For the first time in nearly four months, the doors to Lakemba mosque will be open for congregational prayers on Friday.
During that time, Lakemba has seen a major spike in Covid case numbers and deaths, endured tough restrictions and missed out on celebrating one of the two yearly Islamic holidays, Eid al-Adha.
Having come through so much, the community is now set to enjoy the reopening of mosques, which has come with the easing of restrictions for the fully vaccinated in Greater Sydney.
“The community has been waiting for such a decision, as you can imagine,” said Maen Akl, a board member at the Lebanese Muslim Association, which runs the mosques at Lakemba and Cabramatta and Young Mosques.
“The heart of the faithful are connected to their place of worship, and more so for the Islamic community, who have to pray five times a day, and who see the mosque as the house of God.”
“It has been too long.”
However, some places of worship have chosen to delay their reopening until they can welcome both vaccinated and unvaccinated worshippers.
Akl said Lakemba mosque would follow the rules and check people’s vaccine certificates, but looked forward to welcoming everyone back.
“Right now, we will be adhering to the requirements laid out by the public health orders, but we hope that a time will come where all members of the community will be allowed into our places of worship, without any impact on anyone’s health.”
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Akl said the decision to reopen only to the vaccinated was difficult, but he felt it was necessary to return.
“We miss the communal element, the ability to see our friends and family in congregational prayer, to hear a reminder and the Quran. It will be a relief to return.”
It is a relief shared across faiths. Father James Collins, from the Church of St Paul’s in Burwood, said the local community was “off the scale excited” to return to face-to-face congregations.
“We’ve missed it so much. The two great commandments are to love God and our neighbour, and we do that by gathering together to worship God,” he said. “We can do that at home, we can do it out walking, but there’s something about gathering together to worship God that is at the heart of our faith, and pretty much all faith.
“So we’re looking forward to being able to return to doing that, and doing it safely.”
Father Collins said the local community had missed being able to gather and sing together, with online worship just “not the same”.
“People have missed all of those core elements of our faith, but also gathering together people fond of each other and enjoy each other’s company.
“And for whatever people say about online services, it’s not the same, and people were all on so many Zoom conferences and calls and meetings. ”
Rabbi Jacqueline Ninio, from the Emanuel Synagogue in Woollahra, said her community had also found online religious services a bit lacking.
“We have been doing some of our services over Zoom but there are elements which can only be done in person, and we have missed the support of connecting with community, in prayer but also in times of joy and sorrow. Many of our celebrations have been on hold also so it will be wonderful to be back in person.”
Rabbi Ninio said her community was “incredibly excited” to return, especially in light of missing most of the sacred days in the Jewish calendar during lockdown.
“We have missed it terribly. … Times when people would gather in large numbers to say some of the very significant prayers and connect with community were unable to happen in person.
“We can create sacred spaces in our homes but the beauty of gathering in community is something so special and powerful … To see people face to face, to pray in community is a really important part of Jewish prayer, so to be able to welcome people to our spiritual home again is so special.”
Ninio said she hoped she did not have to turn worshippers away to ensure the synagogue was complying with public health orders, and that the community had been made aware of the restrictions still on religious spaces.
“We have widely made it known that registration and vaccination are required and people will upload their vaccination certificates as part of the registration process,” she said. “That will ensure that we don’t have too many people for the four-square-metre requirement, as well as ensure everyone who comes will be vaccinated.
“People understand the reasons for the vaccination requirement and our priority is to create a safe place for prayer for all our congregants, including those who may be more vulnerable.”