called rabbinic literature (Brown, 1968, p. 559).
The synagogue visited for this research was the Temple Isaiah in Los Angeles, Calif. This was a Friday night Shabbat (Sabbath) Service starting at 6:15 PM. The start of services is meant to be at about dusk. I attended with Ms. R, who was born in Pittsburgh and who moved to Los Angeles in 1980. She does not regularly attend services, but she very kindly agreed to take me to a Friday night service.
In this temple, men and women were not sitting separately, as they do in some temples (such as Orthodox). The idea behind that is that Reform Judaism represents a more socially progressive form of the religion. More will be said about that issue later in this research. The Shabbat service is mainly celebratory, with music being part of the service. Hymns punctuated the entire service. They were sung in Hebrew by a male celebrant (cantor) and accompanied by a background chorus of males. There were opening prayers that were the "call to worship" after this. The first prayer was said in Hebrew, but then the officiating rabbi changed over to English, praying for a unity of all of humanity. All of the other prayers were in English as well, although the hymns that were sung contained Hebrew. There were two bible readings: one from Deuteronomy, regarding the helping the needy, and a second one from the book of Isaiah, asking the Lord to bless the people. This portion was closed by common prayer, followed by about three minutes of silent prayer in the congregation.
The sermon at this service was about 15 minutes long. The rabbi started out by saying, "Shabbat Shalom," which is a phrase of greeting in Hebrew. Aside from that, the sermon was very inclusive and hopeful, much in the manner of sermons in other religions. This part of the service was the most like other religious services, in both the form that it took and the ideas that it expressed. The main emphasis was on the cornerstones of "Je...