Yesterday, I was at the very first synagogue I ever belonged to. Much of the building has changed since I left but it�s still recognizable. The social hall is more up-to-date but the sanctuary is largely the same. It may have been a reflection of the event I was at but the people definitely are not more up-to-date. Heck, they are downright old.

The first synagogue I ever belonged to was in the Detroit area. It was a brand-new congregation out in the suburbs. It was so full of kids that at my grade level there were three classes of religious school and each of those classes had approximately 30 kids. We met in the public school across the way. The synagogue rented that entire school building. I used to sit at the desks in after-school Hebrew classes and wonder what child used that desk during the school day. As I got older, I used to wonder whether the kids at that school were bothered by the idea that someone would be sitting at their desk at night, perhaps going through their things. (We weren�t supposed to, of course, but some kids did.)

There were not family services in those days. Religion was for adults and kids who participated were expected to act adult when they were in the sanctuary. Knowing that that expectation would not be met, we were only allowed in for the very end of the service and then only under the . The rest of the time we were shooed off into special �junior congregations.� We wore our dresses (for the girls) and our fancy shoes and sat dreaming of ways to get out. (I actually could have gotten out of going as my parents did not go but still I went and dreamed of getting out because that was tradition and I�ve always had some sense of tradition.) Just standing in the hallway guaranteed that some adult would come past and shush you�even if you had not said a word.

I�ve been back since then for a bat mitzvah here or some other family occasion. It�s a more family friendly place. They allow children into services and they actually smile at them even if they make a little noise. Still, I�ve never seen hoards of children there in anything approaching recent years. Perhaps they can tolerate children better because a few children are a treat and a mob of children are, well, just a mob.

But yesterday I was back there for a Men�s Club Man of the Year dinner. They were honoring an uncle who was the largest avuncular presence of my childhood. It was a lovely dinner of its sort. But I looked around at all these contemporaries of my parents and they were old. My parents are aging and I�ve recognized that but my parents do not give off �old� as many of the people I saw last night. Yet, if these people, the parents of my youth, are now old, my parents must be too.

Although my uncle is younger than my dad (and perhaps my mother but I don�t think so), he is quite ill. There was a feel in the air of eulogy, although he was there and alive. (Although I�m inclined to agree with my mother when she said that perhaps there was something to be said for eulogizing a person when he was still alive.) Tears were shed. His good deeds and devotion to the synagogue were noted�in the past tense.

It felt a little like a eulogy for the synagogue and my childhood there as well. Many of the speeches spoke of things I remember: children�s services in tents on the lawn before much of the building was built, hiding places, some programs, and those interminable junior congregations. Many of the people I connected with the place were there although others were too unwell or had moved away to be somewhere warmer or nearer to children. The adult topics of conversation�Israel, ritual, the best places to eat�seemed the same but I was detached in a different way. The ritual belonged there, not here as did the places to eat.

The place is getting old, the people are getting old, and I�m getting older too. No, you can�t go home again�at least not after more than twenty years away.

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Update: The eye is improving quite a bit. Thanks for all the get well wishes.

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