With the summer season in full swing, congregants at Temple Isaiah in Fulton are embracing the outdoors with special Shabbat services utilizing the outdoor spaces at the synagogue, something that has become a popular tradition over the years.

It’s been a decade since the congregants at Temple Isaiah first attended a Shabbat service outdoors, with the program quickly growing in popularity and scale in the years since.

The idea is to create a less formal environment for services and give congregants a connection to nature while they study, pray and come together in Jewish community while the weather is nice.

“We started these outdoor summer services maybe 10 years ago, recognizing that we sit on a really beautiful property with a really lovely outdoor space that we don’t utilize as much as we could,” said Temple Isaiah’s Rabbi Craig Axler. “And for all our clergy, and many of our congregants, [they] hold really wonderful and visceral memories of Shabbat at summer camp. That being a wonderful memory, [we’re] trying to give a little taste of that to the broad congregation during the summer months.”

Axler said that when he started the program, he wasn’t sure if people would take to this more relaxed format and if attendance would be good, but he noted they got a strong, engaged turnout and the program grew from there.

The services were initially held behind the synagogue building and got an upgrade when two brothers who enjoyed the services decided to help upgrade the space for their Eagle Scout project.

Axler said that one brother made a “beautiful” firepit that could be used for outdoor Shabbat services and other events throughout the warm months, while the other brother built up an outdoor worship area with a Torah reading table and benches, backdropped by existing trees on the property.

“It was a really beautiful way of continuing to expand our outdoor worship area. Some of our other services will actually be held on our garden that’s in front of the building and that’s expanded over recent years,” Axler said.

Axler said that the congregation has continued to build upon the outdoor spaces on its 23-acre property and added that they are able to serve multiple purposes for the congregation outside of services.

The community recently added an outdoor ark made partially out of a tile mosaic that was crafted by some teens in the congregation on a retreat.

Axler said one of the programs for which they’re excited to use the outdoor space is a Rockin’ Shabbat in July, when a band of congregants will perform traditional Jewish songs alongside classic rock and apply the words of prayers to those songs.

Axler added that the outdoor space has been a place where preschoolers and religious school students can have their lessons. Some weddings have even been held there.

Beyond the varied uses of the space, these summertime outdoor Shabbat services offer a new element to people’s worship, according to Axler. He said that one of his favorite parts of the service is after the reciting of the Amidah, having a moment of silent meditation for personal prayer where everyone can hear the chorus of nature around them.

The synagogue’s land is on protected wetlands and is mostly overgrown with a retention pond and lots of wildlife, making it a good place to experience the natural world.

“As beautiful and extraordinary as our sanctuary is, and as beautiful as many synagogue sanctuaries are that I’ve ever gone into, the truth is that nature and being out in prayer in that way is in the most beautiful sanctuary that God ever made,” Axler said.

Having this relaxed setting during the summer months is something that Axler feels drives people to engage with the community and their Judaism.

“People come in very relaxed clothing. Children run around, families sit together, perhaps on a blanket or on beach chairs. For some that [relaxation] truly increases their ability to participate and to pray and to be present in community. As far as I’m concerned, I want people to show up and to come and to be as they are, however they are, at all times,” Axler said.

And having a connection with nature is part of Temple Isaiah’s effort to create a synagogue environment focused on bringing out and celebrating Jewish joy.

Axler said that in the environment we currently live in, including rising antisemitism and war, increasing that Jewish joy is more important than ever.

“My hope is that Temple Isaiah is a place that embodies joy. I want my Judaism to be meaningful. I want people to study and to learn and to take things seriously, but if there’s not joy underneath all of that, then I think we’re doing it wrong, and it will not succeed, and it will not bring people together,” Axler said.

bhamelin@midatlanticmedia.com