My favorite part of services has always been singing. The way many voices carry one tune makes the feeling of community more than just a feeling—our togetherness becomes perceptible, almost palpable. I also find the consistency of services soothing. I know what to expect and when.
2017 was my first summer on camp; I didn’t come to Greene as a camper, and I didn’t even grow up in Texas or Oklahoma. I came to camp without ever having been here and without knowing anyone.
While the community was welcoming and I enjoyed being here, Greene was also my first exposure to a Reform Jewish community. I was raised and became Bat Mitzvah in a Conservative congregation, and I attended a Modern Orthodox day school from kindergarten to eighth grade.
Shabbat services at Greene were unfamiliar and uncomfortable–I didn’t know the tunes to the prayers, and I had never been at Shabbat services with instruments. Some prayers had different words or sections that felt missing.
The services here were beautiful and fun and engaging, but they made me homesick. I missed being at home with my family, my parents and sisters, in the synagogue I’d grown up at. The synagogue where I knew all the tunes and all the words to all the prayers. That summer, I compartmentalized—I told myself that camp services were just camp services and home services were home services. I could expect instruments, hand motions, different tunes, and different prayers from camp services, but they would never feel the same as services at home.
I was only a counselor that one summer in 2017, and I’ve been to many, many types of services since then—back at my home synagogue or someplace new; led by a rabbi or lay-led; Reconstructionist, Conservative, Chabad, Reform—I’ve experienced a wide range. I’ve learned to find familiarity and comfort in services wherever or whatever they are. I have also spent the past three summers, starting in 2022, back at Greene. My first Shabbat at my first summer back, I knew I was in the right place when services felt right.
There’s a whole range of services that I enjoy now, but there is one type that especially feels like home, and that’s a Friday night service at GFC.
Shabbat Shalom,
Rebecca Topper, Summer Assistant Director