Walking out of the Beit Midrash after mincha-ma’ariv Sunday, I passed five valet attendants.
“We should have that on Shabbos,” I joked.
Then I learned that there is an Orthodox shul with valet parking on Shabbos (Orthodox Judaism rules that driving on the Sabbath is a sin) — Nessah of Beverly Hills. It gets about 800 people (mainly Persians) on a Saturday morning.
Joe* (who came by way of Steve Sailer’s blog) emails:
Mr. Ford,
Sefardim, Persians, Mizrachim, call ’em what you like, in L.A. (and Israel as well, I hear) tend to be traditional – they go to shul but may drive to get there or go to sports game afterwards. I live in Westwood and every other shabbos, I would see a Persian guy driving up to Kahal Yosef in a Lexus, tallis bag in hand. But the valet shtick is a whole new level – the shul is recognizing this type of observance as valid.A funny but slightly-OT note: Rabbi Tendler at YULA (the uncle of the molester) once lamented in his friday morning parsha shiur how he’d be walking past rexford and he’d see people driving to shul. Of course, near everyone knew he was talking about Nessah, and if they didn’t, they soon heard it from others. All the Persian kids got mad at him for saying that, while the Ashkenazim defended him, even the somewhat unreligious ones, for saying the truth.
