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The House of Prayer for All Peoples holds Shabbat services with a musical and interfaith twist
By Gitanjali Poonia
Feb. 9 turned out to be a snowy day in Salt Lake City. Rabbi Alan Scott Bachman thanked a group of two dozen people sitting in front of him in a room on the third floor of the Salt Lake Center for Spiritual Living.
“I don’t know what to tell you. Maybe sue the groundhog, right? He said our service would be beautiful and sunny,” joked Rabbi Bachman, who previously served as the assistant attorney general in Utah for three decades. He now serves as a partner in the Fetzer Simonsen Booth and Jenkins law firm by day, and as a rabbi by night.
Rabbi Bachman’s Shabbat service is unique, as it involves the bringing together of music and people of other faiths. The rabbi quoted Isaiah 56:7, in which Isaiah says in the Messianic age: “I will bring them to my holy mountain of Jerusalem and will fill them with joy in my house of prayer.”
“So, we thought, although it’s not Messianic era, let’s have it right now,” Rabbi Bachman said, explaining why his group, which started last March, is called the House of Prayer for All Peoples.
The attendees included some who tuned in online from Arizona and California. Bachman told them to expect a talk from Promothesh Chatterjee, a business professor at the University of Utah, who was invited to give a short lecture on Vedanta, a school of Hinduism. The rabbi said he would give his sermon before and after Chatterjee’s lecture.
Rabbi Bachman conducted the service alongside his band, Desert Wind, led by vocals from Bachman, who was also on the keyboard, and Rebbetzin Andalin Shekinah on the flute. They performed sermons and songs — some composed by the rabbi himself.
Other musicians included Ricardo Romero and Adnan Jasim on drums, and Bryan Bale on percussion.
The band played a fusion of jazz, rock, and world-beat music, while Rabbi Bachman discussed teachings from the Torah and his views on similarities between Judaism and other faiths.
https://www.deseret.com/faith/2024/2/17/24071148/jewish-group-interfaith-hindu-professor