaaah”. There were not one, not five, but THIRTEEN TORAHS IN THE ROOM! Maknanya ape? Terbuka untuk interpretasi masing2 ye. Hehe =p Khanaya said he was VERY VERY shocked as he had never heard of a synagogue storing that much Torahs. SINGAPORE tau. 13 Torahs.

And he said that usually Torahs are put away in a safer place. Some even put Torahs in a safe, as there had been cases of burglary before. But in Singapore, it’s just a room in the middle of the synagogue. In his own words, “if you want to steal a Torah, come here and do it!”. HAHA.

Oops da panjang. Sampai di sini saje dulu. Ialliqa’! :)

Next entry: Kosher, Circumcision, 10 Commandments? You wish! and Conversion.