InsaneJournal

Simchat Torah
Catholics are known for their drinking and partying, but they don't tend to do that in the church. The majority of Protestant sects won't even allow Communion wine onto church property (there are denominations that are exceptions but many denominations use juice instead, and Mormons use water). Being drunk in church is cause for your family to attempt to have you locked up for your own safety. Everyone overindulging in alcohol at once, in church, is a sign that the Devil or some scary pagan god has possessed the congregation! Evangelical Christians, remember, are the ones who spearheaded the Prohibtion movement, which once made it illegal for anyone in the US to possess any form of alcohol even in the privacy of their own home.

Dancing in church isn't supposed to happen either. And while this is by no means the norm, many American evangelical denominations had once forbidden dancing even off church property-not just disallowing men and women dancing together, there is no dancing under any circumstances whatsoever( I once met someone who thought only whores did ballet, my mother got offended because they were dissing the fact that I was twirling around the sanctuary). I grew up in a church where men and women didn't have to enter the building through different doors, women didn't have to sit behind screens and could even lead mixed gender worship services or be the pastor of an entire church, and nobody of either gender had to cover their head. But you couldn't dance, and if you were going to buck that, like I did when my parents let me became a dancer, you had to be prepared for the nasty comments and for how church people might not want to come see your shows.

The denomination I grew up in only changed the no dancing rule fifteen years ago. And even now, if you're going to move around during the musical portion of church, you better not stray far from your seat. Things have changed, but it's still barely expanded from just something teenagers and scary Pentecostals insist on doing or a couple of weird girls do in the "sacred dance" team which nobody really gets. I was in an arts competition for my denomination's northeast region- it was the semifinals and I had snuck my dancing in as "interpretive mime". Only the church building complex we were in had no stage, so they had to let me dance in front of the altar. I'd only ever done that once before, but only when no one was watching, and I never got the chance to do that again but just for ten minutes...I got to be David.

So, I know about the many flaws of Judaism now, but this sort of idea is one I could get behind. That God wants you to dance, and get smashed sometimes. God's throwing a party in his house and you're all invited. It was implied, in the article that I read, that Reform synagogues do not observe this, and I wonder why. I'm sure it's not for the same reasons that denomination I grew up in would give, but I'd wonder why, out of all the things to reject, why that?