||On Friday night I had another experience of home. I finally went to the Jewish Synagogue in Manila (http://www.jewishphilippines.net/). I attended the Friday night Shabbat service and the dinner afterwards. I felt out of place at the synagogue in Manila. This is an orthodox Sephardic synagogue, very different from the Reform synagogue I grew up in. The service was completely in Hebrew, again not what I am used to. Despite the lack of spoken English, and my inability to follow most of the Hebrew in the prayer book, I loved hearing the singing of the prayers. The congregants and the Rabbi were all very welcoming, and I met some wonderful people. While their practices are in some ways foreign to me, they are Jews, and we share a heritage of thousands of years. Despite all our differences, it felt like family, like home, and I look forward to returning there. I am very grateful for what the Rabbi and the congregation are doing, creating a home for Jews in the Philippines.|| ~ Barry, Exploring a new life in a new country.
בְנֵי־לֹ֣וט
Bnei Lot are of an ancient origin. In the migratory tradition of Ruth begun more than two millennia ago, a remnant of David and Solomon migrated into Maritime Southeast Asia which comprises what is now Brunei, East Timor, Indonesia, Malaysia, New Zealand, Papua New Guinea, The Philippines, and Singapore, as well as Melanesia, Micronesia, and Polynesia, with a sizeable minority of Malays migrating back to their tribal allotments in Sephardic Judah, besides Terrestrial and Figurative Jordan.